Omeprazole Experience

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Hi everyone

My 7 week old son has been diagnosed with silent reflux.

3 weeks ago he was prescribed Gaviscon, which initially seemed to work for a couple of days and then he got worse again and just ended up being constipated, which made him even more unwell.

A week later, we went back to the consultant who prescribed 1mg of Omeprazole (3.5ml a day in the morning) and then told us to only give ½ a sachet of Gaviscon with each feed. A week after that, we took him to A&E as he was so unsettled and screaming in pain. He advised us to stop the Gaviscon and just continue with the Omeprazole. I had mentioned to him that he was currently on Kendamil Organic and I had seen on various forums that Kendamil aggravated reflux and a lot of mums swore by HIPP Organic and said how it massively helped with reflux and he advised us to give it a go to see if that makes any improvement.

He hasn't had any Gaviscon since last Thursday and we switched to HIPP on the Friday and saw a massive improvement. Wasn't constipated and seemed to massively help his reflux. He settled in the day and was even starting to sleep well at night and my husband and I finally thought we'd turned a corner. However on the Monday we started to notice he was being a little sick after feeds and a little unsettled. By Monday evening he was back to not sleeping again - if he wasn't sick, he was extremely windy, gassy, burpy. Today, (Tuesday) he was bringing up more milk after feeds and taking over 2hrs to settle and not wanting to lay down and in constant pain and discomfort. He was still swallowing sick a good 2hrs after a feed and screaming when laying down.

I'm at my whits end and desperately need some advice regarding the medication. He's been on Omeprazole for 2 weeks - should we have started to see some sort of an improvement by now? He is currently on 1mg (3.5ml 1x a day), could it be he needs a higher dose? Is there another thickening agent that he can have alongside the Omeprazole that won't constipate him as much? I've seen a lot of people talk about carobel, but I've read that it shouldn't be taken alongside Omeprazole.

Any help/experiences would be so appreciated

It took 3.5 weeks for the omeprazole to kick in properly for DS2. It felt like a lifetime.

It'll take time for him to get used to the change in milk as well. Especially as he's used to the Gaviscon thickening the milk.

Only thing that worked for us was feeding smaller feeds more often.

Have they ruled out a milk allergy? We tried everything with DD3 and only a change to dairy (and soya) free formula solved it.

That's reassuring to know that it took 3.5 weeks to properly kick in, i was worried as I thought we should've started seeing improvements as I've seen mum's on the forum saying they'd noticed a difference after just a week.

I added ½ sachet of Gaviscon to his 11:30pm feed and he wasn't sick and settled within 30mins of his bottle and he's still asleep now at 4am. So he definitely does need a thickening agent. I'm hoping ½ sachets will be better digested now he's on a different milk.

Yep, we feed him 70ml - 80ml every 3hrs currently so he's on very small feeds. He's 7 weeks old, but only weighs 7lb4oz. Struggled with weight gain due to the reflux and we believe the Kendamil not agreeing with him, as since he's been on HIPP the past 5 days he's gained 4oz already.

I suggested to the pediatrician about it being a milk allergy and they have ruled it out due to not having any rashes, and his stools not having any mucus or blood in them.

I should mention as well he was born at 37 weeks as well, and had awful tongue tie which we had to pay privately to snip when he was 3 weeks old due to midwives and NHS not wanting to know, (despite him not feeding or gaining weight) so I don't know whether that's contributed to his reflux.

@ARichtGoodDram

That's reassuring to know that it took 3.5 weeks to properly kick in, i was worried as I thought we should've started seeing improvements as I've seen mum's on the forum saying they'd noticed a difference after just a week.

I added ½ sachet of Gaviscon to his 11:30pm feed and he wasn't sick and settled within 30mins of his bottle and he's still asleep now at 4am. So he definitely does need a thickening agent. I'm hoping ½ sachets will be better digested now he's on a different milk.
Yep, we feed him 70ml - 80ml every 3hrs currently so he's on very small feeds. He's 7 weeks old, but only weighs 7lb4oz. Struggled with weight gain due to the reflux and we believe the Kendamil not agreeing with him, as since he's been on HIPP the past 5 days he's gained 4oz already.

I suggested to the pediatrician about it being a milk allergy and they have ruled it out due to not having any rashes, and his stools not having any mucus or blood in them.

I should mention as well he was born at 37 weeks as well, and had awful tongue tie which we had to pay privately to snip when he was 3 weeks old due to midwives and NHS not wanting to know, (despite him not feeding or gaining weight) so I don't know whether that's contributed to his reflux.

My daughter is 4.5 y and has been on omperazole since 8 weeks!
She has stubborn reflux and found she needed high doses of omperazole to get the benefits as well as gaviscon and lactulose for the constipation.
Her GP was keeping her on a low dose of omperazole which reduced her sickness but did nothing for her silent reflux which was more severe than her physical reflux. We were getting her dose weight adjusted every month which would help for a week or so but then she would be back to square one before the end of the second week. She's always been on the tablets rather than the liquids and have found she's needs the highest dose to get any longer term relief from her reflux.