Would gaviscon help with CMPA?

[tinylove]

5 months old DS has had reflux symptoms since birth. He is bottled fed and gaining weight as expected. We switched to comfort milk and he was put on gaviscon which helped a lot. Over the last month he's gotten a lot worse and now GP has referred to paediatrics to check there's not an underlying cause but didn't mention what? I mentioned CMPA as it has crossed my mind he could perhaps have a mild version of it but the GP seemed pretty dismissive but I'm not sure what else it could be?

Could it be CMPA if the gaviscon is still helping lots (just one bottle without it and he vomits lots more and is an absolute nightmare until his next feed). My gut is telling me that the milk just doesn't agree with him and it would explain why he's better on comfort milk (I've been reading this can help, but obviously not cure babies with CMPA as the milk is more broken down?)

TIA

Cmpa can cause reflux and reflux can be independent of reflux and reflux can be just reflux and nothing to do with an allergy.

Unhelpfully it means that having some improvement from gaviscon does rule cmpa in or out. The only thing that would do this is the controlled removal and then reintroduction of dairy. For a formula fed baby this would be a trial on a dairy free formula form around 4 weeks to see if there is an improvement and after this you give a bottle a day with 1 more scoop of dairy formula for example day 1 1scoop dairy formula 4 of dairy free. 2 and 3 the next day, 3 and 2 the day after and so on

Dairy free formula comes in 2 varieties "extensively hydrolysed" which does contain dairy but it's broken down enough for some babies to be ok. For those that aren't ok there are amino acid formulas which only contain the components of dairy but has never been dairy ever.

You can buy the formula but it is pricey around £20 for a 400g tin but one tin might enough to help and get the GP to prescribe it. Pepti and nutramigen are common extensively hydrolysed formulas. Have you spoke to your HV about it's as ours was quite good at advocating for my daughter with our GP. I was breastfeeding at the time so didn't need formula prescribing but she helped with the reflux. Has anyone recommended omperazole for the reflux my daughter needed high dose omperazole, gaviscon and a diet free from her allergens to bring her reflux under better control

Thanks superscientist I'm now waiting for the hospital to contact me (I chased them up today) so I will talk to them about all this. Feel I do need to give it a try to rule it out completely as that's what my gut is telling me.

I hope they are able to help! Good luck!
It was paeds that eventually put us in the allergy pathway. He said "it's not going to work but you can try" where as the gp just said "it absolutely isn't there's no point trying". It's only a small difference but it opened up a window of chance and for us that was the magic to stop her screaming. She's was 4.5 months so only a little younger that yours. We saw a big improvement within the first week or two

Apart from reflux does he have any other symptoms of allergy? Rash, mucus poops, green poop? If not I would get him checked for a tongue tie. Preferrably by a tongue tie practitioner and not the NHS. My daughter had a posterior tongue tie that caused reflux and colic as she couldn't suck/latch on the bottle properly so was swallowing heaps of air. NHS in my area wouldn't have recognised a posterior tie.

superscientist thank you! Isn't it frustrating when they won't listen!

imdoneattwo he did have a couple of green/mucous poos on normal formula but not since he's been on the comfort milk. His latch wasn't the best initially so that could be contributing but I'm not sure that's the main issue, two midwives supposedly checked him for tongue tie at his 5 and 10 day check but like you say they could have missed it.

It's so hard to know. When my daughter was younger she used to choke on the bottle, cough, spill most of it down her chin and also make a clicking noise when sucking. She had to have the size 0 mam teats which is for premie's so the flow was as slow as possible. We got her tongue tie snipped at 5 weeks but it really took a few months to notice a difference! I hope you can get to the bottom of it.