Friday, March 4, 2011

Reflux?

Baby Jett had his first non-shot-getting visit to the doctor yesterday.  His first appointment where I was humbled to admit to myself that I had no idea what was wrong with him.  It all started 4 days ago...

At a moments notice and for no apparent reason at all Full.Blown.Bloody.Murder.Screaming {FBBMS} has ensued at my house...no fun my friends, no fun at all!  When the FBBMS happens Jett does not want to be held, laid down, fed, rocked, or consoled in anyway.  Believe me if there was a song I sang it and the shhhh-ing has been in full soothing effect, but to no avail.

I am still only feeding Jett breast milk, but we introduced rice cereal a couple of weeks ago. When we introduced the cereal the regular pooping stopped and the tummy troubles began. I feel like he constantly has gas and an upset tummy...the kind that makes him draw up his legs, bless his heart! When the FBBMS started this week we just assumed that it was gas and gave him some Mylecon to help.

He was just at the doctor {to get his 4 month shots} on Tuesday, but the FBBMS was not in the "routine" at this point so we mentioned nothing of it to his doctor.  After playing the guessing game for a few days we decided that it was best to take him back to the doctor.  She checked his ears, throat, and tummy...all were just fine.  I explained his symptoms to her and she concluded that he might have reflux which could totally make sense to me.  After having heartburn straight from the Devil when I was pregnant, I knew that it would be enough to make him have FBBMS attacks...I know I certainly wanted to cry when it happened.

She recommended that we do the following: discontinue cereal until further notice, give him Pedialyte for 2-3 feedings, and Mylanta every 4 hours for the next 24-48 hours.  All of these things would ideally calm his stomach down and the Mylanta to neutralize the acid with the reflux.

We started last night and gave him the Pedialyte and have been giving him Mylanta every four hours.  He has had one FBBMS attack today and hasn't really had much of an appetite at all.  I feel so bad for him...being a Mom is hard especially when you have no idea what is wrong with your precious little babe!

Do you have any ideas or suggestions about reflux? 

3 comments:

  1. Oooh, poor baby Jett! I totally feel you. We had just such an outburst last night! Isn't it awful when you can literally do nothing to help them? :(
    I bet it's the rice cereal.. his little digestive system might not be mature enough to handle it yet. Evie has silent reflux, and while I think it's all tied together, this sounds more like digestive issues (gas, etc) to me than reflux.
    With normal reflux they are spitting up all the time, and with silent reflux, you can literally hear the stuff come up their throat and then go burning back down. They also do this little cough quite a bit.
    A few things that might help when he has those outbursts of pain:
    Lay him on his back and bicycle his legs or slowly pump them up to his tummy. This can help him release some gas. I also lay one hand on her bare tummy when I do this for a little added pressure. You can also gently massage his tummy in an upside down U motion, starting at the low right side of his tummy, up and then down the left side of his tummy. Helps release gas, too.
    Evie has had these sorts of problems for weeks now, so we've been trying all sorts of things. She does take some medicine for her reflux, but I'd like to get her off that if we can. I suggest probiotics for her and you (helps with digestion). We took her to the chiropractor today and I'm officially off dairy, hoping it will help her.
    Good luck with Jett! Feel free to email me if you want to talk more about it!

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  2. Hope he's feeling much better soon! I hate when they're sick and they can't tell you what is wrong.

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  3. Poor thing! It's so hard to watch them in pain. The Dr. told us to put his crib at a slight incline. So I just put a book under the legs of the crib. We also fed him Enfamil AR. That seemed to help. It all went away around six months which is the norm. Hope this helps:)

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