Is this even reflux? Please help (plus CMA questions)

[LadyRenoir]

So for a long time we suspected our LO has reflux. All signs on heaven and Earth point to it- spittingup feeds, crying after feeds (or during), swallowing feeds that come up his oesophagus which we can hear...
He has also become extremely uncomfortable on his belly- he used to fell asleep on our chests which was so cute and we loved it, or just lie on us while we read a book,now he squirms and wriggles and cries. He is only comfortable held on our shoulders when we move, so sitting on the sofa with him on the shoulder is a no go.
Funnily enough, when put in a sling, if I sit down, he can actually fall asleep on my chest- but won't do it when not in the sling???
Anyways, today we hit a new low. He is usually not great sitting on my lap after feeds. Once the feed is finished, we put him on our shoulder or in the bouncer where he can sit for some time. Except that today he could not sit for a second on my lap. He was so hungry, but could not take the bottle into his mouth as he was so upset sitting up. I ended up putting him in his bouncer and feeding him sitting next to him on the floor and he took the whole bottle.
I am mortified we will have to feed him like this all the time now?

He is on ranitidine for reflux, but after the first few days of what I thought was an improvement came this.

We are seeing paediatrician in a month which will seem like forever. We enquired about CMA testing, but at 3 months, she said out boy is too young and she would prefer to wait. And she never mentioned testing, but changing milk and seeing if it helps (so not sure what happens if it is not related to cow milks allergy????)

We are at a stage when we are happy to fork out money for private testing if needed be but a) is there any point at 3 months? b) where can we do it c) can we then take the results to NHS and demand a different formula? We are London based for reference.

There are two different types of CMPA, ige which shows up in testing and non-ige which doesn’t. So you could get a negative test result but baby could still have non-ige CMPA.

The only way to diagnose it is to eliminate all cow’s milk and see if symptoms improve. So if baby is formula fed (which I’m assuming based on your post) it’s a very simple matter of switching to a hypoallergenic formula. Most doctors prescribe Nutrimagen to start with, it still has the proteins but they are very broken down so easier to digest, and most babies are fine on it. But sometimes they need Neocate which has no proteins at all. Neocate is more expensive so they are likely to prescribe Nutrimagen first.

If baby’s symptoms don’t improve on either Nutrimagen or Neocate, then you would look at other causes.

Check out the NICE guidelines for suspected CMPA in babies. If GP has been unhelpful in the past I suggest you print and take the guidelines with you.

PS I meant to say, just ask your GP for Nutrimagen on prescription. If they refuse you can just buy it yourself, then if baby’s symptoms improve you can use that to argue for a prescription.