prevacid and zantac?

[Anonymous]

My gi doesn’t want to increase my sons prevacid, but instead he wants to start him on zantac and prevacid together. Has this worked for anyone? Justice should be on 30 mg of prevacid and he is only on 15. It has definantly worn off. He is not sleeping and having a hard time eating, but because he is gaining weight they don’t really want to help him. Also, the gi said that 3 mos is the prime of the reflux, but it seems to me that that is because by 3 mos the baby needs an increase in meds and the doc won’t do it and that is why it gets bad. Anyone agree or have any other suggestion as to why 3 mos is so bad?

Shelby

[Anonymous]

Will your GI doctor consider splitting the difference and putting him on 22.5 mg?

For us, 4 months was the height of reflux (although it stayed strong
for a while after) because Marisa was starting to get so mobile and
that put pressure on her tummy, forcing up more gastric juices, acid,
etc.

But in addition, a lot of babies gain weight at 3-4 months so your son likely does need a dosage increase.

If he won’t consider an increase you can always try the Zantac (spaced
correctly from the Prevacid) and if that doesn’t work can you get a
second opinion?

[hellbennt]

what she said

[Anonymous]

Myles reflux peaked at 4.5 months.

It took me at least 6 weeks to convince Myles’ doctor to increase his Prevacid. I faxed her the marci-kids info and called constantly to report how miserable he was, and that the dose he was on was not working. The marci-kids info really helped sway her.

If your doctor won’t budge you may have to look for another one.

I’m sorry things are so hard right now. I sure know how if feels.

[Anonymous]

I gave my ped the marci kids info and that really ticked her off. She put it aside and basically said to me that she has delt with this before. That is why I went to the gi. I just don’t know who all these docs. are that will actually increase the dosage because mine won’t. I also had a problem with my pharmacy. They didn’t want to give me the meds. I am so sick of fighting with everyone about this. I really want to get the marci kids info out to all doctors, but don’t know how. I hope for moms of the future our fighting has helped.

I have thought about asking Dr. Phillips ( Marci kids) to talk to my doc, but it seems that all Dr. phillips is recommending now is Zegreid. I would like to stay with prevacid if I can. I just want it increased.

Thanks all, Shelby

[Anonymous]

I work for Dr Phillips, and I can say that, although he does think that Zegerid is usually the best option for babies (for a lot of reasons), he is not opposed to the use of other PPIs. The trouble is, all other forms of PPIs have their own inherent problems that make them difficult for giving to babies. If Prevacid is the way you want to go, then I would recommend getting the right dose of Prevacid Solutabs. Of the delayed release forms of PPIs, these seem to work the best for infants, although you still have to follow the 30 minute rule and make sure that they don’t chew or crush the granules in the tablets.

The only other option that I would recommend would be to try to get your pharmacy to order CaraCream Jr EZ Mix kits from FlavoRx and mix Prevacid capsules with that to make a stable flavored suspension. The only downside with that is that FlavoRx may soon be running out of their supply of CaraCream, and we probably won’t be able to supply them with any more. Hopefully we will have a new product by the end of the year that will replace CaraCream, but it’s hard to say how long these things will take.

Please feel free to email me anytime you have questions: andrewsjj@missouri.edu.

[Anonymous]

I am sorry you are having such a hard time with doctors. I wanted to tell you that yes, combining an H2 blocker with a PPI worked really well for us. 30mg of prevacid did not cut it for Matthew’s reflux and so we were on pepcid 2x a day as well (just give them 4 hours apart). So i would go ahead and try that combination (can you ask for pepcid since you used it in the past vs zantac? we had a hard time with teh zantac). I am not saying it will work but you should see an improvement, i think.

Also, some babies on this site have been on 30mg, listened to their doctors and lowered it to 15mg and are doing better, but i guess you will never know until you try? Just wanted to let you know that some babies experience irritability and fussiness and uncomfort from high doses. Matthew is actually one of them. We were at 30mg for a long time, then 15mg and did horribly, went to 30mg again per feeding clinic recommendations and i actually just don’t give him his dose sometimes because he is fussy, stops sleeping and will not eat. The first day after i cut his dose, he eats a whole lot (vs what he normally eats) so i really suspect he does not feel too great.

Sorry for rambling… i would go aheard and do H2 blocker, see if that works and if not and reflux is sitll really bad, look for anotehr doctor and give a higher dose a try!

[Anonymous]

We went through the same thing- no one wanted to increase the dose. It was awful, and I’ve been through many different docs. Every time I brought the marci-kids research they would just put it aside and tell me that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet, and that there’s no research to show that megadoses are safe in infants in the long term. I’ve also had various pharmacies deny me the medication which was madenning. I got so frustrated, but just kept doctor shopping, and changed pharmacies a lot. So I know how you feel.

Also, our ped GI cited various studies that show that reflux peaks at 4 months, and gradually gets better, in most cases (obviously not us) from 9-12 months.

Don’t give up. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I hope it didn’t sound like I was bashing Dr. Phillips. He has been so great. He always answers my questions and he always answers them quickly. It just didn’t seem like he would recommend prevacid. The first time I talked to him he did. Again he is great! The biggest thing is that my husband doesn’t want to change meds again. He’s not real big on doing the zantac either, but he feels like at least we would be using up the prevacid that way. We wasted a whole bottle of pepcid that cost a lot of money. Money that we really don’t have, but we will do what we have to to help Justice.

[Anonymous]

Shelby,

I can definitely understand your not wanting to waste the medicine that you already have and I know that you were not bashing Dr Phillips. What form of Prevacid are you using now? Unfortunately some forms of PPIs just don’t work very well for infants, no matter what the dose is.

[Anonymous]

We are using the 15 mg packets.

[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;am p;KW=dr+philips&PN=0&TPN=1

sometimes our babies need both zantac (or pepsid, axid, tagament), & a PPI (proton pump inhibitor – prilosec, prevacid, nexium).

Zantac (& axid & tagament & pepsid) helps stop acid production by blocking the pathways that stimulate proton pumps to start producing acid (but they don’t even do that very well. they can help when used in conjunction with PPIs, when spaced out correctly, but because babies very quickly develop a tolerance to them when they are given regularly, their usefulness is limited)

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 block the pathways that stimulate proton pumps to start producing acid) …he went from taking both meds to just taking a PPI w/ zantac on an ‘as needed’ basis, to just having the zantac around as a security measure for emergencies. ‘we came a long way, baby!’

~laura

hellbennt2006-7-13 16:11:52

[Anonymous]

Laura,

I know this is an old post of yours that you copy, but if possible, could you correct the bit about Zantac neutralizing acid. H2 blockers like Zantac don’t actually neutralize acid. They help stop acid production by blocking the pathways that stimulate proton pumps to start producing acid, but they don’t even do that very well. As you’ve said, they can help when used in conjunction with PPIs (when spaced out correctly), but because babies very quickly develop a tolerance to them when they are given regularly, their usefulness is limited.

Just trying to keep things accurate.

[Author]

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