Hi, I am new here and am hoping for some help please! I have a 3.5 month old who has had bad reflux from about 10 days old and is now bottlefed on Neocate. Overall I would say he is better than before but for some reason every time we add a new medication he is okay for a couple of days then goes backwards again. At the moment he is on 10mg losec twice daily,merbentyl,prepulsid and thickener in feeds. We also give him infacol which I really don't know if it works. He has such a big concoction of meds but he has been quite bad the last few days and it's getting so tiring and really expensive to keep going back to the specialist. Does anyone know what else could be done? He has also had a chest xray and barium swallow done to rule out other problems and the specialist thinks that there is no doubt it is reflux. Please help!

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Hi my miss was like your wee one was on neocate,max dose of meds and was still not a great deal of difference,it wasnt till about 15 months things got a wee bit easier by then she was booked to have her nissen which shes had and i have no regrets what so ever.Hugs its hard to see your wee ones in pain and nothing you do helps ,i would find miss fine for a few days and then she would have a flare up some bad some not so bad the frontpack saved my life. Also sleeping with her in the lazyboy helped heaps to.We still co sleep as she still wakes but we do whatever works to get sleep now, also does she take a dummy we found this helped heaps to.

Yeah I am hoping that we wont have to go down the surgery track. He has some good days where he will have a good feed but most days I seem to be feeding him constantly cause he will only take a small amount each time. It is so tiring!

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Yeah he drinks maybe 40ml and then starts crying/leaning forward. He definately drinks better at night but I think it's because he is so hungry that he gets more down before the refluxing starts IYKWIM? Also he doesn't gulp it as much when he is sleepy. We are in Auckland. I couldn't imagine having 2 with this problem!!!

Yeah he drinks maybe 40ml and then starts crying/leaning forward. He definately drinks better at night but I think it's because he is so hungry that he gets more down before the refluxing starts IYKWIM? Also he doesn't gulp it as much when he is sleepy. We are in Auckland. I couldn't imagine having 2 with this problem!!!

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We use the karicare thickener. I put one scoop per 60ml-does that sound right? When did Emily grow out of it? I need a date to look forward to lol. Does anyone know what other meds they can try?

You may see a difference when bubs start sitting up,and walking ,my first 2 no 1 was about 15 -18 months and no 2 about 9-10 months so they are all different. Trust me the light at the end of the tunnel does come i have been where you are now and totally understand it can be lonely and hard road hang in there.

Karicare thickener can take a bit of playing with - William needed it incredibly thick, Nicholas got constipated on more than the slightest whiff! For Thomas we used the commercial thickened formulas - so all different.

Starting solids can help sometimes - my guys just refluxed those too though, sitting can help once you get that constant falling over stage so they are up and down all the time and pressuring the tummy, crawling helps some but aggravates others as there's more pressure on the tummy, walking often helps though.

The first 6 months with all my boys were a total nightmare blur to be honest. Once we sort of got meds sorted it was much better but not easy.

As for growing out of it - that can vary hugely.
My eldest two were downscaling meds around 2 yrs and off by 2 1/2.
Thomas never got off meds until post op aged nearly 4.
But my older two should probably never have been off everything and wound up back on meds aged 4 1/2 - 5yrs. Nicholas finally came off post op aged 6 3/4, William came off, shouldn't have and went back on until his surgery aged 11 1/2.

So very variable.

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Im coming in late on this one. Going off my experience and from reading other post off here its still early days yet and hang in there it does eventually get better. I know what your going through, my two kids were put on the same meds as your son. With all the meds they were on they both didnt sleep in a cot untill they were 6mnths old. During the day I had too hold them up straight on my shoulder for them to sleep and through out the ngiht I was up with them screaming with tummy cramps. Their digestive systyms are so sensitve. I got desperate with my second and even switched to dr brown bottles to see if it would help with the bad wind and colic. I also tried these two prouducts which I found did also help. They are both weleda brands and can be ordered off the internet. One is digestodoron which helped with me ds constipation and the other one is called cham rad 20x which is meant to be for teething but is also great for colic. I didnt find that merbently helped at all with my two with there colic. I thought that solids would help my two also but I have found with ds who is now 8mnths it just gives him back his colic. Im at point now where I dont really know what ealse to do. He made such an improvement at 6mnths but rencently has gone back down hill again. Its really frustratin as five days before xmas we saw the paed and was told clinicly he could come off his meds. Good luck I hope things do improve but I just wanted to let you know it can take a wee while for everything to work. Best of luck

With DD2, the colic was worse than the reflux in the end. She too was ont he same dose losec you mention above. With the merbentyl, you need to use it 3x a day for 3 days then as required. The 3x a day for 3 days is really important. We used this for DD2 who had bad colic and just using it as needed didn't help but when we did the 3x a day for 3 days it sorted the problem out almost completely - she farted constnatly for 3 days and then was very very good after that. I never needed to give it again and, instead, used the Weleda Cham Rad 20x in every feed until just recently (now almost 1 year old). The Cham Rad is good for teething too and we haven't had really any issues with teething so I suspect it has helped overall.

3.5 months is still quite little, I suspect that by 6 months it might be a whole different story. DD2 was quite audibly refluxy but still silent. She would not sleep off me during the day at all until we got a hammock when she was almost 4 months old. She like to be completely upright with lots of motion.

Make sure you are using losec omeprazole too nto the generic Dr Reddy's one.

With DD1, I think the infacol irritated her gut so stopped using that. Infacol will only help with burping after feeds, it won't help with all the gas they take in constantly swallowing with the reflux. For that you need something that will relax their digestive system a bit (which is what the merbentyl is doing) - I'd try the Cham Rad or some other natural products to add to the mix.

I'm not sure what the prepulsid is for so cannot comment on that.

Also, not sure how long you've been using the neocate for. It it is quite recent then you might find things settle down a lot in the next few weeks. I hope so

Hi thanks for your replies. He has been on neocate for a few months. The merbentyl doesn't seem to be helping at all. I have tried rhuger and thats no good either. My boy does sleep in his cot-he hates the swing and hammock. It just takes a while for his tummy to settle down before he eventually goes to sleep. I just hope like hell he gets better soon cause its doing my head in. I think half the problem is when he is in pain he doesn't feed on his bottle properly and takes HEAPS of air in. We too have the dr browns bottles but I don't think they make any difference lol

Maybe try the Cham Rad???? I think wizz too found merbentyl ineffective but the CHam Rad helped. It is about $18 a bottle and I would add in 5-6 generous drops per bottle.

How are things going now?

Its great he is on Neocate as that has taken care of the possible allergy side of things.

wuz mentioned the brand Losec being better than Dr Reddy's Omeprazole - they are bioequivalent but some do cope better on Losec. This is not funded so if you want to see if it makes a difference, then ask for just a month's worth and use the 20mg capsules. Most find no difference from Dr Reddy's Omeprazole.

I don't have any experience with Merbentyl but if it isn't helping talk to your doctor about not giving it.

Do you think Prepulsid helped?

Hugs - I hope things are improving.