Hi,

I am new to this board. My 4 month old had a ph probe done yesterday and removed today. Apparently, she refluxed often, but not long enough to where it should bother her. She is on prevacid, which does not seem to help (she is in a better mood, but still doesn't eat enough).

We struggle to feed her on a daily basis. This started about a month ago. She won't take more than 2 oz at a time (except at night, when we can get 4 oz down her). We often sleep feed her and are concerned about failure to thrive. She only takes in about 20 oz per day (and should be getting around 30). Her weight gain has slowed - we have another weight check tomorrow afternoon.

Since we are having so many problems, her GI doc wants to do a scope next week and put her under and take biopsies. I am divided on whether I want to put her through this or not. I hate to put her through anything, but I want to find out what can help her.

Any thoughts on what I should do? Zantac did not work for her at all.

Thanks in advance,
Christyn

Also, I forgot to mention. She constantly chews on her hands like crazy and her two bottom teeth look like they could be coming through. If it were teething, would it last this long?

I am also supposed to go back to work next week and put her into daycare. I am concerned about t his as well but I knwo that we cannot fi nancially afford for me to quit my job. Do any of you with babies w/ feeding problems have a caregiver or work full time?

Thanks again,
Christyn

Maya sounds a bit like your daughter and is nearly 5 months. We certainly have had her ups and downs with Maya as she fed badly and had not put on weight for a month. In the last 2 weeks, we have been on a special milk formula in the UK called infatrini which is 30 calories per ounce as opposed to the normal 20. Maya takes around 20z of this formula a day. However, this formula is 50% more calorific so it is equivalent to 30oz. This takes some of the pressure off her feeding as I know that on a good feed she can take 4 oz and normally 3oz.

Teething, unfortunately can go on for weeks or months.

My daughter was probably 6mo old before she graduated from 2oz to 4oz feedings, and at 11mo, she still takes 4oz feedings. She's rarely ever taken in more than 20oz a day on a consistent basis but has stayed on her growth curve (10th percentile). She's just a petite child.

Sounds like your GI is an aggressive sort.

Hi Christyn and welcome! I wonder if your dd has delayed gastric emptying (DGE) that she's not able to take more than 2 oz. at a time. Evan (my son) didn't take more than 2 oz. at a time until after his 2nd birthday and we've learned since that he has DGE. The small feeds and the struggles to get anything in point me in that direction. With what I've seen Evan go through in his little life time with MRIs and a CAT scan, I personally would opt to try a med. for DGE before doing anything invasive, but that's just my personal opinion.

Noah's GI scheduled a scope for him a few months ago, but we agreed to cancel when he responded so well to a med increase. I WISH I would have done it since he is still having so many feeding issues. We constantly talk about it with the GI, but he thinks its okay for us to wait it out another month to decide.

Also, Noah is cutting his first tooth and it is really bothering him now. It didn't bother him until it really had poked through a good way. Now, he is pretty fussy and even MORE sensitive about things in his mouth.

See if Tylenol and Orajel 30 minutes before a bottle help. That helps with Noah, whether its teething or reflux... (only Orajel for reflux, of course.)

Tylenol doesn't seem to help and she HATES orajel for some reason. We're not sure why.

Also, she hade an upper GI done and that was normal, and the GI's nurse said that would show us if she had delayed gastric emptying. Is this correct?

We had an awful night last night. SHe screamed like she was dying for about 30 minutes and slept terribly (so did we). She takes a couple of sucks on the bottle like she wants it and then turns her head from side to side and won't take it again until she's almost asleep. I am exhausted.

Thanks again.

Christyn

I can see why she'd hate orajel! Have you tried it? It tastes terrible and leaves you with a totally numb feeling, and you can't taste anything after.

Evan's upper GI did NOT show his DGE. We've gone through the entire night with crying and screaming many times. Not fun!

Sarah seemed to have less pain with prevacid and pepcid combined but even as her pain seemed to improve she still doesn't eat well. It is a major struggle. I think it will take awhile for her to trust the bottle again. I think even though it doesn't seem to hurt her as much se still feels the food coming back up and that bothers her. I can often she her cough then reswallow her food. So I think that even when the pain is underconrol the reflux can still bother them and cause difficulty with eating. You can definitely miss DGE with delayed emptying. Sarah had a gastric emptying study to look for DGE.
karie

What formula are you using? I wouldn't agree to a scope at this age. There's not too much they can tell you w/a scope IMO until the baby starts solids and really, unless baby is having allergic internal reactions, they won't see much.

WE were using alimentum, but started using neocate yesterday. I'm not convinced she has a food allergy. Her reflux is the silent type, she barely ever spits up.

Now, she will only eat in her sleep. If she wakes up and sees the bottle, she stops eating altogether.

I am at my wits end.

Christyn

Thanks everyone for your input. I appreciate all of your comments.

We decided to have the scope done. Friday was such a terrible day for Allie. She had only eaten 11 oz in 17 hours and I was scared to death. The GI doc said if I took her to the hospital they would give her an NG tube. I fed her pedialyte out of a syringe b/c she refused the bottle and wouldn't even suck in her sleep. The past two days have been better (we got 22 oz down her yesterday) but she is still in a lot of pain after she eats most of the time and the doc says she could have an ulcer. They are going to do biopsies of her esphogus as well to see if she has an infection. Please say a prayer for my little Allie on Weds and I will update you as to how she does. I do not want her to have an iv or go under, but I think at this point we have to do it to make sure she is not having long term damage to her tummy or esphogus.

Christyn

Good luck on Wed.! I hope that the scope comes back fine and will watch for your update!

Good luck with the scope. I hope things go well. Let us know. It isso difficult when they don't eat. sarah is going through a really bad flare right now.
karie

Well, everything looks good. It was awful having to put her under, but she did okay and they even put her down before they gave her the iv so she didn't have to feel all of the pokes (they had to try a few times).

Doc says everything looks good but took biopsies. We'll get the results of those back by Monday. We added .8 mls of zantac at night in addition to her 2.5 mls of prevacid and it seems to be working much better. NO more sleep feeds and she has taken in 25 ounces over the past three days (much more than before). We also stopped the neocate (wasn't working) and tried the ready to feed alimentum instead of the powder. she's less gassy that way.

Thanks everyone for your input.

Christyn

I agree witht he peach, a scope at 4 months may be too young. The things that you traditionally test for do not really evolve until feeding or reflux for a while.

It sounds like that you were on meds when you did the pH probe study. For accurate results you must be off your meds (my dr suggested a week) to deterine the true refux. If you are still medicating this is decresing the reflux that would naturally be occurring. I hope that the Dr DID take you off your meds and it was long enough for the effect of them to be nil when you did the study- please let me know

Sorry I must have got this post late- I/m glad that everything went well.

How is the Alimentum going? I don't think you gave the Neocate long enough IMO. It took a while to get Evan up to the 28ozs where he was supposed to be. It's a big change for them and for most it's not an instantaneous fix. You still have to deal w/ all the old proteins leaving the body. The first 4 days on the Neocate were the absolute worst of his life I think, after that things got so much better. He's Neocate only now and still refluxes quite a bit, but it doesn't bother him at all. The medicine is finally helping him. I'm calling the dietician today though about adding Thick It to his formula to help keep it down some (he has silent reflux as well) and add some calories he's missing from not being able to tolerate the toddler Neocate. I hope things get better, but I wouldn't rule out Neocate yet if you have problems w/ Alimentum.