Omeprazole causing more problems!

[PL2021]

DD has been on omeprazole for 6 days now for her reflux, but now we have even more problems! Whereas it seemed to be starting to make an improvement to her reflux pain, she is now in horrendous pain with constipation and excessive gas!

She has screamed and screamed all day, I did a tummy massage this morning and she passed a very firm poo. After her next feed she then screamed again, but this time a tummy massage or warm bath didn't help to pass anything.

We have taken her to an out of hours GP tonight who has said she is full of wind the poor little thing. She isn't taking her feeds properly today either because by the time she is half way through she then starts screaming in pain and won't take anymore.

This Dr suggested perhaps trying Carobel without the Omeprazole and giving some lactulose aswell to keep the constipation at bay, but then he also said dont stop the Omeprazole yet and to speak to my GP first (who has been pretty useless so far if I'm honest, had numerous arguments with them).
We haven't tried any wind drops in her bottles as all of the side effects of these is also constipation so we don't want to make things worse again. We have tried gripe water which doesn't seem to shift any of the wind which baffles me.

So really what my the question I'm trying to ask is, should I give her the Omeprazole in the morning or should I just stop it now? Or is stopping it suddenly going to cause an issue? But she has only been on it 6 days so not too long of a time.

We've had 5-6 weeks of hell and nothing is getting any easier and I am at the end of my tether and feeling extremely down

Any advice would be appreciated

How old is DD?
My DS had a similar drug (lansoprazole).
Could try a couple of things- give it at night instead of morning, or split the dose and try half in morning and half in evening.

I’d also probably use the lactulose too to get things back to normal.

I’m slightly biased as lansoprazole saved my sanity after months of horrendous reflux.

She is 7 weeks old. We are collecting the lactulose in the morning as unfortunately there are no out of hours pharmacies open tonight near us.

It does seem to be helping her reflux but causing such bad issues the other end that we don't know what to do anymore

Thank you for your advice

DS was born with a tongue tie. His feeding difficulties weren’t as severe as your daughter’s but in the early weeks he was refusing the breast, fussing and crying over his bottles, had an enormous appetite and brought up impressive amounts of milk after every feed.

DS would:
-choke on bottles
-fall asleep while drinking only to wake up hungry as soon as he was put in his cot
-he preferred narrow teats because he couldn’t open his mouth very wide
-if he was asleep or had just woken up he would happily take his bottles but if he was wide awake he would take a few gulps, spit out the bottle and scream a bit, take a few more gulps and so on
-at first he couldn’t stick his tongue out. At about 6 weeks he started sticking his tongue out a little bit and there was a notch at the tip of his tongue when he stuck it out.

Does your daughter have the same problems?

@seaborgium hmm that doesn't sound too much like her symptoms really. When it was her reflux alone playing her up with no constipation, she would take her bottles okay but would just scream for hours afterwards and want even more milk I'm assuming to comfort and sooth her throat. But now since she's having the constipation and trapped wind problems aswell, she'll start her bottles but within a couple of ounces she is screaming in pain and won't take any more, even though I'm pretty sure she wants it. She usually takes 5-6 ounces every 4 hours but now it's 3-4 at most before she is screaming the house down and won't stop no matter how much we comfort her. The only way she's comfortable is lay flat on her back but then she just brings milk up due to her reflux. It's a viscious cycle

I havent give her the omeprazole today and I can already tell her reflux is starting to aggravate her again as when she is asleep she is really stretching her neck up and swallowing lots, and I can hear it gurgling in her throat. I want to try carobel instead of the omeprazole but am reluctant to try anything else until she is going to the toilet normally again