Prevacid Solutabs

Hi there! I'm a new member and have been planning to join the forum since the beginning of my pregnancy. Here I am, finally, and the twins are four weeks old. Better late than never! Charlie has had reflux since he was about two weeks old. No luck with Zantac so we switched to the PPI drug Prilosec, which is helping. The Prilosec is a pain! Short shelf life, only in the solution format. I have read on this forum multiple moms who have switched to the Prevacid Solutabs and seem to rave about it. I told my pediatrician this and at first he simply said he never heard of the solutabs being used for infants under one year old because the dosing couldn't be determined. I read from the moms here (searching through old postings) that the dose was 15mg solutabs broken in half and given twice a day. I couldn't tell, however, from the posts how old the babies were when this started. I would really like to make the switch as soon as I can. If anyone remembers or knows when they first started their baby on Prevacid Solutabs, I'm would love to know to pass the info on to my pediatrician. The Prilosec in its current format is not practical!

 

We just saw a gastroenterologist yesterday for our son's reflux, and she suggetsed switching him from the prilosec he's on (takes that and zantzc) to the prevacid tabs. He needs 3/4 of a tab so she said to dissolve 1 tab in 4mls of water and to give him 3 mls of that solution. Or we could split up the pill and just dissove 3/4 of it in 3mls of water.

He's 20 weeks old and weighs 15 lbs.

This is a gastro at Children's Hospital Boston so I trust she knows what she's talking about!

ETA: he gets that 3/4 tab just once a day.

 

Prevacid is not recommended for babies under a year. Most pedi's want you to exhaust all other avenues before they'll consider it.
Maia was prescribed prevacid at 4mo after being on zantac, trying prilosec, then switching back to zantac. It was awful.
If the prilosec is working then you should continue using it. Different meds work differently for different babies.

Good luck!

ETA: We also went to Childrens in Boston and Maia takes 15mg and weighs 13 lbs. Different docs say different things.

 

We were told the same thing by the MN Children's Hospital Reflux Program. Dosing is too difficult to judge with infants if using solutabs. We're using the suspension too and I agree. It's a total pain. The Prevacid suspension tastes awful too, so I wasn't able to just put it in their mouth and had to mix it with breast milk instead. Now I have the pharmacist flavor it (it's still bad, but not as bad) and it helps enough that we can give it to the girls with a syringe instead of mixing it in a bottle.

 

I too saw a Ped GI who put them on the Prevacid solutabs. They were about 6-8 weeks old when started on them and I think it was 1/2 tab in 4 mls of water. Good luck.

 

I agree with the PP; if Prilosec is working for you, don't switch! One of my daughters has been on Prilosec for several months now and it has worked wonders for her. Prevacid didn't do a thing. I don't know why, but some drugs work for some babies and not others. It seems like if Prevacid works, Prilosec doesn't and vice versa.

You mention that you're using Prilosec in a solution format and that it has a sort shelf life? Are you having it compounded? We do that and it lasts a month in the refrigerator. We add it to the first bottle of the morning and the last bottle of the evening and it's quite easy to use. Feel free to PM me if you need any of the details...

 

My boys started the Prevacid Solutabs around 5-6 months old (after Zantac wasn't working). They each get 1/2 tablet twice a day which is a total of 15mg/day. We saw an immediate difference as soon as we started the solutabs.

 

Crazy how different docs say different things. Our Ped also wouldn't give us the Prevacid Solutabs as he was too uncomfortable with the dosing. We also HATED the Prilosec (which reminded me that I think I still have some in the back of the fridge to toss!), but it did work. Our pharmacy wouldn't add flavoring to the Prilosec b/c it's so unstable as it is that they said adding anything to it could make it worse.

GL with whatever you get....reflux sucks!!!

 

My girls were on suspension (liquid) Previciad until 1 year...for the same reasons. Now we do 1 tab in the PM- it is a wonderful med! Zantac nor Prilosec worked for us.

 

Our GI specialist prescribed 2 x 1/2 tab for my ds at 4 months. He was on until 9 months. He weaned without problems. The drug is not officially tested on children under 1 year old but very often used and prescribed.

Before the tabs he was on Zantac (didn't do a thing) and the Prevacid solution (horrible, not stable enough, going downhill after 10-11 days instead of 2 weeks, needed to be refrigerated, a pain, etc.).

 

Both of my twins were on prevacid solutabs from 4 months to 1 year after zantac did not work for their reflux (reflux was confirmed by an upper GI). They worked great for us.

 

We started with half a tablet 1x daily and now do half 2x daily. It mostly works well for my guys. We started it at 4 weeks.

Try not to get the oral suspension if you can. It also has a short shelf life and if you give it to them and it doesnt work, the reflux comes back full force. It was really bad for us.

This might be of interest to you. It explains dosing by age and weight for all reflux meds.

http://www.marci-kids.com/dosing.html


Also, based on what I read I would not suggest flavoring it!


If you are currently giving your child a compounded suspension of a PPI such as Prevacid made by a pharmacy, you should know that there is a good potential for the medication to become inactive (and therefore ineffective) in a much shorter time period than your pharmacist may be aware. The loss of activity is related to the effect of the flavorings added by the pharmacies. The flavorings cause the PPI to become unstable and break down so it can no longer inhibit acid secretion. Laboratory testing has shown that the majority of such compounded, flavored preparations become inactive within a week.

In addition, many pharmacies do not add enough buffer in their suspensions to protect the drug from degradation by stomach acid. This is particularly a problem if the child is receiving a very low-volume dose—less than 3 mL, for example—because the amount of buffer likely won't be enough to protect the PPI from degradation by stomach acid.