Jackson was born on October 7,
2005 at 1:14pm. It was an uncomplicated delivery. He was
healthy and strong.
The second day in the hospital they were wheeling him
down the hall and he was screaming his head off. The nurse
said to me “he has some lungs on him” at the time, I thought
nothing of it, but now, looking back, I realize that he was
probably hurting.
We go home and he was never, ever settled, always
grunting and groaning, fidgety. I remember thinking
“something is just not right”. He didn’t nap like a baby
should. He would “cat nap” and every time I would lay him
down he would scream. At first I thought, well I have
already spoiled him. So not true.
We went in to the doc and he suggested we switch his
formula to soy. We did, this didn’t help. I called back,
probably five times before I got a pediatrician that
listened to me. He made us an appointment and the day that
we went in, we were in his office, I had just finished
feeding him and the doc wanted to examine him, to make sure
that there was nothing else that was hurting him before he
medicated him. He laid Jack down on the examining table and
pushed on his tummy, Jack screamed the entire time, when he
sat him up, and out it came. He puked all over the doctor
and me. The doctor said “well, looks like reflux to me”
thank you. He was 5 weeks of age at this time.
So, he put him on Zantac. I noticed a difference the next
day. He was a happier baby. He would lay and play for a
time, instead of lay and scream. Then, as time went on, the
Zantac just didn’t cut it. We kept upping his dose, per the
physician, but it wasn’t doing it. So, we went in and our
pediatrician prescribed Prevacid at 15mg. This seemed to be
our miracle drug. We had 3 good days, and then we would have
4 bad ones, but still better than on the Zantac. Eventually
his pain got so bad that he started refusing bottles, we
were lucky to get 10 oz in him in a day. I was at my wits
end. I called our pediatrician, who is a saint for putting
up with me. He called me back immediately, suggested we get
into a ped. GI. I called the GI’s office that he gave us and
they got us in the next day. Have I mentioned that I love
them?
We went in for our evaluation and the GI was not happy
with the form of Prevacid that he was on. He switched him to
a compound form. It worked, Jack started eating again. His
symptoms were better controlled, he wasn’t drooling,
gagging, coughing. After having the medicine compounded for
a month and our insurance not covering it, we decided to go
to the solutabs which also worked very well for us.
At one year, the GI suggested we try to wean. I was so
very nervous at the thought of “messing with perfection” so
I fibbed and told her that we had, but that it just didn’t
work out. I know, shame on me. So, she suggested we do an
Upper GI. This was not as bad as my anxiety leading up to
it. He had to fast for 12 hours and then drink this barium
liquid and they would watch him on a screen and they could
tell if he started to reflux, or if there were any
abnormalities that we should worry about. It took forever
for his stomach to empty, seemed like it did anyway. While
you are holding down a screaming child, it seems like time
stands still. The results of the GI came back good, so we
were to try a wean again in 3 months. This time, I think
that the GI was onto me, so she prescribed his medicine at a
lower dose. We were to take him down from 15mg to 9mg for
two weeks, then down to 4.5 mg for two weeks, then off
completely.
The wean, so far, has been a success. We have been
medicine free for a full week now and I have seen no signs
of reflux at all. This is such a victory. Hopefully it will
continue and I can declare defeat over “GERD”.
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