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Welcome to the site!! So happy you are here!!
My Abby, who was born on Feb 2, was put on Zegerid after failed attempts with Pepcid and Prevacid. She was put on it when she was 1 month old and it has been a blessing to us ever since. I had been in touch with Dr. Phillips and the people at Marci-kids and found out what the recommended dose was, got a bunch of supporting info, and headed off to our doctor’s office. What a lot of people do not realize is that Marci-kids is a program at the University of Missouri in Columbia and it is run by a staff of people strictly dedicated to research of reflux and the improvement of lives for little ones with reflux. Zegerid was developed by Dr. Phillips for the use of treating reflux in babies (as well as adults in other situations). Zegerid is different in that it contains a buffer (sodium bicarbonate) that protects the medicine as it travels into the stomach. Other medications have a coating to protect it but it usually doesn’t start working until it reaches the intestines.
Anyway, 1 20 mg packet of Zegerid is mixed with 6.5 ml of water which creates 10 ml of medication. Abby at 1 month old was started at 3.5 ml 3 times per day which we noticed improvement in just a couple of days. As she grew, we have had to increase her doses a little at a time and she is now 7 months old (today) and is on 5.5 ml and weighs about 16 pounds. Some moms have gotten the 40 mg packets and have done a mixture with Mylanta but we have had great luck with the 20mg packets so I want to stick with it. We mix her medicine with 1 oz of formula and she sucks it right down. It does have kind of a light minty flavor but it hasn’t affected her taking it at all, perhaps because she started on it at such a young age. It really has been wonderful for us!! The best part about PPI’s such as Zegerid is you really can’t overdose a baby as the medicine is a pro-drug, meaning it works only on the cells that produce the acid, not affecting anything else. As far as it seeming like a high dose, Marci-kids research has shown that babies metabolize medication 2-3 times faster than adults so where adults can get by with 1 dose per day, babies often need 2-3 doses of the same medication to keep things under control.
To reach Dr. Phillips, his email is phillipsjo@health.missouri.edu. Or you can send an email to info@marci-kids.com and someone will get back to you. They have truly been a God send to us and many on this board. I know of one mom on this board who drove 8 hours for her child to be seen by the staff at the U of M and has had good results.
Sorry this got so long – I guess I am kind of wordy this morning
If you have any other questions, please post them – I would love to help out!!Robin
Abby’s Mom2006-9-2 9:30:20
Hello and welcome to the site.
I hope you can get your little one on Zegerid. My little guy was on
Prevacid (a PPI, but Zegerid is better as it can be given anytime and
not timed around meals) and he did terrific on it.
These PPI meds are very safe and very effective at controlling reflux.And marci-kids was very helpful to me as well. The emailed the dosage
my son should be on and I faxed all the general marci-kids info plus
their email to my son’s doctor and that’s how I was able to get her to
give my son the proper dose.Good luck and please keep us posted and come back with any questions
you may have. This site was a saving grace to me when my son was
suffering from Reflux.First of all good for you for still breastfeeding.
I know for experience that it is really hard to breastfeed to reflux baby. I ended up giving up with my first, but wouldn’t give up with my second. I think it has helped him so much. Breast milk is so good for reflux babies. I’m not saying anything wrong about anyone that doesn’t breastfeed. Like I said I didn’t with my first. Anyway, about the Zegerid. IT IS SOOOOO AMAZING! My first was on Prevacid and never found relief. Of course, he was never on the correct dose either. My second started on prevacid with the same result. Once Justice was on Zegerid though it was amazing. He actually started sleeping through the night. You will probably still have some bad days especially when teething hits. That is where we are now. He still sleeps about 5 hrs straight, but then has a hard time going back to sleep for the rest of the night. I would suggest to anyone to put their baby on Zegerid. It just makes sense to me.
I hope this helps.
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