Reflux Meds AND Enfamil AR?

Hi there,
Both of my babies have reflux and are on meds for it--one on Zantac, the other on Prevacid. One of the babies spits up a lot and the other seems super uncomfortable much of the time. I have been thinking about switching them to Enfamil AR but my doctor said that if they are already taking medication for reflux then it defeats the purpose of what the "AR" part of Enfamil AR does.

Just curious if anyone has their baby on Enfamil AR AND one of the above medications. If so, how is it going? Has the formula helped?

THANK YOU!

 

Our doctor said the same thing about the AR, but we went ahead and tried it. It really made no difference with the spit-up. Both my girls were on prevacid and we switched them to Nutramigen. They were happy spitters up until about a week ago when we finally switched to regular cow's milk. Spitting up is pretty much normal in babies just as long as they aren't in any pain. If they are, you might want to look into uping their dosage or tying a new med. HTH!

oh, and BTW...zantac didn't work for either of my girls. prevacid is what did the trick with their reflux.

 

The meds will help with the pain of reflux, but don't really prevent babies from refluxing. That is where formulas like AR(or any formula adding rice or a gel thickener) come in. They help control the amount of spit up, by weighing it down. We tried AR, but my babies had issues with milk, so we ended up on soy/nutramigen with added rice.

 

Our pedi recommended both prevacid AND thickened formula. I think that is pretty standard too. I don't know why your doctor would discourage using the Enfamil AR, it's not like it would hurt anything to try it. Though it did constipate the dickens out of our boys.

 

Just echoing what others have said. The meds help with the pain, not the spit up. So actually the A/R should help the spit up if they don't have a milk protein intolerance. Personally if they are spitting up a ton, it might be worth a try. We used it for a bit combined with the Prevacid and it helped. But we eventually went to Alimentum, due to suspecting a milk allergy.

 

previcid and AR here for both My older son and Libbey (twin B )

 

Similar to Rachel's experience, my son ended up on Prevacid and we feed him the hypoallergenic formula, Nutramigen. The Prevacid did wonders for him right off the bat. Later we started thickening his formula for excessive spitting up with the gel Simply Thick (pedi didn't want us using rice cereal). That wasn't doing the trick, so we switched to Nutramigen for a suspected milk protein sensitivity, and the combination makes him a very happy baby.

 

Hi! I have 10 month old Twin Girls. I am sorry that I probably cannot help you with the emfamil problem but I can tell you that I know what you are going through but with only one of my twins. One of mine, my biggest one at 22 lbs now does great but my smaller one at only 16 lbs has been on prevacid and zantac since she was 2 months old and the ONLY formula she can take at all is Neocate. Very EXPENSIVE and only by prescription from a pharmacy. She does great on it. They did a scope on her at 2 months and found reflux and allergic collitis which is a milk allergy. We have been through heck with her. She will still occasionally have an episode but for the most part is much better. In the beginning she would throw that formula up and choke, loose her breath, stiffen her body, turn blue and I finally forced them to send us to a gastro Dr. and we have been seeing him ever since. I couldn't sleep at night for worrying she would do this in her sleep. So happy to be past all that now. Hope you get everything straightened out with your little babies and thatnks for giving me someone to talk to :- ) ....Angie

 

My girls are on Zantac for reflux and Enfamil AR for spitting up. I find that the thickened formula greatly reduces the amount of spit-up they have. So it is working for us!

 

Thank you to everyone for your helpful information!

I tried the Enfamil AR and it was a disaster! They both got super fussy (I only filled about 1/3 of their bottle with it) and it freaked me out, esp since my husband didn't want me to try it!

I'm sure it was unrelated, but then my daughter projectile spit-up after the next 4 feedings! YIKES! We went to the dr today but he didn't think much of that. HELLOOOOO, is that normal for a baby to spew formula and to do it that often??? Seems a bit strange to me. The dr wanted us to try to give her a little less formula at each feeding and then take things from there. I'm just looking forward to getting beyond the first 12 weeks...6 more weeks to go!

Thanks again!

 

Just wanted to say that exact same thing happened to DS when we tried the Enfamil AR a few times. I think that formula uses rice starch as a thickener. He NEVER projectile vomited before that. Then, when it came time to do solids, we started DS on rice and he had the biggest projectile vomiting episode I'd ever seen. Now, I know babies are put on rice first because it is least likely to cause stomach disturbances or have them be allergic to it, but man, it was baaaad, so we ditched that and went straight to oatmeal and he eats it like a champ. Never a vomiting incident like that since. So, in my crazy thinking, perhaps some babies are affected by rice? I don't know; I didn't think it was possible to be that sensitive to rice, but just wanted to share a similar experience.