I just wondered if any of you have had this experience with your little ones. My ds is now 6 months old. He was dx with silent reflux at 3 weeks of age. His only symptoms were grunting when younger and poor sleeping. I've also noticed some choking/gulping while lying flat in the past. Most of these symptoms have resolved aside from poor sleeping. It's so hard to tell if he's waking out of pain or habit. Our new problem, however, is that he's had several colds and ear infections. He's now on his 3rd ear infection in the last 4 weeks. The ped wonders if we're undertreating his reflux because of the number of ear infections. He seems like he's had colds. He definitely has a nasty cold right now. However, I'm not sure if his congestion in the past was possibly due to food allergies or reflux rather than colds. I'm on a limited diet because of his food allergies. I'm avoiding dairy, soy, nuts, corn, wheat, berries, eggs, beef, shellfish, oats, potatoes. Lately, I've cheated because he has seemed okay with it (according to stool...no mucous/blood) Now, however, I wonder if I'm the cause of his problems! Has my cheating caused him to have more reflux and therefore more ear infections?? I'm feeling horribly guilty right now. I know that nobody can answer these questions, but I'm hoping some of you can share your thoughts on the subject. Thanks!

Sue, mom to C born 6/06 on prevacid 15-22.5 mg/day (recently upped to 22.5 temporarily while on antibiotics)

I'm not at all well-versed in allergies or breast feeding (I pumped, then gave Daniel frozen stored milk -- and had no idea what I'd been eating), but I can shed some light on ear infections and reflux. Treating reflux is merely treating the acidity (unless your son is on some sort of motility drug), so he still refluxes -- it just shouldn't hurt. But stuff is still coming back up and possibly causing those ear infections.

My son is three and we're looking at getting his fourth set of ear tubes.... :sad5:

AJ has never had a reflux issue, but he still has tubes. He used to get EIs only in the winter, but this past Feb he got one that would NOT go away. He had 6 abx before they did the tubes (I think he still had the infection when they went in). Evan OTOH had pretty bad silent reflux and had tubes in at 7.5 mos. Even after that every time he got any kind of cold, his ears would drain what would've been an infection. This just stopped recently since he's no longer on meds and he got his adenoids out. So some kids are just predisposed to EIs, but reflux does often cause them.

EI's can be caused by reflux it is true, but they can also just have a tendancy to get them, on a 15mg I would be pretty certain that even if he refluxes it would be non acidic like Becky has said, and I would also say that from my experience on a good dose of PPI you generally wont get ear infections from reflux.

EI's are actually an inherited condition, and it has to do with the tube being too thin and not being able to clear, that said 3 in 4 weeks is not good for his hearing. Parker spent 5 months deaf due to concurrent ear infections and it affected his speech. We see a great improvement in EI's by using probiotics, these are actually really good at fending off infections.

I would also ask for a referral to an ENT to make sure that all is good and that tubes wouldn't be recommended.

With the breastfeeding, I was going to ask why you are on such a strict diet? Do you have all those allergies in the family? IF not what I would do is go back on the strict diet for a couple of weeks, till you see an improvement, and then add one group back every two weeks, then you will be able to see which one is affecting him.

The main one to avoid for refluxers is dairy and soy. I was also going to add that if he is sick the reflux will always be a bit worse as well. Good luck in determining this, I hope his ears settle down soon.

Thank you for your responses! To answer some of your questions...I was on a strict diet because he had some mucous and occult blood in his stool indicating an allergy at 5 weeks. I figured I'd rather take all the main allergens out to allow him to heal more quickly. Through elimination diets, I found he's allergic to white potatoes, which is a pretty odd allergy to have! Anyway, I've been cheating alot lately, avoiding only foods with the allergens as one of the main ingredients. I'm eating wheat now, as well as baked goods with eggs, milk and soy lecithin. I know that I need to get back on a strict diet and then formally introduce foods to identify allergens...I'm just having a hard time eliminating everything again!

We have an ENT consult on the 27th. My older daughter had her adenoids removed by this doc so I feel comfortable with him. I'm sure my son is doomed to have tubes. I guess there are worse things, right?? By the way, I take probiotics regularly and I also give them in powder form to my son. (My whole family takes them.) Unfortunately, they haven't done much to keep those winter colds away!

Thanks again!

Sue