anyone use enfamil ar because of silent reflux? I have some questions....

[Hazeyjane]

....do you make it up with fridge cold water, then warm it, or room temp water, and use immediately?

....did it take a while to make a difference?

....did your lo react badly to a change initially then get better?

....did it make a difference with silent reflux - I am slightly confused as to why it should work, seeing as it is intended to stop regurgitation.

thankyou!

oh and do you just use a normal teat or is it best to use one for thicker feeds?

I'm freaking out a bit here, ds is only 11 weeks, it feels all wrong to be giving him rice starch thickened formula, but it is what his consultant has recommended. We have just given him his first bottle of it and he is screaming even more than he normally does!

Help.

Hi Hazey,
No, haven't used that, but have used SMA Staydown for my LO's silent reflux. That's made with chilled water. We then warmed it under a hot tap.

It didn't agree with my LO I'm afraid, so we didn't persevere for very long. It did (more or less) stop the screaming but gave her dreadful constipation! Now using Ranitidine and Carobel, which are working well as a combo.

I totally sympathise with how you feel about giving him 'special' formula, I felt the same with DD, but our quality of life (including hers) is much, much better.

As I understand it, the difference between silent reflux and the normal sort is that with silent reflux they don't actually vomit, but the acid still comes up the oesophagus. The thickened feed doesn't come back up as easily.

We used the normal slow teats, as the SMA stuff thickens in the stomach, not the bottle.

I'm assuming you've been told all the basic stuff like sleeping your LO on a ramp, and feeding him upright.

Best of luck, sorry I haven't had experience of that exact formula, silent reflux is tough.

Thankyou skippingturtle, I suppose it makes sense that if it prevents regurgitation, then it will stop it gurgling back up as acid reflux too.

I sort of hoped that it would be instant, and ds would glug down a bottle and seem settled and happy, but it took the usual hour and a half to manage 3 or 4 oz, then lots of screaming.

I have had tons of tips from the reflux support thread, and one lovely m'netter sent me a wedge pillow, which ds loves (although he seems to love it so much that he on't sleep on it!)

I asked the consultant about ranitidine, but she said to try this first and see how we get on. It just seems to be such a long process of trying out different things, and all the while poor ds is so uncomfortable.

So at the moment, I am thinking I will fill the bottles with boiled water and leave to cool to room temp, then add powder as needed. This seems so wierd to me, because when f'feeding our dds I always made sure I followed the guidelines of using 70 degree water.

anyone else please

ds screamed all night

this can't be right, surely

Morning hazey

ds2 is bf, so can't help wrt formulas BUT it sounds like he despereately needs medication/different medication.

GO to A and E if you have to.

Poor you - it is the fucking pits. [sad}

I asked about enfamil on here when ds2 was bad - thought it might help, though in the end never used it. SOme found it did, some didn't. There is varied opinion of thickened feeds and silent reflux - some find it helps as liquid doesn't come up, some find it makes things worse as it hnags around longer iyswim, so the burning sensation asts longer.

Hope you get some help today.

thankyou nicky,

i will try and phone the drs when they open.

in the meantime i'm not sure what to do, give him his old formula? go back to gaviscon?

its all very well for the paed to say try it for 2 weeks - when 3 bottles make him scream like this.

how is your ds? nicky, hope things are quieter where you are

yy, 2 weeks is an eternity!

Your gut feeling is probably right - I've always found mine was/is.

If gaviscon wasn't much help then I'd have thought enfamil wasn't much good either?

Take some film of him upset at feeding time. Little buggers are always on best behavior at docs/hospital.

Has he had ranitadine, etc yet? I think we were quite lucky to get it so quickly for ds. No miracle cure by any means, but did help and still does.

Things are quieter and gradually improving, he's 17 weeks this week. Still VERY hard work but I am coping better abd he has happy spells, etc, which is lovvely.

I hope you get some decent help from docs. Not sure what you should feed him tbh. What do you think was least bad? The regular or the enfamil?

I used it with dd and it helped enormously. She was exclusively bf but was crying all the time and not sleeping well which was diagnosed by us paed as being silent reflux. She suggested 1 bottle of enfamil ar a day instead of one of the bfeeds. It helped enormously and almost immediately. Dd was 5 months when we started with the enfamil. I also put her to sleep on her belly (no other risk factors for sids in the family) which helped a lot too. Things got much better once she was totally on solids (11 months, if I remember correctly).

To answer your other questions, I seem to remember we made it up with cold boiled water (from kettle). Not sure why you would do it with fridge cold water?
It works on the theory that it is heavy so stays down in the stomach and doesn't rise back up through the weak flap at top of the stomach (which is what reflux is).
Gaviscon did not help dd.

Oh dear Hazey, I feel for you, having had lots of awful nights with my LO. I don't want to sound rude, but are there not instructions on the formula box for whether you need to use boiled chilled water, or room temperature water? I remember with SMA Staydown it had to be boiled first and then chilled i.e. refridgerated, rather than just room temperature.

In answer to your question about immediacy, we did notice a difference pretty much straight away with Ranitidine, but it wasn't enough on its own, hence the Carobel. My docs and HV were very helpful, but yes, trying out all the various levels of treatment is awful is when things aren't working. My HV explained that the reason they ask you to try something for a week or so is that the very act of changing formula can upset some babies for a couple of days, so they need to see that it's the formula, not the changing that's causing the problem. Doesn't make it any easier.

Gaviscon didn't help for us either.

Hi

I recently used Enfamil for my little one for his silent reflux. I boiled a kettle once a day then made up the formula with room temp water from that, once it had cooled down. I found I needed to go one teat size up (size 2) for it to flow, and still had some problems with blocking. I stopped using it because it gave my son bad constipation, and I have gone back on aptamil now (but continuing ranitidine). I would consider doing 50/50 aptamil and enfamil if he gets upset again at feeds, as I think it did help.

I wonder if your baby was screaming because it requires too much effort to get the enfamil out? Worth trying going up a teat size possibly.

thankyou everyone

We have stopped giving ds the enfamil, he looked like it was causing him real pain, I spoke to the dr, and she said that it should have a settling effect and certainly nor cause them to scream and cry!

She has recommended we try giving gaviscon, just at night, but tbh gaviscon makes such little differenc (apart from making ds constipated), that I'm not sure there is any point. She said to see how he gets on and will see us next Monday, if he still 'unsettled' she will prescribe Ranitidine - I'm not sure if we will get as far as Monday!

Skipping, not being rude at all! The reason I asked is that although it says room temp on the tin, on the leaflet it says cold, and on the website it says to keep the water in the fridge. I noticed when I made it up with room temp that it started to thibken really quickly, when it was fridge cold ds wouldn't drink it, but warming it made it start to thicken, so it wouldn't go through the teat. We tried using a larger teat, but ds isn't great with fast flow, and it just whooshed out of his mouth.