nexium for reflux

well we're up to 30mg of prevacid a day, which is the amount they usually prescribe for adolescents and older. it's pretty high. we went to the GI specialist to find out if there's something else we can do and he recommended a switch to nexium. has anyone else made a switch or currently use nexium?

we're having a terrible time making the transition. he started us on the capsules, figuring we could open them and mix the little medication balls into some applesauce. but our guys aren't quite that comfortable with solids yet so unless they're getting their routine 9:00 meal they just purse their lips and blow raspberries at us. then we tried putting the nexium into their bottles but the little balls wouldn't fit through the nipple hole.

basically we're back in the thick of reflux hell, after months of having it reasonably well controlled (although with less effectiveness recently). all of the experimenting with transitioning to nexium this weekend left them under-medicated for about 3 days. we switched back to the high dose of prevacid in the hopes of getting the pain back under control before trying the nexium oral suspension. but in the meantime while we're waiting for things to get back under control these poor babies are screaming at their bottles and coughing furiously when they try to swallow. they went from eating 30 ounces a day to barely cracking 20. that's a huge drop in their intake. and we only get them to eat that much by pacing and rocking and bouncing them and pleading with them to eat.

i'm just hoping someone here is using nexium and can testify to its effectiveness. i'm really not looking forward to trying this transition again, and if it's no good i really don't want to put the boys through the pain again.

 

awww...your poor little babies! I understand the pacing, pleading, and distracting to eat....sometimes that doesnt even work with dd; but hers seems to be more of a learned thing now (long story). Anyway, we havent tried nexium...but I wanted to reccomend this site www.infantrefluxdisease.com lots of great info/advice and I'm sure you can find more about nexium successes/tips/tricks there.
Just curious...can you put it in some water into a syringe and give it that way? Almost like prevacid solutabs?

 

:hug: I don't have any experience with Nexium. Are you able to just spoon the little balls in the side of their mouths and have them drink a little of their bottle?

 

I have a good friend whose little guy is on nexium. I was taking 40 for MY reflux during pregnancy, he's on 60 a day!! A very high dose. But she said it's definetly helping! :hug:

 

We did nexium (we try almost all meds)
what I did was put 1/2 the powder on a spoon a mix it with a few dros of water...I waited a few seconds until it became past like and then put it into his mouth
on a 1/2 right position... or laying down (it disovles on their mouth) it was messy..but he took it.
Didn't work though for us :-( he is off all meds now and screaming stopped...he spits a lot when he is on his
belly but that's mostly because he pushed on his esophagus. Now that he is begging to be in all 4s is becoming
less...
good luck!

 

what we're currently doing is crushing the solutabs, adding a few drops of formula to make a paste, then offering it on the end of a clean finger. we started doing that because they went to prevacid before they were old enough to tolerate a spoon. maybe i'll try a spoon now.

they hate it. they absolutely hate having things put in their mouths and they've gotten really good at spitting medicine back. it doesn't matter that the prevacid is yummy strawberry flavored, they're just insulted that you're putting something in their mouths. owen in particular is pretty cantankerous about it.

the reason we were hoping the applesauce would work is because we could be more sure they're getting all of their meds. at this point we're giving them 30 mg per day, but the honest truth is that between the spitting and wiping their mouths they're probably only actually swallowing 20 mg or so.

i'm going to try putting it on a spoon to see if they'll tolerate it better. i'm guessing that we're going to get more raspberries, though.

 

We didn't do nexium but did prevacid liquid compound.
We mixed it with juice in a bottle to get him to take it.....maybe you can do that with the nexiuM?

 

we got the nexium oral supsension today and i experimented by mixing it with formula. seems way too thick. i think we'll try mixing with applejuice next, although i hate the idea of giving them juice.

 

I hope it goes well.
What we did with Mackenzie's prilosec suspension was actually mix it with some strawberry syrup...bit if you dont like the juice idea I'm guessing you will hate our idea,lol!

 

at this point i'm willing to try anything if it gets them to take their medicine and stops the pain!

 

Is it flavored? If so how about just adding a little water to it?

 

you know, i didn't taste it by itself. i tasted it when it was mixed with formula and it tasted like normal formula.

every time we give the babies medicine i say i'm a little bit on that medicine, too. because somehow it always ends up in my mouth either accidentally or intentionally.

 

i decided to go try it with water instead of formula. it actually dissolved well and didn't stick to the sides of the bottle. but of course it was still thick so i had to know how it would perform with a nipple. so there i was, standing there in the kitchen, sucking on a bottle of reflux meds. i would probably look insane to anyone who hasn't walked through the hell of infant reflux. :crazy:

i think that was a successful experiment. we're going to stick with the prevacid until the most recent hurties heal over and then we're going to try to transition again, probably using apple juice as the base. wish us luck!

 

QUOTE(piccologirl @ Apr 28 2009, 09:35 PM) [snapback]1292546[/snapback]
so there i was, standing there in the kitchen, sucking on a bottle of reflux meds. i would probably look insane to anyone who hasn't walked through the hell of infant reflux. :crazy:

:laughing: :hug: Been there done that. I swear I would have, and probably did just about anything I could to get my babies to eat during the thick of the reflux madness. I hope the Nexium is the answer for you all. :grouphug:

 

ditto...I've done everything too,lol. My most recent venture...trying to get dd to take from a cup (or her bottle without the nipple/lid); she actually took 2oz from it today, not bad!
We are actually hoping to switch back to prevacid...its terrible trying to give my dd the prilosec. We try to do it while she is sleeping, otherwise she just spits it ALL out. But when we do it while sleeping she wakes and starts to cry/scream, then basically I feel like I'm drowning her...its awful. We give 6ml, so atleast with prevacid I would only be drowning her with 1-2ml!