reflux in older babies

[KleineMaus]

Does anyone have experience of reflux in an older baby. We think DS2 (10 months) has silent reflux, although neither the GPs nor the hospital paediatrician has been willing to diagnose it (or seemed to know anything remotely about it for that matter!) I think he always suffered a bit from it, it explains why he hated being in the pram flat on his back as a young baby, but just before he was 6 months (around the time we weaned him) it got much worse. He suddenly wakes up crying anywhere between half an hour and two hours after going down for the night. He arches his back and squirms in pain, coughs and chokes apparently on stuff coming up his throat (he doesn't vomit), he does sore sounding burps and his tummy makes strange gurgling noises. The only time he has slept through the night, or anything approaching it, is in his car seat (yes, we know how bad this is, but we've been desperate, and one of the GPs said he'd rather we do this than give him ranitidine!)
We've tried gaviscon and ranitidine, neither of which have made any difference. I've been off dairy for about 3 months and wheat for about 2 months (still BF) and that seems to have helped until now when it's suddenly got much worse again.
We finally got referred to the peadiatrician at the hospital, who said he was too old to have reflux, he didn't think food would make any difference (I was really hoping he'd refer us to a nutritionist), and that he didn't think we were lying (yes that's actually what he said), but he'd want to see some symptoms for himself and the only course of action they were suggesting was that we come to the hospital for three days observation. I was really hoping we could try losec, but they obviously don't think it's reflux, but I don't think they know much about it.
Sorry for long post, but I'm wondering if anyone out there has experience of silent reflux in an older baby.

Hi my 21 month old DS has silent reflux. it is very possible in older babies/toddlers ad even children although most grow out of it before 12 months.

DS symptoms were abit like your little ones. Mainly screaming, bad choking (he even stopped breathing at a month old and was rushed to hospital) violent hiccups, arching, not sleeping a wink at night and we could also hear the refluxing going on in his tummy. He did vomit alot but it was mainly the irritability and choking, he swallowed most of it back again.

It was horrible the first 8/9 months and only got better when he got mobile and able to entertain himself but it was still hard as he was miserable.

We first noticed a big improvement at about 18-19 months and he still has it but it is more like indegestion now. He had alot of trouble going onto solids and was on stage 1 purrees till 13 months. Took till 16-17 months to be on normal foods. This is very common for reflux.

DS's paed said that reflux often gets worse at weaning (DS did) and again when they start crawling (DS did again).

Meds wise the hospital diagnosed GORD at 4 weeks after the choking episode and gave him gaviscon. That didn't work so they gave him LOSEC and Domperidone. This helped about 50% with the irritability although he refluxed/choked just the same. There was no cure for him other than waiting and it was awful. he was my DC 5 and I had no idea what sleep deprivation was until I had him (and I had had twins before him!!). I think walking helps (DS was 14 months) aswell as eating solid food.

I breastfed for 11 months and cut out dairy/soya for 2 months with no difference. i also tried the colief incase of lactose inolerence.

Don't feel bad about sleeping him in a car seat, DS 'slept' (well we tried anyway!!) in a bouncer many nights. often me and DH took it in turns to hold him. Movement helps so we got him a hammock and that helped, he slept 5 hours a night in that (from 20 mins), music helped too, he had a little gloworm and lightshow.

I would go for the observation. The hosp saw DS having his reflux episodes which helped convince them. I also wondered if you had an Coeliac disease in the family, just with you mentioning it may have got worse with weaning as that can happen too. They will prob test for that in hopsital.

Anyway good luck and hope it gets better soon.

Thanks Jellybeans. Glad to hear things a bit better now, but depressing that it has lasted such a long time. I think we will go for the observation. When if was first mentioned we were in a slightly better phase, but now things are worse than ever. It seems a bit of a waste of hospital time though to be there all day as they won't witness anything much during the day, apart from maybe a bout of hiccups.
I'm wondering now if we've been too gung ho with the weaning. He's been on pretty full on solids from quite an early stage as he really likes his food and has been really keen. Maybe I should go back to purees. No coeliac disease in the family that I know of.

I know what you mean, they never seem to do it when you want them too! DS rarely did but we were lucky the once thank goodness. If he is doing well and happy to take solids I would stick with it (the longer you stick with purrees the harder to go to lumps i found) but I think some babies take longer to be able to digest the food properly. Some just have a 'weaker' stomach at first, DS was very travel sick aswell as reflux and choking/sick with lumps etc. Hope all goes well at the observation and that he grows out of it soon.

I hate to tell you this but ds2 is 4 and still refluxes! He was diagnosed by paediatrician at 17 weeks but he was given Enfamil AR which is a formula that thickens on contact with stomach acid.

I know you said you are still BFing but I didn't know if you wanted to try that as a before bed feed. You can get it from a pharmacy and even if they don't have it in stock they can order it in for you. This was after gaviscon didn't work.

Ds2 did exactly what you describe, worse at night. Have you used cot props to prop the cot up? Ds2 actually slept upright on me until he was 12 months old, I am a sahm but night time was the worst.

Now at 4, if he gets overtired I guarantee that 1 hour after he goes to bed he will wake in pain with a sore throat!

When he was little he did reflux, and did it on cue for the paediatrician which was fantastic, he also did that thing where they seem to choke on nothing, back arching during feeds, would only drink 2oz's at a time. It was horrendous.

Oh and both my refluxing boys have hiccups loads!