Reflux Help & Support Thread

[satine51]

I haven't talked to my HV yet, but have docs appointment on thursday. If it's not reflux, what could it be, maybe some food intoleranve through my milk?

 

[KellyC75]

I haven't talked to my HV yet, but have docs appointment on thursday. If it's not reflux, what could it be, maybe some food intoleranve through my milk?

Im not saying its not reflux, only giving my opinion on what my Daughter was like with her silent reflux

There are lots of great Ladies on here that may be able to help

May be worth giving your HV a call, just to see what she thinks

 

[happyface82]

I would say its one of the two or possibly the two together. Best to discuss things with your GP. Its so difficult to distinguish between the two, it took us months with Katerina to figure things out! Good luck!

 

[satine51]

Thank you ladies, I will.

 

[stephybump2be]

Hi ladies,

My LO has not been diagnosed with reflux, but I have a nagging feeling that she has silent reflux. Symptoms got much worse just a week ago and I booked an appointment with gp. She is exclusively brestfed and puts on weight very well. She feeds very often and recently she only seems happy when feeding. She always liked being held upright only, she starts complaining when laid flat, especially after a feed.
She wet burps, her stomach gurgles and often she look/ sounds like she wants to throw up but it all then goes back down again. She sometimes spits up an hour after feed, it looks like water and smells of bile. She chews frantically on her fists which sometimes also smell very acidy. She is such an unhappy baby, it breaks my heart that I can't make her feel better. I feel like such a bad mum for not spotting it earlier. I am on dairy free diet and just cut down caffeine from today. She sleeps well at night, apart from being restless she used to sttn, but she woke up today gagging on her fist again.
Do you think it could be silent reflux?

This does sound like silent reflux to me, but could be intolerances that act as a trigger. My daughter had terrible silent reflux from a young age but has now turned a year and the meds mean she is pretty normal nowadays. She is still excl bf.

Breastmilk has a neutralizing effect on stomach acid which soothes your baby sore tum and means they can want to feed all the time. This happened with soph and resulted in good weight gain - it made life difficult with docs cos they kept on telling me there was nothing wrong as she was 'thriving'. However, if the pain gets worse your baby may then start spacing her feeds quite dramatically cos she senses thats whats hurting her, so push for a referal to a paed consultant - reflux or not, your baby is in pain and distressed so they should be tryin to find out whats going on.

have a look at these websites for some info:

https://www.reflux.org/reflux/webdoc01.nsf/(vwWebPage)/Breastfeed.htm?OpenDocument

www.infantrefluxdisease.com

good luck x

 

[lilbumpblue]

James has now been taken off domperidone and ranitidine and put onto omeprizole following having a peg feeding tube for his slow weight gain! xx

 

[happyface82]

Hope this helps and he puts some more weight on!

 

[lilbumpblue]

thank hun x

 

[KellyC75]

Popping in with For Mums & Babies

 

[SparkleBug]

Just wondering if anyone has had any adverse effects with Carobel? We switched from a comfort milk to nutramigen a while back and felt it was too watery and added carobel which was a God-send......his meds (rinatadine and domp) were upped recently in accordance with his recent growth and weight and now he has had terrible diarrhoea, bright yellow and at times pure watery. Could this be either of those meds or the carobel? Hard to tell which one....just wondered if anyone else had similar or knew of this side effect? x

 

[happyface82]

I have no idea, just wanted to offer

 

[gilz82]

Noah has Carobel in his neocate. He has three times the suggested amount and if anything I'd say he has to try a little harder to poop.

Have the nappy changes coincided with the change in formula? Amino acid formulas like Neocate and Nutramigen aa don't require the body to break anything down so they pass through more easily and result in looser poops. Apologies if you already knew that.

 

[booda]

AAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH F*CKING MEDICATION IS DOING ABSOLUTELY F*CK ALL for wee man Has been puking and burping up congealed milk all f*cking day yesterday and all day today and screaming the whole time. Just when we thought things were starting to get a bit easier.....

/end rant...

 

[gilz82]

Sorry you are having a hard time with the reflux. Unfortunately reflux seems to be like a roller coaster. You think you've got things settled and then whoosh flares back from out of no where seemingly.

What meds is your LO on? Has he been weighed and the dosages increased recently as all of the reflux meds are very weight sensitive. Also if he's on ranitidine some babies build up a tolerance to it and it becomes useless. For us this happened when Noah was two months but I have friends with LOs where ranitidine continued to help when at the correct dosage.

 

[SparkleBug]

Noah has Carobel in his neocate. He has three times the suggested amount and if anything I'd say he has to try a little harder to poop.

Have the nappy changes coincided with the change in formula? Amino acid formulas like Neocate and Nutramigen aa don't require the body to break anything down so they pass through more easily and result in looser poops. Apologies if you already knew that.

I didnt know that! And yes nappies have def coincided with formula! What can i do because the formula has helped him immeasurably in lots of other areas so how can i stop the poop? It was okay during day yesterday but night time it was 3 feet projectile, sorry if tmi! Do you think i should try addng more carobel like you do ? xx

 

[gilz82]

You could possibly try extra Carobel although we are only giving so much on the advice of our gastro paediatrician.

The poops should settle on the new formula given time but they are never going to have much solidity until you introduce solids. Noah has been on neocate for three months now and I'd saw his poop basically looks like a cow pat, sorry for the grossness.

He has so many problems with food intolerances that we aren't weaning so I haven't experienced the more solid poop but I'm assured by other mums it comes and the loose poop does definitely settle.

 

[booda]

Sorry you are having a hard time with the reflux. Unfortunately reflux seems to be like a roller coaster. You think you've got things settled and then whoosh flares back from out of no where seemingly.

What meds is your LO on? Has he been weighed and the dosages increased recently as all of the reflux meds are very weight sensitive. Also if he's on ranitidine some babies build up a tolerance to it and it becomes useless. For us this happened when Noah was two months but I have friends with LOs where ranitidine continued to help when at the correct dosage.

He's on domperidone. Was on domperidone and Gaviscon but the G just made him constipated (eventhough HV said that BF babies "never get constipated" he went from pooing 3-5 times per day, to once in 3 days with a hell of a lot of screaming) He's reviewed regularly, Im a nurse myself and have a copy of BNF for children, so I can see he's on the lowest dose 3 times per day but doc doesnt want to increase it because of "risk of side effects". He's dropped from just above 50th percentile to 30th percentile (not dropped weight, just not been gaining much) over last 3-4 weeks but HV just shrugs and says "some babies just take spurts and dips" - but he's never had a spurt! I don't know. Tempted to just turn up at RHSC (sick kids) and demand someone checks him out properly because the screaming is NOT normal and im going to end up cracking up at this rate and eating one of these doctors :/

 

[aliss]

Sorry you are having a hard time with the reflux. Unfortunately reflux seems to be like a roller coaster. You think you've got things settled and then whoosh flares back from out of no where seemingly.

What meds is your LO on? Has he been weighed and the dosages increased recently as all of the reflux meds are very weight sensitive. Also if he's on ranitidine some babies build up a tolerance to it and it becomes useless. For us this happened when Noah was two months but I have friends with LOs where ranitidine continued to help when at the correct dosage.

Tempted to just turn up at RHSC (sick kids) and demand someone checks him out properly because the screaming is NOT normal and im going to end up cracking up at this rate and eating one of these doctors :/

Go do it! That's what I did (4 hour round trip) and it was worth it. Ended up with a young pediatrician who was up to date with all his recent information and that's how I finally got my diagnosis for my boy (after 5 doctors!!!!)



And eat the doctor anyways, maybe you'll go to jail and get a good night of for once... J/k... or maybe not.

 

[Farie]

Booda, sounds like he needs either Ranitadene or Omeprazol, both which will reduce the acid, domperidone only speeds up the process, most babies need acid reduction. Also in many cases domperidone causes more problems then it solves (seems to work really well for a lilt of SR babies tho)

 

[stephybump2be]

Booda, all advice is spot on- don't delay and goto RHSC for sure - I'm forever telling mums to goto A&E at a childrens hospital - seems to be the only way many of us can get a doc that knows about reflux! Depending on who you see, (my first visit was great, but 2nd time different doc initially tried to pass off as colic !), you might still need to push for the ranitidine. The longer you wait for the right meds, the more damage the acid does, and the longer it takes for the acid damage (stomach and oesoph) to heal, and for your baby to be pain free.

Also, it's unusual (strange) for doc to prescribe only domperidone??? Here's a link to GP guidelines https://www.banes.nhs.uk/SiteCollec...lux in infants Policy v1 - September 2010.pdf

good luck x