How long does infant gaviscon take to work?

[Tomicca]

Hi all me 12 week old BG has been given infant gaviscon as she was dropping her centiles. She is to have one sachet in the morning and one at night. The first 48 hrs this stuff was working well she wasn’t bringing anything up after a feed it was great! However, since yesterday afternoon and she has been back to bringing up milk after every feed.

Is this normal does it take a while to start working? I’m thinking I’ll give it a week then contact GP I don’t want to find at her next check up at 16 wks that her centiles are be dropping even more!

Call the go back about the dose and maybe starting omperazole alongside it.

The timing of the gaviscon is crucial is she breast or bottle feed? It has to be given with a feed to work as it mixes with the milk in the stomach to thicken it and stops in coming up
At 3 months we were giving 3 sachets a day with low dose omperazole as our GP said we could only give the gaviscon later in the day. At 4.5 months we had a review with paediatrician and he told us this was nonsense and put us on 6 sachets of gaviscon and high dose omperazole. At 5 months it was increased to 12 sachets if needed but we never needed more than 8-9

Is the sickness extreme? Given the drop of percentiles has anyone mentioned a dairy allergy?

Make sure they are timed with the biggest feed, go back to see if you can give it more than twice a day and then also ask about omperazole and dairy allergy.

Thanks for the info DD is bottle fed, when you say timing is crucial do you mean the time of day to give the gaviscon?

I saw the GP briefly today as I had DD in for immunisations do it was just in the passing but he agreed that I shoukd try to up the sachets. I’m going to try three a day and see how it goes, it’s good to know you can manage with 6!
Did you experience any constipation? So far we have been ok but keeping an eye out for it as my older DD had it and it was awful!

Gp said to me she is not exactly shrinking away which yes she is a healthy weight just now but considering how much her centiles have been dropping it needs nipped in the bud. It wasn’t a helpful comment to make but I guess he was just trying to say she looks healthy.

I am going to try 3 a day and if this doesn’t work I will contact my HV direct next week.

In my experience gaviscon just masks the symptoms of a dairy allergy. I'd go back to the gp and ask for dairy free formula (not just hydrolysed but fully dairy free) to trial or remove dairy from your diet if you're expressing (as you said bottle fed) rather than spent time and effort on gaviscon

OK I will ask about the dairy free formula milk, do you have to get this in prescription? I was told the reflux was likely caused by a weak sphincter muscle that needs to mature hopefully that’s what it is and it will pass!

The timing of the gaviscon on a feed. For breastfeeding in a syringe just before or immediately after the feed or for a formula fed in the feed. If reflux is worse when sleeping use the gaviscon in bottles before a nap or overnight sleep. All it does is thicken the feed that it is in so it's important to time it with feeds that are most likely to trigger the reflux

Dairy allergy isn't a bad idea. My daughter has both a dairy and reflux and reflux is a bigger problem for her. She has been symptom free for her allergies since 15 months but her reflux is still out of control despite high dose medication at 3. She is unusual.

You can buy dairy free formula but it is very expensive £20-30 a tin! There are two varieties extensively hydrolysed and amino acids. The extensively hydrolysed formulas are dairy based but it has been broken down so that some babies don't recognise it was dairy. This is usually the first port of call. The taste is more palatable, they are cheaper and it is beneficial to keep some dairy in their diet but only if it does cause symptoms. You nearly always will be asked to try one and some time two of these before they prescribe you an amino acid formula. We were prescribed 3 all of which were extensively hydrolysed and contained another of the allergens. They admitted defeat and didn't prescribe us any more. We paid to see a private paediatrician and he found us a suitable allergy (this is another thing where my daughter is the oddity and has many allergies). The amino acid formulas are completely dairy free and contain all of the individual components of dairy formula but in its constituent parts. Hence the name amino acids which are the build blocks of all proteins. These are expensive formulas and are very thin which can make reflux worse if not used with a thickener such as gaviscon and they also taste and smell foul so older babies can struggle to make the transition. It took us 2-3 months to move from breastfeeding to formula, not helped by a bottler aversion but the taste always a problem. Our dietitian was amazed by us making the change at 10 months! It does show that it's always possible!