Reflux in 9yo any advice welcome!

[Anythingisjustfine]

So my daughter has had a morning cough for quite a long time. I took her to the GP a while back and they gave her an inhaler and things calmed slightly but I don’t know if it was summer or the inhaler now. Her coughing has become bad again, always in the morning. I’ve recently had a bout of reflux and putting the two together I think she actually has reflux instead of asthma now I’m worried it’s been so long we’ve been treating it wrong. The GP agreed and has prescribed her Omeprazole 20mg but it’s giving her awful stomach ache.

has anyone been through this with a child around this age and can give any advice for gentler meds/lifestyle changes that really made a difference?

I’m doing a lot of the standard things already, dinner early, bed raised, gaviscon advance before bed. Not sure what else to do… any diet recommendations? Shes always been a very burpy girl.

Does she complain of acid coming to her throat ?

@MuteDS she occasionally says she’s thrown up a bit in her mouth so I’m guessing that’s the same thing?

This morning the coughing was awful she said it felt like something was tickling or annoying her throat. The other day while she was eating breakfast she said she felt like something was stuck in her throat. She stops coughing almost completely an hour or so after waking up but continues to burp etc. the omeprazole is making her feel so sick. They’re supposed to be dispersable tablets (it says can be swallowed or dispersed in liquid) but they don’t disperse when I put them in water at all I imagine that’s the point of having a gastro resistant coating? She swallows then with water instead

Was she prescribed omeprazole? If so, those dispersible tablets are awful, my 11yr old has been on omep for a year now (due to reflux from coeliacs disease diagnosis and slowly tapering down), anyway you CAN get it in liquid form, they don't like prescribing it because it's more expensive and I had to FIGHT for it. I think what swung it was that my ds also has autism and so it was a sensory issue too for him drinking the dispersible one, as you say it's still lumpy and doesn't fully dissolve. Anyway the liquid one may be more easily tolerated, you need to speak to the GP to change the script to liquid and the pharmacist can only prescribe exactly what's on the paper.

Yes my middle child have same issue. I wonder the cause of reflux in small children so sad 💔

I have a 5 yo who has never outgrown her reflux, she's been on omperazole since she was 8 weeks so can't talk about starting it and she has swallowed the tablets since she was 3 so we don't have to worry about the dispersion. Its more important when they are little and on part of a tablet doses.
The drug itself isn't very soluble in water. It solubility is around 0.3 mg/ml so if you have 10ml of water the most you can get dissolved is 3mg! If you snap the tablets it two and put a few drops of hot water then add cold water up to the 10-20ml they generally disperse easier. It is important to get all the beads in so you could give it in larger volumes of water and drink it or do much smaller volumes and give it on a spoon and then a drink of water afterwards. When she was small we used to do this with apple puree.

Is she taking the 20 mg as one dose? My daughter is on 40mg but has it as two doses 20mg in the morning and evening and it's kept her more stable than when she was younger and only having it once a day (lower actual doses but same weight adjusted doses)

How propped up are they at night, my daughter has to be pretty much sat up in bed to feel the difference and has 4 pillows including a U Shaped pillow to keep her in position! She has a steamer at night if she has a cold and the extra snot triggers her reflux. Limit drinks before bed or thicken drinks. My daughter still has infant gaviscon to thicken her pre bedtime drink but can't have more than 200ml otherwise it triggers her reflux

My mum has hard to control reflux too and she finds that hers is worse if she is constipated. It's similar to why pregnant women get heartburn as the filled bowel pushes up the stomach.

It's important to have regular dental check ups. When my daughter was 3 and had an awful reflux relapse she started chewing on the refluxed acid in her sleep which caused a cavity