reflux gone or just controlled?

[Anonymous]

Sebastian has been doing great for several weeks now. He is so happy and napping better (sometimes over two hours!). He has his six month check up next week and dh wants to ask about getting him off the meds. He is convinced he is better because he has been so happy.

I am not seeing any of the reflux symptoms, but he dose cough a lot. He used to get really rattly sounding in his chest from the reflux. I have not noticed much of that, but I think he may have just learned to cough it up. He coughs every couple min. during the day and usually I will hear him cough ounce or twice during the night.

I would love to get him off the meds. But I don’t want to mess up how good he is doing now. You can not stop Reglan cold so he will have to be weened of it. I can always up the meds again if the reflux comes back, so I guess it cant really hurt to try it. I am wondering what experiences you all have had trying to reduce the meds and is there a way to really know if the reflux is gone.

[Anonymous]

I can’t say that I’ve yet tried to get Myles off of his meds, but I can say that at least three times I’ve thought he was doing so well that I considered it. All three times his reflux reappeared or got worse, so I know he’s not ready yet. I don’t know when I’ll know it’s time with Myles. I would be very cautious especially if he is coughing. A flare up of his reflux may make that worse and it will take time to get a flare up under control again.

Aslo, I personally think that 6 months is young to outgrow reflux (from all I’ve read here and on the web). Sorry, I don’t mean to tell you what to do. It’s just my opinion. Maybe others have had success at 6 months and will post about it.

I’m glad Sebastian is feeling better.

[Anonymous]

I tried cutting Aidan’s meds in half about a month ago becasue he seemed to be doing great with no reflux symptoms…it was a huge mistake the reflux came back 10 times worse, but that’s just my experience. He has his 6 month checkup the 8th and I am going to insist on keeping him on the prevacid for at least a year..or at least until he is 9 months old then very very slowly wean him off of them.

[hellbennt]

we tried at 9months and it was a no-go. then we tried at 12 months & it worked (still had zantac to use on an as-needed basis for a few months after that)…

hey, try it if you will, but if it ain’t broke, why fix it? What we noticed is when we didn’t have to keep INCREASING the meds- that’s a good sign- so maybe just go that route?…

[Anonymous]

We went with the same theory that Laura mentioned. Once she had gone a while without needing an increase, we started thinking about weaning her off of the meds. Even then, it took us several months because she kept getting ear infections and having teething issues. We wanted to make sure that there was nothing else going on when we weaned her. Maybe try slowly weaning him off the reglan, then wait a while and try the zantac. Reglan has a lot more side effects than zantac, so I’d want to try that one first.

[Anonymous]

coughing is a symptom of reflux. it is their way of clearing their throats of the reflux pushing up. honestly, as is chronic stuffy nose and chronic sneezing if the reflux is sloshing all the way up into the nasal cavities.

i would love to hear of a 6 month old outgrowing reflux but chances are that is not the case. however it is great to hear that it is under control and he is not in pain.

give it more time and if you don’t need dose increases as he grows…you still have a happy child that is not in pain then get your doc to agree on how to best wean

oh and if you want him off the reglan and doc agrees then i would highly recommend probiotics instead of going back to reglan or other med for DGE. i am assuming he is on reglan for DGE

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reality check ladies. I know that six months is awful young to outgrow reflux. I guess I am just wishful thinking. I am still torn on what to do. I never intended the Reglan to be a long term solution. I was so desperate at the time I was willing to try anything, and it worked so well for him I did not want to mess with a good thing. He has been on it for over three months now, and though he has never had any side effects, I still worry about compilations from long term use.

I have not had to increase his Zantac for about a month and he has been on the same dose or Reglan since he started taking it. I actually cut back his Zantac a little bit because I had to stretch out the bottle until I could get a refill. He has been really happy so I did not bother bumping it back up.

He still has the cough and the chronic stuffy nose that he was born with (first they said it was mucus from delivery, then a cold, then reflux) Yesterday he had formula dripping out of his nose a little while after his bottle. I was just coming out at a slow drip for about 5 min. It totally freaked me out, but ounce again, he did not seem to care. Since then he has been doing this weird sniffing thing. He scrunches his face all up and sniffs in really hard, then he chokes and coughs. If he keeps it up today I am going to take him into the Dr.

I know I should just wait and see what the Dr. Says but there is always so much going on in the apt. that I like to be prepared before I go. I am pretty sure he is going to want to cut the Reglan because I recently had to call for a refill and he only gave me a tiny little bottle. I know when this first started he mentioned something about giving him previcid after he was six months old. I think I will ask about weaning off the reglan and trying previcid (or another PPI) instead.

Sorry for the long rambling post. I am just so confused. He clearly has reflux symptoms, but he is so happy! He got his first tooth last week I think there is another one on the way and even that has only made him more sleepy and needy. I am beginning to think he has just developed a high threshold for pain. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I want to be prepared for the Dr. And the LAST thing I want to do is go back to how miserable he used to be.

[hellbennt]

unfortuantely, I think they DO develop a high threshold for pain

christine (kevieb) posted that she was so surprised when they did Sylvia’s ph probe- she saw sylvia didn’t even flinch when she was experiencing a very long reflux episode! (you can search for ph probe and read what she wrote…)

research about PPIs and their dosing and what ‘form‘ you think would work best for your baby (prilosec: zegerid or in caracream; prevacid: solutabs or caracream) – all of this is from ‘Prevacid 101’ which is linked to in my welcome/intro)

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