13 month old still suffering with reflux

[Penguin92]

Evening Ladies,

My son is now 13 months old and has suffered with reflux his whole life.

We have been on omeprazole since about 2 months old and we recently stopped giving it to him as it’s gotten much better.

Since then (about 2 months ago) it’s been a bit random. Some weeks there’s hardly anything coming out and other weeks it’s multiple times per day. So I spoke to the GP and she basically wasn’t very concerned at all because he’s gaining weight and is generally happy and healthy. She said if we were ok dealing with the spit up then just stop giving the omeprazole for good. I recently noticed there could be a link to tomatoes so she said try removing tomatoes for two weeks. We’re now 1.5 weeks in and he’s been sick less but still there’s been at least 3/4 bouts of spit up in that period. As an aside, weirdly his nursery say they’ve never ever seen him spit up (he’s there full time).

So now I’m wondering what to do because I know there’s a risk to the oesophagus when they get to about the 18 months mark which can lead to tastebuds being affected. The doctor tells me this is only really where it’s chronic sickness but I’m not really convinced and wondering if a specialist would agree.

Should I be pushing to have him referred to a paediatrician? I’m not really worried about him, I would just hate to find out in years to come that this has damaged his oesophagus.

If you got this far, thanks for reading !!

My DD’s reflux didn’t resolve fully until she was around 19 months which is when I was able to finally get her off infant gaviscon.

Is your son walking yet? This was the game changer for my DD. She took her first steps at 15 months, fully walking confidently by 16.5 months and that’s when I noticed a big difference.

That being said, my GP did say if her reflux hadn’t resolved by the time she was walking he’d refer her for allergy testing so might be something to look into.

Ds2 was on prescription formula for reflux and under a paediatrician for it. They recommended a dummy to prevent scarring of the oesophagus and he had that until he was about 3. We stopped the formula at around 15 months as we could get enough calcium in him with cheese/yoghurt but he wouldn't drink any form of milk, follow on, cow's, goat's, oat, almond we tried it all.

Sadly the reflux has never stopped, just lessened. He is almost 16 years old and still has it occasionally. When he was a toddler he constantly had a cup of water to drink which he sipped at a lot. We bought a cheap carpet and already had a carpet cleaner as Ds1 had also had reflux but to a much lesser extent.

They can blame me as I have reflux. I hate to say it but Ds2 would wake with reflux about 1 hour after going to bed and would come downstairs needing a glass of milk (started drinking it around 3 1/2 years old) he did this until he was around 8 years old. Not every night but 3 nights a week. Didn't make any difference what food he had eaten. His portions have always been smaller than they should as he never wants to over-fill his stomach.

Sorry that your son is suffering. I hate it when they say they are fine because they are gaining weight and happy and yet sicking up your lunch regularly must be awful.

@Vicky1989x yes he’s just started walking confidently, fingers crossed it’ll help!
@OnTheBenchOfDoom ah sorry to hear your son still suffers. My son is breastfed, never had formula. We tried gaviscon in some expressed milk when he was tiny but he just didn’t take to the bottle.

Did you have to give omeprazole or similar proton pump inhibitor after he stopped formula?

Dts didn't come off omeprazole until 18 months.

@Penguin92 He started on gaviscon but it made no difference and the GP was unhappy to try anything else with a baby so referred us but we had private health insurance so were seen within a few days by the consultant. He didn't like going straight to medicating if he could try the formula (I think it thickened on contact with stomach acid) and he had had a lot of success with reflux babies using that.

When we came to take him off the formula we weaned him off it, he was happily drinking water with meals and so we just watched for any increase in sicking up. There seemed to be no real difference so stopped and he didn't require anything else. The dummy massively helped, I hated it but he definitely needed it.

If you’ve noticed a possible link to tomatoes, could you ask for a referral for allergy testing? It could be an allergy that’s aggravating the reflux. Plus you’ve mentioned you’re breastfeeding, have you cut tomatoes out of your diet too?

@OnTheBenchOfDoom ah ok that makes sense!

@IDontDrinkTea no I didn’t cut them out of my diet because to be honest I wasn’t thinking it was an allergy, just that the actual tomatoes were too acidic for him but maybe I should try that. Will mention allergy testing to the GP.

Thanks all!

Just out of interest, are you dairy free? As if the reflux is due to an underlying cow's milk protein intolerance then he could be reacting to dairy in your breast milk? I don't know if you express and he has a bottle at nursery but if not that could explain why he's fine there.

My daughter was put on prescription formula just before 6 months but the reflux flared again around 9-10 months then disappeared when switched her to oat milk when she was 1. I think as the prescription formula nutramigen is just extensively broken down cow's milk protein she became sensitised and this settled after the switch to oat milk.

You could trial dairy free if you wanted and see if it makes any difference? Generally babies grow out of CMPI by 2 so associated reflux may improve as become more tolerant and that's why it looks like grow out of the reflux but may have been CMPI all along... It's a big faff though and you'd need to do it for at 2-3 weeks to see if any improvement.

My daughter is on omeprazole at 4.5, has been since she was one. She was on ranitidine before this, and for a while was on both.

Tomatoes definitely aggravate hers. As does fatty foods, and strangely bananas. She also struggles to eat a lot of acidic fruit.

We have done standard allergy testing for dairy and wheat, and she has had bloods taken and she is fine. Slightly anaemic because of the omeprazole.

She is pretty stable now. We just use gaviscon if she is symptomatic (she coughs), or if she has something I know is going to be an issue. I don’t like to overly restrict her diet all of the time.

Starting walking was what stopped my son's, once he was spending more time on his feet than sitting/crawling around. Cruising didn't make any difference, I guess because he crawled as well. He started walking at 14 months and within a month his reflux had stopped.