Prevacid Weaning??

[Anonymous]

My son just turned 1 and the doc. wanted us to take him off Prevacid (15mg per day, solutabs) cold turkey. I was so excited to hear this, I followed his advice. It’s been 5 days and my son has started to arch his back and stiffen when he cries (his old symptom). He is also dealing with a cold, and teething…so its so hard to tell what is making him cranky! So, I just gave him some prevacid before his lunch today and think I might put him back on it for a while until he’s healthy again – then try to wean him slowy off it. My question is for people that have had their children on a PPI and then taken them off. What are your experiences with this? Does weaning work better? How long do some kids need a PPI and how do you tell? I also thought it would take 2 weeks to tell if he could deal w/o medicine, so I’m not sure if I should wait it out…probably not. Help!

[Anonymous]

if he is exhibiting old symptoms then i wouldn’t dare stop. at 13 months andy was doing just peachy and all the docs gave us the go ahead to wean but i was hesitant so i just kept giving it to him a bit longer since i knew that as he gained weight that the effects of the max dose would diminish.

so at about 14 months everything appeared to be just fine and i started to decrease it by cutting out the morning dose of one med then 5 days later another dose etc.

we appeared to have 6 peachy months and then the reflux started again. makes me wonder if we had any business even weaning at 14 months.

[hellbennt]

Jonah’s getting off the meds: https://www.infantreflux.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2057&a mp;PN=1&TPN=1

[Anonymous]

Our doctor recommended going cold turkey, but we were too scared, so we weaned her off of it very, very slowly. So far, it seems to have worked — we’re hoping that this continues!

[Anonymous]

We were told by our GI that cutting out a PPI cold turkey will cause a rebound effect by the parietal cell to dramatically increase acid production (i.e. the stomach will produce even more acid worsening reflux). He also said that PPIs should be weaned very slowly over the course of several months to avoid this. Not sure if it’s true or not (not even sure why he was talking about weaning since it’s not going to happen any time soon around here!).

[Anonymous]

This time your GI is actually right Lori .

[Anonymous]

So Joel, when it’s time to wean do you drop one dose per day, and then gradually drop other doses? Or, do you lower the amt of each dose gradually? How low do you have to go until you stop altogether?

How long should the weaning process last?

Thanks. (Our doctors never seem to tell us these things)

[hellbennt]

see link above for what Jonah’s doctor told us

[Anonymous]

Glad to know he’s right about something, Joel. Even though we’re not seeing this guy anymore.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for the advice. He actually slept through the night last night w/o waking (a first in the last few days) and I was so excited to give him his morning dose of good ole’ prevacid. Funny how things work. So once he get’s back on track…and thoughts on how long I should wait till I try to begin the weaning process?

[Anonymous]

Lori,

It is better to slowly lower the dose than to lower the frequency, but keep in mind that with Zegerid you don’t want to go below that threshold of 3.5 mL at a 2mg/mL concentration or you risk the drug’s being degraded in the stomach. Dr Phillips recommends TID (three times daily) dosing until at least 2 years old.

Mama Lloyd,

Most reflux babies don’t get significantly better until about 18 months, or about the time they start walking. Some people say that babies “walk away from reflux” for this reason.

[Author]

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