Silent reflux and omeprazole

[whatssleepgottowithit]

Hi there, first time poster here and looking for some advice or insights from others whose babies have been prescribed omeprazole for silent reflux.

My son has been suffering since about 3 weeks old with pain after every feed, crying, stiffening his hold body and I can hear him bringing up milk although he is never actually sick ever. The doctor prescribed infant gaviscon which we used for a week and saw no improvement so she prescribed omeprazole.

He is now 8 weeks old and on his fourth day of taking the omeprazole and he seems worse than ever. We just have no moments throughout the say where he is just happy and not crying. He goes from askew in the sling to feeding to crying to back in the sling to calm him down.

I was looking to hear from any others whose little ones were on omeprazole about how long it took to see improvements? Or if there were no improvements what the next steps were for you? I feel at a loss and have no idea how to help him when he's clearly in pain.

I should add he is on comfort milk and has very very loose poos, even more so since the omeprazole, so I am wondering whether to switch his milk again but not sure what would be best.

Tia to anyone kind enough to reply

Hi there, my DD is on omeprazole for silent reflux. She was much like your son, always seemed in pain with feeding, lived in a sling, only taking small amounts and screaming! It was a hellish time so you have my sympathy. She’s now 5 months and so much better. She still needs the medication daily and we will try to wean her off once she’s established on solids. It took a while to get the correct dosage for her as she needed quite a high dose for it to have an effect. So definitely contact your gp again if there’s been no change.
I hope you have a lot of support and people to give you a break because I struggled a lot but I can honestly say he will get better 💐

Just to add, we also switched milks to a non dairy formula as my health visitor thought the reflux could have been caused by a cows milk protein allergy, however this only made her worse. But it might be worth mentioning to the gp if your son has other symptoms also as I know other babies have improved on non dairy formulas.

It could be why they call acid battle, there’s quite a bit of info about it on US sites if you Google. I’d give it another week at least before you go back to the GP. I know that seems like forever when your baby is suffering. I’d also be considering whether they have cows milk protein intolerance with the loose stools. They were my child’s only symptoms initially, they developed eczema months later.
Have you read about paced feeding and keeping them upright for a good 20 mins after a feed?

Thankfully my DS grew out of his Silent Reflux at 5 months old and my god it was like having a different child! You really have my sympathies.

We had both Gaviscon and Lansoprazole. They both worked to a degree but not entirely. Probably what worked better was Reflux Formula or Carobel. We combi-fed so this only really worked when he had bottles, but he would chug them back really easily and had no problems at all.

Aside from that I would breastfeed him at an angle, hold him upright for 20 mins minimum after feeding, carry him in a sling, switched to the chair part of the pram pretty rapidly so he could be at a slight angle rather than flat in the carry cot. But you've probably tried all this yourself.

I think what stopped our troubles was him learning to roll at 4 months, by 5 months he was rolling across entire rooms and burps started coming out on their own. He was always really hard to burp which I think contributed to his reflux.

The crying will end eventually I promise.

My dd was on it but also a very high dose but also on rinatadine which I think really helped her.
Are you keeping him upright after feeds?
Also a wedge for under her mattress really helped.

It's an awful time, I really feel for you.

Hi OP, my DS (8 months) has been on omeprazole for silent reflux since he was 6 weeks old. It took about a week for us to see a real improvement in him when he started and we’ve needed to up the dosage as he’s grown (he’s now on 20mg a day at just under 9kg, which is a hefty dose!). However, he also has a cows milk protein allergy, and it was the combination of neocate and the omeprazole which really worked for him. Our indicators for CMPA were erratic bowel movements - sometimes really loose, sometimes constipated - and the stomach pain/cramps. Eventually he also developed eczema, but this didn’t happen immediately with him so this may not be the sane for your DS, but it might we worth talking to your GP about?
His reflux has been under control during the day for a while, but his sleep was still awful. It was only when a sleep consultant mentioned that she suspected he had a tongue tie that we got it checked out and low and behold he had both a lip and posterior tongue tie. We had them cut about 5 weeks ago now, as they can cause a lot of air to be swallowed when feeding which can impact reflux. that combined with learning to crawl and pull up has really helped his reflux to become less of a problem. Maybe it’s worth getting a lactation consultant or other specialist to check for a tongue/lip tie? Might not be the case but it definitely helped us!

Have you tried amptimil anti reflux. X

• Aptamil. X

We didn't get my dds meds right until she was 9 months old. Was utter hell until then as she couldn't sleep in longer than 20 min spurts and only upright. I don't know how any of us survived the 9 months of screaming. Omeperazole combined with ranitidine (although I think that might have been withdrawn now?) is what finally worked for dd. She outgrew the silent reflux at 2 years and cows milk allergy (they often go together) at 3 years. I regret not standing up to the gp more, every visit I was fobbed off. Once a gp even told me to show my dd toys. Still angry about that.

Omeprazole saved ds1's life. He was ftt because his reflux was so bad. He went from below the 1 percentile to the 90th after he went on the drug.

It took about a week to really kick in, then he improved massively. He did have a ph probe to check he was reacting well, as the paed did say some children don't react well to it.

He also had CMPA so had to be cow's milk free. It is a very common cause of reflux. If you are ff, you could try the elemental formula to see if that makes the difference.

Ah, yes, ds1 had ranitidine too.

Thank you so much to all of you who have responded and all the advice and kind words.

We have already been doing the sitting up after each feed, winding after every few ounces and his cot is at an incline. Strangely he doesn't seem to mind being flat on his back on his playmat too much the last week or so he does hate the carrycot of his pram though and he despises the car seat!

The doctor did mention the possibility of it being caused by an allergy to cows milk, so if the omeprazole doesn't seem to be working still in a weeks time I will ask to trial the prescription formula and see does that help.

I haven't switched his milk from cow and gate formula which he's been on the last 5 weeks because I didn't want to do that and the omeprazole at the same time for fear of one of them helping the situation and then me not knowing which one was the cure! I will change his milk though shortly as I think it's hard to know if the comfort milk is what is causing his stools to be runny, and for the last couple days also army green, or if it's a possible allergy, or something else.

@lisaandalan would you recommend aptamil anti reflux for silent reflux then? Did it work for your little one? I hadn't actually considered that it would as the gaviscon didn't work and that did make the milk much thicker, but would be willing to try it. Did you use it alongside and other medications?

@NoSleepNoImagination interestingly I've just been in touch with a tongue tie specialist as I'm quite sure he has a lip tie, she has suggested often if they have lip tie they also have a tongue tie. She did say though they won't treat lip tie, did you have it snipped or just the tongue tie? My older son who is 3 has a very pronounced lip tie which has caused a big gap between his front teeth now and he was very similar as a newborn, so unsettled after every feed, but we just put it down to wind and waited for him to grow out of it. The result was a baby who didn't sleep for nearly a year and it nearly broke me so I always said if I have another I would do anything I could to avoid that again!

Ah I feel your pain! It’s absolutely hideous. Omprezole worked pretty instantly for our DS, however, we moved him to HIPP anti reflux milk at the same time, so not sure if it was a combination that worked for him. The first time he took that milk feed and we were able to lie him down to sleep we both cried with relief.

It was honestly dreadful.

At about 7 months he grew out of it entirely and was weaned off the omprezole, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We were also tried on other milks as the original thought process was that it was an intolerance, but they all just made it so much worse, it was definitely silent reflux.

We also spent a small fortune on bottles and settled with dr browns, which also seemed to help the situation slightly.

My eldest grew out of it around 11 months and didn’t have CMPA, I trialled a dairy & soya free diet for 2 weeks and it made no difference. Omeprazole made things much better.

My youngest is still suffering at 4 yrs old. Has been on Ranitadine (before it was withdrawn) Omeprazole, Domperidone and adult Gaviscon, the last 3 all at the same time and is still suffering, although they have grown out of the CMPA. The allergy formula with Carobel to thicken it helped the most I think. Paced feeding also helped.

@whatssleepgottowithit We had both snipped by Dr Levinkind privately. It was pricey, but we were desperate because (as you may have guessed from the username!) that we weren’t getting any sleep. He explained that a severe enough lip tie can also contribute to feeding difficulties and aerophagia that makes reflux worse, but that lost lip ties aren’t that bad.