Reflux/Allergy - Desperate for Advice!

[antoinette2017]

My son was born prematurely at 29+2.
He is now 2 weeks corrected.

When in the hospital he was a model baby - taking milk (expressed breast milk initially fed through a tube and then via bottles and breast), sleeping for long spells between feeds and was generally very settled and happy.

However the day before he was discharged he was given his two month vaccinations and everything has gone down hill from there.

Since coming home he has developed a number of symptoms:

• intense screaming after every feed
• arching of the back and drawing up legs
• banging head against my chest and clawing at me
• very watery sounding, like gurgles and drips in his little tubes
• mucas and phlegm sounds
• grunting, straining and turning his face red
• choking on milk and saliva
• possetting (small but frequent)
• hates being on his back and will only sleep upright on me, dad or gran. Any time we put him down on his back he cries bloody murder or starts to sound very watery and choked me

Since leaving hospital he was on expressed breast milk thickened with carobel but the symptoms were getting worse. We were doing everything we could; warm baths, tilting his cot and nest until he was almost vertical(!), massage, tiger in tree, changing volumes to little and often...

He was eventually prescribed Ranitidine but we got no relief. He was then put on to Omeprazole and is already on the highest dose for his weight (having been quickly increased in the space of a week from 2.2ml to 6ml and now 9ml).

We are now looking at a potential milk allergy and he has been prescribed Neocate. He is now fully on this and has been for 24hrs.

The past 24hrs have been awful. Significant increase in the numbers of possets, constant crying and just seems very unhappy.

In 72hrs I've had 2.5hrs sleep and starting to feel really worn down. I'm worried my baby is in constant pain and we'll never get things sorted for him.

Has anybody had a similar experience?
Is his body just getting used to the change to Neocate? Is there something else we should be asking to get checked?

Any suggestions or help would be very welcome!!

Poor you, and poor baby too, it sounds really hard. You might want to get this moved to the allergies and intollerances area (just report your post and ask for it to be moved).

If it is Cmpa then it can take a couple of weeks for the cows milk proteins to leave their system. So if you are only 24 hours into Neocate then hang on in there, give it another couple of days and you'll notice a difference. There's a useful Cmpa Facebook group that might help. I take it he's solely on Neocate now? When I switched my baby it probably took about 3 days for them to be noticeably different, but each baby is different.

If the Neocate makes no difference then I suppose one way of looking at it is that you've ruled cows milk protein allergy out and you can concentrate on other avenues to find out what's wrong. It does sound like it could well be cmpa though from the symptoms you've listed.

It sounds like you and your baby have had a rough start but it'll get easier once you know what's causing it hopefully. When you come to weaning ask to see a dietician who can support you both