Anyone heard of levsin?

My friends baby has colic or gas or reflux or something that's making him super fussy and awake 24/7. Her pedi prescribed levsin. She is wondering if anyone else gives their baby this medication bc she was told it contains alcohol and has bad side effects.

So, anyone have experience w levsin?

 

I looked it up in my drug book and it is a drug used for irritable bowel symptoms...here's a link you can pass on to your friend...

http://www.drugs.com/cdi/levsin.html

 

I will start with that caveat that I am pretty crunchy and avoid medicine if possible, but that sounds scary.

Has she tried mylicon, very warm baths where the water covers his tummy, changing formula/adjusting her diet if she is BFing, bicycling his legs with each diaper change, etc? Also that book, the happiest baby on the block? I would try all of those, especially adjusting her diet if BFing, before giving a medication with questionable side effects.

Also, maybe she could consider a pediatric GI. My pedi was a pain the butt about giving me a referral when Chana'le was younger and extremely fussy. She never did give me one and I wish I had put my foot down.

On the other hand, if I were really at the end of my rope, I'd just do some research into it and then give the medication if I felt confident about it after reading a little.

 

She is BF'ing, when I talked to her last night he hasn't slept for more than 20 minutes at a time in 24 hours.
I think she went ahead and gave it to him but even her pedi told her not to give it to him unless she was desperate. I'm going to suggest a pedi GI specialist.
She has tried all of those things you listed. She said he's not screaming, he's just straining, wiggling and constantly whining. She thinks it's either a fore milk/hind milk imbalance or that he's lactose intolerant.

 

Aimee it sounds like she's dealing with what i dealt with when I was bfing, I think it was the hind milk issue but I had to quit bfing at 4 weeks bc of a med I had to go back on, thats when we figured out they were lactose intolerant. So we put them on soy, worked until it constipated them terribly and both of them have reflux issues so my pedi switched them to nutramigen and they've been great since.

 

Ugh Poor thing! Both the mama and the baby!

If she is determined to continue BFing, I would give her these tips:

If she is willing to do a drastic diet adjustment, she can follow the kellymom.com diet, or the Dr. Sears diet, and see if that helps. A true cutting out of dairy takes at least 4 weeks, and I would give it about 6, because it takes a long time for the dairy proteins to fully pass from your breastmilk and then fully pass from the baby.

Also, with my older daughter I had a huge supply and she also had foremilk/hindmilk imbalance so I did something called 'block feeding' that I read about on the LLL website. Basically you nurse several feedings on one breast, then switch sides and nurse the next several on the other side. The side you are not nursing on will get painfully full, but after 2-3 days of this your supply on both sides gets cut down to a more manageable level, with a better balance of the milk.

Also, is he constipated? Mushka went for 2+ weeks without pooping as an infant. I think she just didn't really know how to push it out. Someone suggested using a glycerin 'rocket' to me, all it took was one time and she pooped like 3 diapers full and then was fine.

Best of luck to her!!

 

I just want to say that infants are very rarely lactose intolerant; instead, it's typically a milk protein allergy/intolerance which is quite different. Usually, what bothers babies are proteins that pass into the milk, typically dairy or soy. Another alternative is if mom has a large oversupply then baby can experience lactose overload. This link talks about issues with lactose: http://kellymom.com/health/baby-health/lactose-intolerance/

It does sound like her baby is colicky or having gas issues or both. True colic often doesn't have a quick remedy other than time. some babies are exceptionally fussy the first few months and have a hard time settling. My friend's baby was like this. her son rarely slept more than 30 minutes at a time for his first few months with no identified physical cause.

If she wants to keep breastfeeding, I'd recommend what Miriam did or even just eliminate all dairy and soy and see if that helps. Up to half of infants who have a milk protein allergy will also have a soy allergy/intolerance. So switching to formula (dairy or soy) isn't usually the best first step to figuring out tummy troubles.

You didn't say how old her baby was but newborns can tend to be very gassy and spend a lot of time straining to pass it. Their digestive systems are quite immature which is why sometimes eliminating certain things can help even if they aren't truly intolerant.

I was completely dairy-free with my son for a year because he had all the classic signs of intolerance (forest green mucousy poops, eczema patches that woudln't clear up, allergy ring around his anus--that is, always red around the anus and diaper cream didn't clear it up). All those symptoms cleared up once I was completely dairy free for a couple of weeks.

Also, it's possibly the baby has reflux or silent reflux (so doesn't spit up but is still refluxing).

I'm surprised the doctor would jump to such a powerful medication, but maybe this has been going on a while?

I hope whatever it is that she finds a solution soon! Poor baby and poor mama, indeed!

 

Is he pooping?? All my kids were constipated to a certain degree. For instant relief you can use the liquid glycerin suppositories, they work within about 15-30 minutes. For longer relief we used karo syrup in all their bottles. Obviously if she's nursing that's difficult, she'd have to give a formula bottle, or a pumped bottle of BM with the karo in it.