Yesterday I spoke with Dr.Mike to give him an update on how Cooper is doing - he's eating better, is sleeping better, and screaming less (thank God!). However, he's refluxing a lot with the gagging and foaming of the mouth.
Dr. Mike said that the gagging and foaming will always be a part of the reflux issue regardless of what medication he is on. He said the mechanics of reflux won't change with a different medication, it's the impact and volume of the acid that accompanies reflux that gets treated. Since Cooper is screaming less and eating more, he suggested we stick with the Zantac and reserve the Prevacid for later so we have something to escalate to if needed. I asked if the dose needed to be increased due to his weight gain and he said no - at least not yet. He said when he approaches the next weight class for dosing we'll reassess. OK by me. So, we're sticking with Zantac. And, we're going to stick with the Similac Alimentum formula until we're past the typical colic stage and it's "safe" but once we're past that we'll try to reintroduce his regular formula again since it's much more affordable than the current stuff.
I told him that we started giving the medicine 30 minutes before eating, based on a friend's recommendation, and he said that it was fine but usually not needed since it's a 12-hour medicine. He said that usually isn't suggested unless the baby has severe spit up issues like a lot of babies with reflux do (but Cooper doesn't) and they fear the medicine might be coming back up with the food. He said it's fine to space it out if we think it helps him get it down so we'll just keep doing that (again, thanks Amy Beth!).
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