Reducing Silent reflux meds - please help I'm desperate

[Mrsbrightside123]

I'll try and keep this simple, but as we all know with this it never is!

Diagnosed as severe silent reflux at 2 months

All usual avenues tried and failed, omeprazole then saved our life.

We had to increase the dose quite a few times, and until two weeks ago he was on 20mg per day.

He is now 13 months.

The doctor suggested halving the dose to start the weaning off medication process so for the past two weeks that's exactly what we have been doing. He is totally fine all day long, however night time is another story.

He is taking cows milk at 7pm, and going down to sleep on his own around 7.30pm. Everything is fine until 11pm, where he just starts crying. Sitting up and crying. Nothing calms him and he just gets more and more upset. This has been going on for a week now, minus one night when daddy took over and he wasn't as bad.

Is this normal when reducing medication? Should I increase again? Do I need to ride it out? I hate hate hate seeing him like this, and I'm exhausted - 40 mins sleep last night I kid you not.

As a side note, I took him into my bed last night and he just went to sleep which I thought was a bit suspect. However the night before I done the same and he would be sound asleep then suddenly wake up screaming. My fiancé thinks he might just be clingy and want me, especially as he had his immunisations two days after we cut the medication, I'm just worried it's the reflux returning and he's hurting because of me.

WHAT CAN I DO TO STOP THIS!? HELP!!!

[NarcyCow]

Vaccinations can make reflux worse, because it's an immune system thing.

Honestly, if I were you, I'd put the dosage back up for a couple of weeks and see if he sleeps better. Otherwise you don't really know if it's related - they can have bad nights for so many reasons at that age.

[seven201]

Could you try leaving the pre bed dose as high but the rest as half. How long has he been having the cows milk? Just wondering about intolerance.

[Mrsbrightside123]

I totally had no clue that the jags made it worse I feel terrible now. Thank you so much for letting me know you're a saint.

He only gets one dose before bed, half the tablet instead of one. The cows milk... He's had that for about a month and a half? He's a big cheese and yoghurt fan and those didn't seem to bother him before but it might be the milk?

Just tried to put him down, spent an hour with him just screaming like nothing else. Nothing would settle him, only eventually me rocking him which we never ever do. He doesn't want anything and he's tired so no idea why he's going so crazy. It's horrible.

[seven201]

I only mentioned the milk because my girl has reflux (although not as bad as you dc) and we're just trying going milk product free to see if she is intolerant. It means I can't eat milk products and for her formula (she's combination fed) she has prescription formula that tastes rank. It's not the same as dairy free. About 3-6% of babies are cows milk protein intolerant and often if they are cmpi they have reflux too. But... If your dc has been having cheese etc before he's probably fine. Mine be worth a Google though to see if the symptoms fit.

[SouthDownsSunshine]

My GP wanted us to bring dd off her reflux medicine at 12 months. We also found that she was fine during the day, but as soon as she lay down for any period of time, we'd get the awful screaming.

On the advice of the hv, we put her medicine back up. Things returned to normal quite quickly. We got the GP to agree that she could stay on for longer. I can't remember when she finally came off, but it was in a haphazard fashion of just forgetting some evenings, until we found it wasn't needed anymore.