Over-Medicated?

[Anonymous]

My son gets 15mg of Prevacid a day (7.5 in the morning and 7.5 at dinnertime). He is also getting 2mls of Zantac right before bed to help with any breakthrough at night. Is there anyone else that has both of these meds going on like this? It seems to be helping him huge at night but I hate giving him so many meds.

Thanks

[hellbennt]

Zantac & PPIs, from https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=918

: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=546&am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;KW=dr+philips&PN=0&TPN=1

sometimes our babies need both zantac (or pepsid), & a PPI (proton pump inhibitor – prilosec, prevacid, nexium). Zantac neutralizes the acid, while the PPIs shut off some of the pumps that actually produce acid…

jonah’s GERD was (!) so severe that he needed both – a PPI to stop some of the acid production & zantac to neutralize the acid that was left & continuing to cause him pain…he went from taking both meds to just taking a PPI w/ zantac on an ‘as needed’ basis, to currently just having the zantac around as a security measure for emergencies. ‘we’ve come a long way, baby! ‘

~laura

this was a post i posted a long time ago- perhaps Im not accurate with the description of the drugs (ie: neutralizes, etc) but jonah’s ped gi did have jonah on both- i think in retrospect we could have increased the PPi a bit sooner and stopped the zantac, bcse once we got the PPI dose ‘right’ we found we didint’ even rteallly need the zantac…

[Anonymous]

We had Matthew on both for a few months. He was on 30mg of Prevacid and a high dose of pepcid. He needed igt….

[Anonymous]

We used both too for a long time. I still use the zantac at night at times like when she is teething. We also split the prevacid into 3 doses. I was worried about this as well. Around the 8th month mark, she started crawling and pulling herself up. I noticed things getting better, and we are talking about lowering her dose next month.

[Anonymous]

Laura,

Just to keep things accurate here, Zantac is an H2 Blocker, and H2 Blockers DO NOT neutralize acid – only antacids do that (Mylanta for example). H2 blockers work by keeping the acid producing cells (parietal cells) from getting the signal to begin producing acid.

Within the parietal cell are the proton pumps, which do the actual work of producing acid. They are the final link in the acid production process. PPIs work by permanently blocking these pumps so that they can no longer produce acid. They are then sloughed off and expelled from the body and replaced by new pumps within 24 hours (less time for infants).

H2 blockers are less effective than PPI for two main reasons:
1) they only block one of three different signals that the parietal cell receives telling it to produce acid, so the signal can still get through.
2) the body develops a tolerance to these drugs very quickly and they soon lose effectiveness when used on a regular basis.

Sorry, I don’t want to sound nit-picky here, but I just want to make sure that the correct information is being put out there.

[hellbennt]

that’s why I put the disclaimer– I put the correct info in my welcome/intro and what I posted was from a looong time ago- so I put the disclaimer…

[Author]

Posts