silent reflux... help!

[aldeburgh]

Dd2 has been diagnosed with silent reflux at 5 weeks although has exhibited pretty much since home from hospital.
Cannot be laid down (even with Moses raised on books) even in the deepest sleep she wakes within minutes so we have been doing shifts holding her at night so we both get some sleep.
She has not gained weight well and has dropped centiles so advised to give a bottle an evening so i could sleep and hopefully help my supply (which is in doubt) and that was working well for a week and a half.
Dr prescribed ranitidine and we started that Saturday but she has been even more unsettled since taking it. I called gp but our fab one is away.... Got told to bring her in just to make sure we are not overlooking an infection... Gp i saw started to question the reflux diagnosis despite me trying to say i wasn't there for that reason just wanted to check ok to carry on with ranitidine and that she was ok. Gp said she was always sceptical of reflex diagnoses and suspected dd was hungry and that since i said i was not liking breastfeeding (i am exhausted and questioning my supply and stressed by my baby being so unwell i am hardly likely to feel warm about it) she said to stop bf and give formula.
I asked about special formula (regular gp had suggested that would be next avenue of investigation for cmpi) and she looked blank and said "i didn't even know you could get special formula" "!!!!!!!! Needless to say i left not knowing which way is up.
Is my baby hungry and can that manifest reflux symptoms???!
Could just one regular cows milk formula a day build up and cause her to be so so unsettled?
Is the ranitidine likely to upset her even hours after last dose? Am conscious that the worsening reflux could have happened anyway and its just the medicine hasn't kicked in yet?!?!
How quickly would dd settle if we switched her nightly bottle to hydrolysed formula? I have not had dairy for 3 weeks....
Help.

After countless trips to the GP we have finally been prescribed Neocate which is for CPI. I wouldn't say it has been like a switch but she went from taking 16/17oz to 29oz over night. Since then we have bottomed out at about 21-25oz a day so a big improvement. She looks better and is certainly much happier. I think we now have learnt behaviour. She associates the bottle with pain and will turn her head away at the sight of it but slowly we are getting there. I am not a 100% convinced we have got to the bottom of the problem as we have sudden screaming and she thrashes about so much in the moses basket that I find her hair embedded in the cot sheet in the morning. However we are a 1000 times better than we were a week ago. By some fortune we have a pediatrician appointment next Friday (initially for an issue with her eye) but I will be bringing up these issues there. Most of the GP's I have spoken to are skeptical of silent reflux. I think as a mother you know when something is wrong. We were told to take the rinitidine and gaviscon out but she was really grouchy so I re-started them again.

aldeburgh I am confused as to why starting on special milk would be set in stone. I know that some of them have a strange taste to them and older babies wont take it but there are so many different milks out there surely its a case of try it an see. We were on Pregestimil which is for cpi but in our case I think H might just be really sensitive. I dont think GP's like prescribing it because of the cost implications. We had Pepti for my daughter but that was for a lactose intolerance. Doesn't pepti still have cows protein in it? I have to say had we not got somewhere at the GP's last week I was seriously considering taking her to a private pediatrician. Have you checked out www.littlerefluxers.co.uk/? It is a great site with lots of help.

mummyandmimi
.. great news. hope things start to get better and better for yu all.
dd seems ok on the pepti ... congestion is better but that could be a coincidence. although today was really constipated. she strained for ages and passed a tiny pellet of playdough consistency poo so we have taken the gaviscon out as it was only thickening the pepti .
I really have hit an emotional low today. It feels like this is never going to get better. blub.

pepti is extensively hydrolysed so the proteins are easier to digest... though i am not certain dd is cmpi... she has some symptoms but i just wanted to rule it out with a trial... but gp seemed to have changed tack and a trial not possible? so confused. hope paed referral is quick.

i suspected my baby suffered from silent reflux a few days after she was born as she had many of the above symptoms, an hour after eating i would hear her swallowing something back, frquent hiccups, grunting, not settling , pulling faces, arching, choking, sneezing and looking generally uncomfy!
i went to the doctors and was given infant gaviscon (which made her much worse after a day or so, so much so she startedshowing signs of sandifers) and then to the walk in centre armed with a video of her at her worst, (to be told it was ;just colic' and that we were 'overfeeding her'-idiot doctor) and given domperidone andwas told these drugs took 4-6 weeks to work and then they might not after that. worst of all was seeing my little girl in discomfort and pain! i couldnt take another night of it!
anyway my mother in law suggested homeopathy so i rung someone i knew and he suggested nux vomica. started it on monday and noticed a difference straight away! by friday her synptoms were totally gone and she was a different baby! smiling loads and chilled out! and sleeping quietly!! cant believe the doctors would give us the drugs to use for months when this worked straight away! also had her tested for cow milk intolerance (not allergy) and this showed up she was so switched her to soya formua. cant stress how much this helped us please try this first it has made us enjoy our newborn instead of having no sleep and crying all the time!