Anyone with experience of silent reflux?

[nickytwotimes]

apologies - typing one handed!

anyway, ds 2 is 5 wks and diagnosed at the weekend after a long struggle to be taken seriously. the paediatrician spotted it ibstantly and he has pretty classic symptoms.

we spent weekend in hospital and he is on gaviscon and ranitadine. he was AMAZINGLY better at the weekend, but up and down since.

is this par fpr the course or was the weekend a fluke?

just looking for some reassurance/hand holding.

also, not sure about the gaviscon - it is making him constpated and uncomfortable.

any help gratefully accepted.

also gone dairy free since weekend as experiment btw. am bfing

.

please?

DD had silent reflux, however GP could never be convinced it was serious enough to prescribe anything/refer her & kept saying she'd grow out of it. I can say our experience was that several times every night, she would gag on what was rising in her throat, swallow it down and wake crying, then demand a feed-presumably to wash down the stomach acid which had risen. She wasn't colicky per se, however she wanted held constantly and would only nap if held or put in the buggy and walked round the park for hours on end. Weaning at 7 months (she was a few weeks early so we held off a bit longer) did nothing to help it. SHe finally has seemed to grow out of it at about 2 years, although still sometimes wakes with it during the night. When she was about 6 weeks or so I did try Infacol, but it didnt seem to help, so I stopped it after a week. She got used to it fairly early on and though it would wake her, she always seemed to settle back down fairly easily.

I can't say whether or not the Gaviscon would have helped, but if it seems to be constipating him, maybe not worth using?

For us there were definitely ups and downs, I think one thing that was helpful for us was that I cottoned on to the fact that I had a very fast let-down and that DD was gulping alot of air whilst trying to keep up. I found that if I popped her off as soon as I felt the tingling of the let down and expressed a bit sprayed like a fire hose into a muslin, and then put her back on once it was slower flow, she seemed to do a lot better.

Good luck! And yes, they do eventually grow out of it!

Nicky, I was going to suggest trying Instant Carobel instead of Gaviscon, but I am not sure now if it's any good when breastfeeding. I think you can make it into paste and give to the baby before feeding but I'm not sure. We used it to thicken formula feeds and DS suffered no ill effects. It's made by cow and gate and you can get it at the chemist.

DS was never on ranitidine but many people here have said that it is very weight sensitive. With all these meds it sometimes takes a while to work out the right dose so if he's not any better after about a week, I would say talk to your doctor again.

Going dairy free is a great idea as many babies with reflux also suffer from cow milk protein intolerance. In some cases reflux is actually caused by CMPI and once dairy free, the symptoms disappear and there is no need for meds. Others, like my DS, need medication and cow milk protein free diet.
The only thing I'd say is that perhaps it would be better not to try many things at once - if DS gets better you will not know immediately what it was that helped.

Good luck and I really hope you see a big improvement very soon.

lol at fire hose!
i have had a go at this but it seems okay...

ooh, lots of messages now. thank you.
know what you mean wrt pinpointing what works, but am so desperate I have decided to do it the other way round, ie reintroduce dairy if dairy free seems to work, iyswim?

potter, silent means puke doesn't often come out - gets swallowed agian causing burning pain, etc

Zero experience of this, Nicky, but just wanted to congratulate you on ds2!

ta bernard. he is very cute when not crying!

And hope you get lots of useful advice from this thread

Fire hose was pretty accurate - I remember getting dressed one day and DH walked in with DD who had just started crying and lo and behold his doubling over with laughter as 4-5 jet streams of milk started flying out of my breasts across the room. I must be part cow or something!

Anyway, thought you might like to check out the kellymom site info page on reflux/silent reflux - if you scroll down it there's some helpful tips/suggestions on things you can try. I just remembered having read it and cutting down my caffeine intake did seem to help a wee bit. hth!

Hi my eldest had silent reflux and youngest the usual kind. Eldest did really well on ranitidine - within two weeks was about 90% improvement. Gaviscon did just make him constipated and therefore reflux worse - is a faff to give when BF as well. I would just stick with ranitidine if its silent reflux, that will reduce the acidity better anyway, gaviscon might stick things down a bit but for a silent refluxer that's not as important.

Are you doing all the keeping him upright after feeds stuff? Also bear in mind the dosage needs to be increased regularly, its very weight dependent so you'll have to get the beggar weighed more than you may otherwise have been bothered to do. He might start to fuss at feeds more in a few weeks, they seem to work out that its the feeding that causes the pain iyswim. It doesn't mean that the reflux is getting worse, you might just have to feed him little and often which is easier to do when BF anyway. HTH

thanks owl.
that is very helpful.
fingers crossed for a decent improvement!
kellymom is v.good, yes.