Moms Of Gerdlings, I Need Your Help!!!

[pyzia]

I have a dr's appointment this Thursday to confirm whether or not I have thrush. While I am there I will be discussing DS reflux with the dr. DS reflux has gotton worse over the past 2 weeks to the point where not only is he not sleeping but Dh and I as well. He is screaming for a minimum of half an hour after each feeding (usually for hours) and he is now spitting up half to whole feeds. Not to mention he is just more fussy and whinier then ever.

However he is not spitting up brown (thank God) but the dr previously told Dh and I that she would not give him anything for it if he was not spiiting up brown. Dh and I were talking and we both agree that his reflux is getting out of control and that something needs to be done about it. We are thinking about quality of life here and what is in DS best interest. This is not about giving him a pill to shut him up, this is about making him comfortable so that he can be a happy baby so that we can be happy parents. We want to enjoy being parents and have fun watching our son grow up. Not to mention Dh is a machinist and needs to be fully awake for the job that he does. One wrong move and he could be seriously injured.
We both are getting depressed from the sleepless nights and have been fighting big time because all we are is miserable and cranky 24/7.

How can I convince my dr to at least try him on a medication to see if it helps? Considering the fact that we have tried everything else to make it better unsuccessfully, I personally don't think that it could hurt to just try. What do you think???

[catscharm74]

Keep pushing the issue. My son has suffered from GERD since he was born. We were told the same thing as you. (He will grow out of it and you don't need medication) Well, at 4 months he ended up in the ER, he wasn't sleeping ,screaming all the time, had a sore on the inside of his lips from the acid, threw up EVERYTHING we gave him. We FORCED them to give us a prescription that night for Zantac. We have since switched to Prilosec and it has been SO much better. He is small for his age and I think a lot of it is because he didn't get the benefits of the formula when he was little. But because he has grown, the docs don't think anything is wrong. Keep pushing the issue, change docs, demand they do something. Keep trying!! I know how you feel. Just keep pressing the issue. You might come off as a b**** but I got my son what he needed.

By the way, last month, when my son turned 9 months old, we finally were able to get an upper GI done. He has a severe case of acid reflux. The stuff goes in and comes right back out. But, we were wrong...yeah right!!!

Let me know how it turns out.
I pray for you and your family that someone sees the light and helps you.

[PNWmama]

I've been there, it's so hard to see your child hurting.
My ds showed a lot of the same symptoms...constant spitting up, screaming and arching his back after eating, and sleeping horribley because he was gagging and choking all night. Yet he was gaining weight okay, so the dr. never really took our concerns seriously. Finally, I insisted that my ds was in pain and was not a happy baby, and she agreed to put him on Zantac. Zantac immediatly helped him feel more comfortable, but he was still doing the gagging and choking at night, so she put him on Prevacid, and all his reflux symptoms have disappeared, other than the constant spitting up. Through trial and error, I also found out that he has food allergies.
I would insist to your doctor that your baby is in pain and that you want to try some medication to see if it gives him relief. Your baby deserves to be happy and comfortable. Like the pp said, just keep pressing the issue.
again, and good luck!

[sbgrace]

I'm angry reading what your doctor said.
I was there and was put off and off and off. Then my son stopped feeding altogether and shortly afterward spit up reddish brown (blood) at about 3 months. Finally they medicated and then we started down a long road of aversions to swallowing. In my opinion, Drs. are criminal to withhold treatment from a child who clearly needs it until their esophagus erodes (hence, looking for brown which would be blood...the very thought makes me both ill and livid).
Fight for treatment would be my advice. Fight for an adequate dosage of an adequate drug, not zantac which is useless if not harmful (alcohol makes reflux worse for many, then add peppermint flavoring when peppermint is a known reflux trigger..what in the heck!) for babies who have true reflux--not just spitting up but pain as you describe. My son only did ok when we started a Protein Pump Inhibitor at pediatric dosage levels. Pediatric levels are higher than adult dosages actually because kids metabolize faster. We are still dealing with aversions though three years later. I wish I could go back to the start and I would have fought like mad and not taken no for an answer from the very start.
If you need research on dosage levels or PPI usage in infants please pm me.

[pyzia]

I am also getting frustrated because my best friend keeps pushing me to start formula, believes that ds is allergic to my milk and that is why I should wean.

[Malva]

Originally Posted by pyzia

I am also getting frustrated because my best friend keeps pushing me to start formula, believes that ds is allergic to my milk and that is why I should wean.

I see your baby is very young. Have you tried cutting out all dairy from your diet to rule that out? If you haven't, try it for a week and see if it improves your baby's condition. For a lot of babies, their digestive system isn't developed enough to handle dairy (present in breastmilk) and often symptoms will be reflux-like, vomiting or colic-like behaviour.

Giving up dairy for a period of time (they outgrow it in the first year normally) is actually extremely easy when you see the effect is has on your baby.

I'm not trying to be insensitive or suggest your baby doesn't have GERD. I hope I'm not coming across that way.

[pyzia]

I tried cutting out dairy for a week and it did not make a difference. I did find that corn makes it worse so I cut corn and corn products out of my diet. It did help but to a point.

[elanorh]

Pyzia - hold firm on breastfeeding your little one! If there is a corn connection, it would be nearly impossible to find a formula which is corn-free (if your friend doubts you, tell her to go read the labels). It may well be that there is something beyond corn, and if you decide that might be the case, you could try an Elimination Diet (my Ina was allergic to dairy, soy, eggs, wheat, and all legumes as well as her severe reflux) -- but most babies only have 1-2 allergies. Most common are dairy, soy, egg. I didn't discover MDC 'til Ina had outgrown all but one of her allergies, but imagine that the allergy board here could be helpful for you if you begin to suspect additional issues beyond corn.

In terms of the OP - if you drove into a mechanic's shop with a flat tire, and he insisted that there was no problem, you'd fire him. We need to do the same to doctors who refuse to recognize and treat infants' illnesses, GERD can really cause long-term issues if it's severe and untreated. Fire your doctor. No doctor would tell and adult, "Well, you may be in pain, but you're the right weight for your height and age and therefore we'll just wait and see." :

If you can't leave this doctor (HMO or whatever) - tell the doctor what you told us. That no one in your house is sleeping. That there are serious marital stresses. That you sit and hold your baby and cry with him. Sometimes it helps to bring a chart of the amounts baby is spitting up, the times, the duration of crying episodes. Be very direct and don't let the doctor play Boss with you, you are paying her wages so she must listen to YOU. If she still refuses, then ask her if she can make a referral for a second opinion (if your coverage would cover that).

[Valian]

Our Dr. never pulled this on us but we were (un)lucky enough that we hit our he needs help NOW point on a weekend so we were ab le to see a different Dr. who wrote a script no problem for us. Is that a possibility for you?

We didn't need to go to the ER, just 'urgent care' for kids that need immediate appointments for illness and what not.

Also, I am not an MD but I have read a number of places that parents have used very small doses of Mylanta and the like to find short term relief. Call the night Dr. and ask what you can do, and frankly having lived through a Ds in pain like that I would be pushing HARD and using alternatives if I had to.

We dealt with A LOT of trauma with Ds even once the pain was under control. I had to fight hard to keep him on the breast and nursing. I am thankful everyday that we made it through.

Also check out http://www.marci-kids.com/ for great information on meds and more.

[RootSnort]

Originally Posted by sbgrace

Fight for an adequate dosage of an adequate drug, not zantac which is useless if not harmful (alcohol makes reflux worse for many, then add peppermint flavoring when peppermint is a known reflux trigger..what in the heck!) for babies who have true reflux--not just spitting up but pain as you describe.

For this very reason, my pediatrician uses Axid instead of Zantac. It's bubblegum flavored instead and has no alcohol.

In the case of DS, my doc wanted to try the Axid, and I was resistant to start, but after a few weeks, I came around to his way of thinking. DS had a very mild case, and was just spitting up a little bit (very nonchalantly) and eating tiny amounts almost constantly - he was using food as an antiacid. If the Axid had not been such a wild success, we were going to eliminate dairy from my diet, and corn after that. From the start, the doc also had us using post-feeding positioning as well, making sure DS stayed upright for an hour after feedings, and slept with a wedge under his torso and head. Zantac and Axid have so few side effects, it's just worth a trial to see if it helps. They could stick a camera in his tummy to see what's there, but these medicines are so safe, there's no reason to do that. If the medicine works, that's enough to diagnose GERD for most docs. And it's a fairly common problem!

As a baby, I probably also had GERD, but no one diagnosing this, and there was no way to treat it. I spent my first year of life screaming and throwing up. I never had a GI bleed, but it is probably why I took extra time to reach my developmental milestones.

If this doctor won't work with you, talk to your friends and find out who else in the area is good. The pediatrician/parent relationship is best played out as a partnership.