Not interested in eating

[Anonymous]

My son has been switched from Zantac to Prilosec and now to Prevacid. His arching and screaming at every bottle was reduced on Prilosec, not totally gone, just not at every feeding. What we noticed more was how he would just not want to eat at all! Last week on wed he went 13 hours without eating, Thursday about 8 hours and then Friday about 12 hours. Wednesday the Ped had me switch him to Alimentum and by Friday after no real changes (and lots of pushing on my part) he switched the meds from Prilosec to Prevacid. He is eating better on the Prevacid, we haven’t had any more really extended periods of just not eating. I guess its the Prevacid, although we still have him on the Alimentum.

Has anyone else had this experience of their child just not wanting to eat?

We see the ped G.I. tomorrow for the first time and I am hoping to get better support and information from them than I get at the Ped. My Ped is good for most everything but on this I’ve been really ticked with them.

[Anonymous]

Yes!! Not wanting to eat is a common effect of uncontrolled reflux. Both of my refluxers would go many long hours without eating and would fight feedings even though they had to be hungry. It’s really sad. I guess it would be like sitting down to a meal with a bad case of heartburn.

I’m glad your son is improving on Prevacid. Prevacid is what turned things around for my son. Good luck wiht hte ped GI. I hope he’s supportive and helpful.

[Anonymous]

Ben just did that same thing. I actually took him to the dr and she said it was a virus (ummm…no-he had no other symptoms). I was really frustrated. The bad thing about the not eating is that he does it during the day and then is starving at night so, he’s up every 2-3 hrs. It’s so tiring. Let me know what the g.i. says. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

As I look back, with enough meds and no offending foods to the little one, the reflux SHOULD be under control! In a perfect world!! Some of these little ones need to be on Neocate -which has no milk and no soy. If your little one is having trouble with the formula, no amount of medication will help. HOWEVER, it is hard to know: Does he need more medication or a different medication OR is it an offending food in his system. It is so hard to sort out. We haven’t found a ped doc that we really like but loveour GI Peds Spec. It may take a while to find a doc that supports YOU. I send hugs!!

[Anonymous]

Kristen,

Absolutely. When the little guys are in pain and have a bad experience at every meal, they avoid it and develop food aversions.

From what I have read, some overcome this easier than others once the reflux is under control. (Brady went through a brief period of food aversion it but settled back in after about a week on the Prevacid… though we have to disguise the taste of his Nutramegin from time to time, as he is a picky eater). Sounds like your son is doing better now with the Prevacid – that is what my guy is on, too.

Hope you had a good visit with the Ped GI. Our first one is Monday, as we too did not have much success in combating this with the assistance of our ped.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Well our ped GI visit went okay. We are staying on the Alimentum and Prevacid. I call in a week to tell her how he is doing then return one week after that. If not enough improvement they will do a PH test and endoscopy to see what is going on. Then they would adjust meds etc as defined by those results. I felt like the GI understood more. My Primary Ped is very understanding but they seem to minimize the whole deal alittle too much. I am more comfortable treating my son through the GI already after one visit.

The GI did say the food aversion was common and said he might improve as the Prevacid did its job. If not, he’ll go into food therapy – what ever that entails…?

He is doing better, but still not eating as much volume as needed and often still not particularly interested in the bottle. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and prayers going up!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you found a great GI! I hope the Prevacid and Alimentum do the trick for. What dose and form of Prevacid is he on? Sorry if this is redundant, but the Prevacid has to be given on an empthy stomach and then followed up with a meal 30 minutes later. (unless you are using the compounded version). It generally takes two weeks to see results.

Have you checked http://www.marci-kids.com ? It might be a good idea to take a look at their dosing information because many docs under dose and if your little guy does not improve soon it may just be that he needs a higher dose. It took me many long weeks to convince Myles’ doctor to put him on a good dose but once he was things improved dramatically.

By “food therapy” he probably meant feeding therapy. I never heard of it either until I became a member of this site. Hopefully he won’t need it but if he does it can be very helpful for babies with feeding aversions.

Well, good luck and please keep us posted.

[Anonymous]

He is on the solutabs, 15mg a day.

We discussed the increased dosing and right now they are afraid of that as they say there is no official testing done to know its okay to increase a childs dose like that. They agree children metabolize faster, but they want to wait and see…. Sound familiar?

[Author]

Posts