? For reflux moms prilosec

[polarbearfans]

We have been on prilosec compound for over a week now and the past couple days the baby has been spitting up all her food at night and is a gassy mess. She goes to bed on an empty stomach and we sleep 6+ hours. I feel so bad.

We rarely had any spit up prior to this medication (the little she had didn't even make it past her lips) and now it is often and getting large.

I was reading the ingredients and was shocked at some that I saw... Sodium lauryl sulfate?! I don't even allow that in my soap. Red dye 40 :/

But I was most surprised to see lactose. The doctor has me on a dairy free and soy free diet... Why would she and the 2 specialists we have seen have her on a medication that is not dairy free?

[polarbearfans]

Well she just had the biggest never ending poop so I am guessing that has probably been the cause of the nightly vomits and fussiness. All backed up and gassy. Her belly was kind of full looking and firm so I did her belly massages (that her lactation consultant showed us) and bicycle legs. It was 5 minutes of toots and poops. She had 5 poops yesterday but they were smaller than normal but still of the size to be considered a poop. She also had a couple diapers with toots that got away from her (tiny poop spot) that i didn't record on her log.

I am going to see how this weekend goes. I will call her doctor Monday if we keep having the large spit ups and fussiness at night. The on call today wants her to go to the ER at the children's hospital if she keeps having the hard belly and massive poops. There were some black spots (overall mostly yellow with the fatty spots, a little green mucusy bits, then a lot of black dots) :/

She spit up pretty much her whole meal last night and slept through the night. I called the on call doc because that's a lot of poop for not eating for over 7 hours, and black spots are concerning.

I still question the medication ingredients. I don't think it can be compounded differently either since the pharmacy had to get approval from insurance to give more than the doctor wrote because it is the whole thing or nothing. It cannot be split. I would have preferred it without the pink strawberry flavor.

[toutsuite]

How old is she? Ds has been on Prilosec since about 6 weeks. He wasn't spitting up much before then but he was after we switched his formula to nutramigen which seemed to be, idk, much thinner(?) than what he had been having. That said, the fussiness after eating stopped completely. For the gas, try the gerber probiotics. They can be pricey but we found those helped a lot.

Ds was spitting up so much that he was losing weight. To combat this, we started thickening his formula after talking to his pedi. We used rice cereal which tends to have a bad rep around here but honestly it was a life saver. It helped decrease the amount of spit up and he started gaining weight.

I will say I am pretty breezy about the ingredients in the medication. If the pedi, who I trust, recommended it, I don't have too much of a problem giving it. I would feel differently though if I didn't trust his pedi. We gave non fruit flavored medicine to ds before and it was a disaster. It was a struggle every time. Ds is also on the strawberry Prilosec and rather than it turning into a struggle, he views it as a treat now because he likes the flavor and doesn't spit it out.

Hang in there. Reflux sucks but once we got it under control and found the right balance of medication, formula, and probiotics, ds was a totally different baby. He wasn't fussy, he sttn, napped well, and was just really really happy. It took a few weeks to get there but it was worth it. His reflux, while still there, has drastically improved since he began sitting up on his own. We were able to stop the probiotics at about six months too.

[polarbearfans]

She is just about 7 weeks old. I will ask her pediatrician about adding in a probiotic. That is a good tip. I worry about the reflux meds upsetting the bacteria balance in her digestive system.

She is breastfed and doing better now that the doctor has me dairy and soy free. We cut dairy first about 5+ weeks ago which helped, and I have been about a week off the soy completely. Now that I am off the soy her rash finally is almost gone.

She is getting better about taking the meds. She stops crying if I put a little on her tongue and doesn't intentionally spit it out anymore. She is fussy at medication time since she wants to eat :/ she got to where she would open her mouth for the horrible peppermint zantac, so I guess she is getting used to the strawberry which I imagine is better than peppermint.

I just wish i could make her feel better. She has been on reflux meds since she was about a 1.5 weeks old and we still haven't found the right combo. It stinks that everything takes so long to see a difference. Prilosec has been the best so far since she does have some happy awake moments to the day, but the spitting up has me concerned. She has been coughing and choking a lot.

[redheadk]

I can't speak to the ingredients other than to say that of course there are ingredients in medications that you would not otherwise willingly ingest. That is why medications are controlled substances and prescribed by a physician. The lactose would concern me if she has MSPI, though, but I do not know anything about the lactose in prilosec. I would definitely ask about it.

Given that she is not doing well on the medications, I'd call and make an appointment with the pediatrician or GI, whichever you are using.

DD was on Prevacid solutabs and they worked well for her. They smelled like strawberry pop rocks. She doesn't have a strong preference for fake strawberry flavoring as a preschooler so no harm, no foul, IMO.

[polarbearfans]

Aug 29, 2015 13:56:03 GMT -5 @kar said:

Coughing and choking on her spit up or when drinking? That sounds as though it may be worth looking at aspiration vs pure reflux and that she might benefit from eating at a slower pace, slower flow nipple or thickened liquids (hard if nursing).

She coughs and chokes randomly through the day. Sometimes while eating but mostly after... Could be shortly after, could be hours. I try to prepump for a couple minutes if I know going to have a forceful letdown. Mainly in the mornings since she is sleeping longer :/

She just sounds "wet". Breathing, lots of spit in mouth. She was just at the ENT to rule out obstruction since she is mainly breathing through her mouth. Only issue was the damage from the reflux. I need to find another GI still... But the ENT was on board with her current medication. I will probably call her pediatrician Monday. I also need to call and sort of the GI issue. I need to ask some more questions about the medication. Both the pediatrician and GI have said no dairy or soy. The GI wanted me to switch to formula to make it easy :/

[Brie]

rxbeth?

[rxbeth]

With regards to the ingredients, I don't have access to all my resources while on maternity leave but I'm pretty sure lactose is in a large majority of meds as binder (or some other excipient). I'm not sure if it is that much to cause an issue.

[toutsuite]

Aug 29, 2015 16:09:49 GMT -5 polarbearfans said:

Aug 29, 2015 13:56:03 GMT -5 @kar said:

Coughing and choking on her spit up or when drinking? That sounds as though it may be worth looking at aspiration vs pure reflux and that she might benefit from eating at a slower pace, slower flow nipple or thickened liquids (hard if nursing).

She coughs and chokes randomly through the day. Sometimes while eating but mostly after... Could be shortly after, could be hours. I try to prepump for a couple minutes if I know going to have a forceful letdown. Mainly in the mornings since she is sleeping longer :/

She just sounds "wet". Breathing, lots of spit in mouth. She was just at the ENT to rule out obstruction since she is mainly breathing through her mouth. Only issue was the damage from the reflux. I need to find another GI still... But the ENT was on board with her current medication. I will probably call her pediatrician Monday. I also need to call and sort of the GI issue. I need to ask some more questions about the medication. Both the pediatrician and GI have said no dairy or soy. The GI wanted me to switch to formula to make it easy :/

We had the same issue with the wet breathing...that actually is one of the telltale signs of reflux in babies.  We had that, the coughing, frequent hiccups, etc.  Ultimately we did switch to formula....I had gone on an elimination diet but always had to supplement with formula due to supply issues.  I pumped for a while afterwards to build a supply up if we could ever go back to giving him bm.  Once we got the reflux under control the breathing improved.  

i know this isn't your situation I'm just saying this to point out that I get the guilt wrt switching to formula.  The hardest thing for me was switching to formula but you know what, it was the best thing we ever did.  Reflux is hard enough to deal with and you should not have to feel additional guilt on top of that over what and how you feed your baby. I think I'm sensitive to this issue just because I don't like the implication that switching to formula is "bad" when you are already dealing with a lot of stress and whatnot with the reflux.  When we switched to formula he started gaining weight and we got everything under control.  It doesn't sound like you have supply issues though so obvi what you are dealing with is altogether different.   I just wanted to let you know if you ever did switch, it's ok.  Ds is now 9 months old, and while he still has reflux, he is healthy!

Things that helped us manage the reflux-  always sleeping on an incline of at least 30 degrees, always holding and sitting on an incline, gaviscon on days when Prilosec wasn't totally cutting it, gerber probiotics were a lifesaver, baby wearing, being in the swing, lots of bibs, and like I said before - The rice cereal worked wonders for us and cut the amount of spit up in half.  This may not be an option if you ebf and she does not take bottles.  The cereal worked to weigh down his food and keep it in his stomach so that it didn't come back up with the spit up.  We started it at eight weeks in coordination with the pedi.  Dunno if all this helps but it will get better once you can get the issue under control.