Baby milk nightmare for LO with reflux

[Nnpower]

My dd was born at 37 weeks and had minor iugr complications. I tried to breastfeed her but she had weight gain issues and i was on medications so I began to bottle feed. She started off with earths best organic dairy powdered formula. She seemed okay, but I noted her reflux, gas, and constipation. The peds nurse recommended goodstart. No change.

Her doctor then prescribed Zantac .5 ml x 2 a day and enfamil gentlease ( a low lactose baby milk). She did poorly with the powder but She did alright with the ready to feed for about a week, but then reverted back to being fussy, in pain, silent reflux and apnea, and extremely windyHer constipation was gone and she started to poo twice a day.

She was then switched to similac sensitive ready to feed.She did better with that but still had pain, terrible reflux, and horrible gas around feeding times only.

Last week she was put on alimentum after completely refusing nutramigen. she got even worse and continued to have problems with painful gas and now she had runnier poop and goes after every feeding. She also screamed during the feeding, which never happened before.

Her doctor then suggested similac isomil soy and she did pretty well but I wasn't comfortable with soy formula so I tried nutramigen again. I tried powder, concentrate and ready made and she was soooooo sick just like on the alimentum. It made no sense to me how she could do best on soy but have a horrible time with both hypoallergenic formulas. She wouldnt sleep for longer than 15 min at a time and only while being held, she was crying all the time and her reflux and silent reflux got so bad. She seemed to fare quite a bit better on normal formula than hypoallergenic.

I know I need to give it at least a week or two but I has seeing her in pain and I am really wondering if her real problem may stem from certain ingredients in all of these formulas. I know most of them contain corn syrup and all of them contain marteks dha and ara. Any suggestions? I'm almost thinking about investing in European baby formula to avoid both ingredients :/ I'd try the organic soy but she does so poorly with the powdered formula, especially after thickening it. Also I'm not too comfortable with the rice syrup issues with baby's only.

She's now back on the isomil and her doctor has taken her off of Zantac and put her on Prevacid solutabs. She's definitely sleeping better and less fussy but she's still got bad silent reflux and she's still congested, sneezy, hoarse, and coughing. Her doctor doesn't think she needs elemental formula since she's gaining weight and not wheezing or breaking out into hives or eczema.

I know that Prevacid takes up to two weeks to get into her system properly and that switching formulas so much is really bad, but I really want her to be okay and not have to suffer adverse effects now or later from soy formula or any other formula. Ive actually considered weaning her onto cow and gate comfort but since I have no proof or diagnosis one way or another about cmpi, I'm afraid :/ Any suggestions please?!

Also, she will be 6 weeks on Monday :)

Nn, haven't got any experience of reflux sorry, but didn't want you to go unanswered.

Have you tried posting in the Breast & Bottle Feeding section? You may get a few more responses and there is even a reflux support thread going somewhere.

I've posted under allergies but I'm new to the site and having trouble navigating it :/

Did you get much response from the Allergies section.

If you are after the Breast & Bottle Section, click on Talk, All Topics and it's under Feed The World.

here.

Welcome to MN too .

Thanks!

It sounds like she may have both a cows milk protein and soy intolerance. I had a very similar experience with dd and she still can't tolerate either even at a year.
It would be worth trying neocate lcp or nutramigin AA these are both amino acid based milks with no trace of cows milk or soy at all. The ones you have been using are still made from those products but more broken down so some babies can tolerate them more easily.

It is common for Babies to appear to tolerate a new milk for a small time before the bad symptoms start again as it sometimes takes a while for the allergen to build up in their system. Sometimes a reaction can be immediate but sometimes not.
For instance when she was tiny dd would react to cows milk protein even in tiny amounts through my breastmilk if I had eaten something within hours. Screaming, wind, projectile vomit, green acid poos. Writhing in pain all day.Just awful.
But now she is bigger her tummy still reacts but it just takes longer now- a matter of days

The paed said she has no apparent allergies to formula so isn't going to affect too much what she's on which I've noticed. He said that reflux babies are a bit more sensitive, so low lactose, soy, or lactose free helps, but unless she has allergies hypoallergenic is to be avoided because it creates a smaller curd that's more easily spit up. I. Sticking with the cow and gate comfort for now since that's the case :) hopefully she will do alright. The paed said it'd be a good idea so that she can transitin to solids and full milk when the time cones a bit easier.he warned that for now we will just have to continue to try different medications until we find one that works. He's also referring her to a specialist just in case. I was glad to have chatted with him.

Sorry for the typos! One handed typing plus iPad = typo hell

I hope you find something that she's comfortable on. If you still aren't getting anywhere in a while then ask for a second opinion as if the doc is not an allergy specialist then they may not know

I'm not sure its much help but DS had silent reflux and is dairy and soy intolerant. The best advice I had from the doctor was to treat stuff symptomatically since its hard to diagnose such things in small babies.

We were lucky. DS was bf and when I gave up dairy we had a different child in 48 hours. The reflux wasn't too bad and Gaviscon fixed that once I persuaded the doctor to prescribe it.

I think you just have to keep trying things to see what works for your baby but you do have to give them long enough to work!

Ds2 is now 6 but had severe reflux. We saw a paed consultant when Ds was 16 weeks after Gaviscon didn't work. We were prescribed Enfamil AR (anti-reflux) and it made a huge difference. No more back arching and only taking 2oz feed.

I carried him upright on my in a sling, he slept propped up on me during the day and his cot had cot props (little plastic feet that elevate the head end so they never lie flat) He never drank cows milk until he was 3, was weaned off the Enfamil at 16 months.

He is now 6 and still refluxes at night

What I found from Mumsnet is that most other babies are prescribed ranitidine (Zantac) or omeprazole (Prilosec) or both I think.

Most reflux baby parents post under health and then children's health so have a look there.