prescribed prevacid and have lots of ?s

[Anonymous]

So my 7 week old daughter was on Zantac and after only one dosage had a TERRIBLE night sleep, so fussy and was still the next day so decided to stop giving it to her. Ped was reluctant to prescribe prevacid but finally agreed to. Pharmacy called today and said that it comes in powder (because there is no liquid) and is 30 packets. Each packet is worth 15 mg and my DD is only prescribed 5mg 1xday. (she weighs 11 pounds as of last week). He said that besides it costing over $100 (which is the least of my concerns) I would basically be paying for all of it and then only using 1/3 of it because once I “mixed” a packet she would only use 1/3 for her dosage and the rest would be thrown away?

I am very new to this medicine. Is this normal? Is there another alternative? How are other people doing this? Is there a different med that comes in liquid form that is comparable? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Also, 2 side questions.

1. Is it normal for my baby to be VERY congested JUST at night and fine during the day. I believe its part of reflux but dont understand why its just at night. Is there anything I can do to help this? I have her sleeping on an incline, have tried having her sleep on her side and have used the saline drops (which dont really work).

2. Is it normal for reflux and gas to go hand in hand? I have just started giving her mylicon drops at each feeding the last couple of days and feel like her spit up has decreased A LITTLE and also her reflux doesnt seem to be AS BAD? Am i just imagining the correlation or does this make sense?

Thanks so much!

Kamala

mommy to Sienna Grace: born 8/24/06

[Anonymous]

I am going to tell you that my daughter started on Prevacid back in August, but she was over 12 mons old, in which when I looked up information about it……was proved to work for children from 12 mons. May I ask why you wanted her on Prevacid instead? My daughter was on Zantac at that age too, but I can understand about you not wanting her to be on it especially since she had a REALLY bad night.

I am not a nurse, but with my experience with my daughter with reflux, I did find out that a lot of her congestion does have to do with her reflux. And I did try everything you have done to no avail. I have come to the realization that she is going to congested ALL the time. She even has tubes in her ears because she started with an ear infection by 10 weeks. I would keep doing what you are doing with the saline drops and suctioning if that helps her sleep at night. If you have a cold mist humidifier then I would look into putting that on to see if it helps her.

I am not sure if the gas and reflux goes together, but I know that my daughter is VERY gassy. If the Mylicon is working, then I would continue to give it to her. I do give Rylie the generic Mylicon when she seems really gassy and it seems to help, but the pediatrician also had given me the stronger dosage for her weight. If you can call the pediatrician and see if the dosage for your child is good.

Is your baby on regular formula with the iron? If so, maybe ask the pediatrician if you should change the formula to the no iron or maybe to soy if your baby can tolerate it. But again, make sure you go and see the pediatrician before changing anything. Being a first time mom too, you are probably REALLY nervous about doing the right thing and I was like that too for my son who is 6 now….and I am still like that with him, since he is the one who paves the way of learning about new things on children. You will be like this always with your baby even after you have another……….although now with my daughter who is 16 mons. I am not as nervous with her.

I hope that this helped? Keep us updated with your baby.

[Anonymous]

5 mg is a pretty low dose, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that eventually you’ll be using more of the meds.

Prevacid does come in solutabs which are flavored tablets which dissolve easily. You just divide them into the appropriate dose, dissolve in water, and administer by spoon or syringe. I used the solutabs and found them to be quite convenient. The only problem with them is that they contain aspertame and lactose which some babies are sensitive to.

Prevacid also comes in capsules which you would break open and sprinkle over applesauce.

I think you can get Prevacid compounded (liquid form) but many people have problems with stability of the compounded forms so you’d have to make sure it’s done properly if you go that route. http://www.marci-kids.com explains that, and also some other valuable information regarding PPI med for infant reflux.

As for the congestion, whenver my kids are congested…it’s always worse at night. Even on an incline. I think things just settle…unless you are completely upright.

And yes, it seems anything such as gas, or constipation can aggravate reflux. It probably puts pressure on the tummy forcing things upward. I used Mylicon at every feeding for Myles and I’m quite sure it helped.

Good luck. Glad you found us.

[Anonymous]

wow 5 mg a day? honestly you may not see any improvement on that dose.

definitely check out marci-kids.com and read through medications and the dosing charts. they suggest dosing 3 times a day because babies metabolize these meds very rapidly.

my son was 3 months old and on 24 mg of prevacid-just a comparison.

good luck!

[hellbennt]

I put together ‘Prevacid 101’

you can find it 2 places:

1) the stickied post in the Introduce Yourself Forum (groupie intro)

2) posted in the ‘Treating GERD w/ PPIs’ post, which is stickied in the Medicines Forum (scroll down tp purple post)

[Anonymous]

that is ridiculos, some doctors act like taking prevacid is like smoking crack. my dd is on 30mg qd. she is 10 lbs.

dd does take prevacid compounded, they tell me at the pharmacy that they dont put anything in it except sodium bicarb, which is what they are supposed to do but it has to be a certain percent. i have heard mixed things about the compound. i honestly can’t tell you what the deal is b/c my dd has had good and bad days. so is it working i don’t know. i really would go to marci-kids, there is alot of valuable info there. good luck

[Anonymous]

Aidan has been on the solutabs since he was 2ish months old. 30 mg. The packets are amost impossible to divide carrectly because the little white beads you see after disolving them ARE the medicine, and unless you want to count every one and figure the math out, there’s no real guarentee you’re even getting 5 ml in her. You can get compounded (liquid) prevacid and then there are the solutabs..I love them even though our insurance won’t cover them. Just ask yur doc about other forms of prevacid, go to theri website and pring out info about how many forms it comes in. I thinks it’s http://www.prevacid.com.

[Author]

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