Has anyone successfully treated their child's sever acid reflux without using loads of heavy duty drugs?

[spotofcheerfulness]

Hi there, will try and keep the backstory short - basically DS who is 3 months old has severe reflux and has been hospitalised for 4 weeks of his life because of it. He is on omeprazole, domperidone, gaviscon, neocate formula and now something to help him poo as he's badly constipated by the gaviscon.

This seems an extraordinarily large amount of drugs, and although he has very high levels of acid according to his PH test and a hiatus hernia as a result of all the refluxing, I can't help but question if he's really getting the right care. His poor body has only really ever known full-on drugs, for a condition that is based around a weak muscle at the top of the stomach that should hopefully mature in time.

Don't get me wrong, I know his condition is bad at the moment but can't help but wonder if the amazing number of things that are thrown at him aren't making it worse.

It's such a complex condition, but I was wondering if anyone had had a child with sever reflux and opted out of the whole conventional medical rollercoaster?

I'm not normally attracted to the woo wide of things and like stuff to make sense to me, but having seen a cranial osteopath the other day who was making sense (but who has urged me to come off the meds, something I think needs to be done carefully, if at all) I am now questioning the alternative treatment approach.

TIA.

No don't take him off the meds and leave him in pain. If you had reflux that severe you would take medication for it. The one thing you might be able to leave is the gaviscon - I have found it to be a complete waste of time for both mine who had severe reflux and it does really constipate. Why is he on neocate, is he showing symptoms of CMP intolerance other than the reflux?

You will get loads of people on here saying how great cranial osteopathy is but I fail to understand how manipulating the bones of the head will strengthen the muscle at the top of his stomach or reduce the amount of acid the stomach produces.

Do not take him off meds

Severe reflux is very painful

My DS had bad silent reflux - meds were the only thing which helped

It can take months and months for the digestive system to mature to stop the refluxing

Would you take yourself off meds for a severe medical condition?

Am all for complementary treatments but just that - complementary to a doctor prescribed treatment. I think it is foolhardy of a CA to urge you to take your baby off meds

Thank you - I am sure you're right, just spend so much time second guessing his treatment - and as he is still in a lot of pain I'm just wondering if it's really helping.

The Gaviscon is a nightmare, but it really does seem to help the symptoms. Really bad for plugging him up, he's not had a proper poo since we left hospital, all induced by glycerine chips and accompanied by serious screaming.

The neocate was the dietician at the hosp hoping that if he had the most gentle formula then they could at least rule out digestive related pain.

It's just I've read a lot of anti Omeprazole stuff on t'interweb and it's making me doubt everything.

We're also due to have an endoscopy on 14 April and I'm not sure if it's worth it or not - a general anaesthetic in order to see something they would only treat in exactly the same way they already are...

Step away from google!

You can get a second, proper, medical opinion

Is he bottle fed? If so, you might need to consider changing the formula, as the reflux is a result of stomach struggling to digest the formula, after all it's not human milk, let's hope someone comes along to offer formula advice.

It might also help to give him smaller feeds more often, you don't want to damage his oesophagus by frequent refluxing.

In theory, you shouldn't need the meds, but it's hard if you don't know what to give him so he doesn't reflux.

One herb that you could use to make up his feeds is chamomile. It is very soothing to the stomach. Make a weak tea with an organic chamomile teabag and use this as the water for his formula. It might really help him.

It's a lot of meds for a tiny baby. If they are helping then at least you know its only short term. Do ensure that he is being seen very regularly and his meds are being monitored.

I guess I'm only thinking that neocate is really thin..and if gaviscon is helping because it thickens the milk you could try a thicker formula or try putting a milk thickener in..we liked carobel when we used EBM cos it didn't seem to constipate. When we FF we used cow & gate comfort because it was a bit thicker than normal.

I'm guessing they've already done PH test / barium xray business then?

Omeprazole is not the evil thing it is made out to be btw.

They did a PH and it showed severe reflux, but weirdly most at night when he's least antsy. Will ask doc about formula, either way we need to do something as his poor digestive system is knackered.
Barium meal showed the hiatus hernia and the endoscopy is supposed to show the extent of the damage but they;ve admitted there's nothing they could do anyway...

thank you all for taking the time to reply, i do appreciate it. it's such an exhausting, relentless time and i keep wondering if i'm doing what's best. the internet can be a source of confusion wrt reflux but thank god for mn!

Spot,

I am surprised he is not on ranitadine. Our v refluxy baby was on this plus gaviscon and it was really useful. Is omeprazole a newer h+ inhibitor? I would definitely NOT take him off all meds. The antacids reduce the pain from the acid and the gaviscon allows him to hold feeds down. Without them, he could lose weight drastically (ours hit the 0.4th centile) and develop long term eating aversion. On the other hand, I have to say I have not read anything good about domperidone. It was prescribed for our son and we never gave it to him after I read that there had only been a few small scale studies in infants, none of which had shown any real benefit but had shown some dangerous heart arrhythmias.

Early weaning can also be a positive. With our first son, we started him on a little baby rice from 3.5 months, albeit against the advice of our paediatrician. New research has, however, shown that early weaning is not the demon that it was made out to be, especially onto really simple and sterile foods.

Ultimately, as your baby becomes more upright (sits up, starts to cruise) his reflux will (almost certainly) self resolve as gravity pushes the food down and you can gradually wean him off the meds.

I think that what you want to do is seek a second opinion with a good paediatrician/paediatric dietician (or both) and challenge him with your own research on the meds.