Food Allergy
sdb421
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Elemental, PPI med or both?
sdb421
member
in Food Allergy
I need help with my 16 week old and feeding refusal...
We
have been seeing a pedi GI for about a month now due to my son's
feeding refusal issues. He's always been very picky with his bottle, but
at around 2.5-3 months, started refusing to eat after 2-3 ounces. This
continued and we tried Zantac, with no improvement. We then moved onto
Prevacid for a few days with no improvement and had our first
appointment with the GI. She pulled him off of Prevacid (only on it for 4
days), since he wasn't arching a lot and was fine laying flat, didn't
vomit, etc. She switched us to Alimentum formula. The first two days we
were sure that we had our answer, he was eating wonderfully, finishing
5.5 oz bottles and doing great. Any baby acne he had cleared up and he seemed very content.
Day 3 things went down hill again and he started refusing and fussing at the bottle again. He also started getting congested at this time (my older kids had colds), so GI wanted us to wait it out until he was feeling better. Sleep went down the drain and he started waking hourly. He also developed a very bad baby acne looking rash on his face (much more severe than he had ever had prior to the switch) and had small dots on his back and chest. Pediatrician and GI felt that rash was viral. I'm not convinced, and think that there is a chance is eczema related, can eczema look like baby acne? After several days, things started improving slightly and while he didn't love eating, he was back to taking 5 oz bottles (which is still not enough for his size). The rash and bad cold have now been here for almost 2 weeks and GI continues to want us to wait it out until he's feeling better to assess situation, but yesterday and today, he's back to really refusing to eat and crying when he sees the bottle. It's very hard to tell what is going on, since we have the cold and also underlying issues.
According to the GI doctor, the next steps, if this continues are to either move on to an elemental formula (fully broken down, so that there are no intact milk proteins) or to put him under general anesthesia and do an endoscopy to see what is going on inside of his esophagus and other areas. He has already had an upper GI scan, showing that structurally he is fine. I have a hard time with either option. One, he doesn't have vomiting or blood in stool, which the GI says are typical of kids with severe enough allergies to need an elemental formula, so it's very hard to know what is going on, but he does have some mucous in stool (but could that be due to cold). GI says that she doesn't really want to put him on a PPI, like prevacid, but that she will if we request it. I feel like she's a bit old school in her thinking (that Zantac should fix the acid issues), but it's the only pedi GI practice in the area and the lead doctor is ranked 5th in the nation, so it must be a good place?? I'm lost and don't know what direction to go in. Do we keep waiting it out until he's cold-free? Do I try an elemental formula? Do I try a PPI? Do we skip both a do the endoscopy to get an answer? I'm lost, tired and just want my poor baby to eat!
Day 3 things went down hill again and he started refusing and fussing at the bottle again. He also started getting congested at this time (my older kids had colds), so GI wanted us to wait it out until he was feeling better. Sleep went down the drain and he started waking hourly. He also developed a very bad baby acne looking rash on his face (much more severe than he had ever had prior to the switch) and had small dots on his back and chest. Pediatrician and GI felt that rash was viral. I'm not convinced, and think that there is a chance is eczema related, can eczema look like baby acne? After several days, things started improving slightly and while he didn't love eating, he was back to taking 5 oz bottles (which is still not enough for his size). The rash and bad cold have now been here for almost 2 weeks and GI continues to want us to wait it out until he's feeling better to assess situation, but yesterday and today, he's back to really refusing to eat and crying when he sees the bottle. It's very hard to tell what is going on, since we have the cold and also underlying issues.
According to the GI doctor, the next steps, if this continues are to either move on to an elemental formula (fully broken down, so that there are no intact milk proteins) or to put him under general anesthesia and do an endoscopy to see what is going on inside of his esophagus and other areas. He has already had an upper GI scan, showing that structurally he is fine. I have a hard time with either option. One, he doesn't have vomiting or blood in stool, which the GI says are typical of kids with severe enough allergies to need an elemental formula, so it's very hard to know what is going on, but he does have some mucous in stool (but could that be due to cold). GI says that she doesn't really want to put him on a PPI, like prevacid, but that she will if we request it. I feel like she's a bit old school in her thinking (that Zantac should fix the acid issues), but it's the only pedi GI practice in the area and the lead doctor is ranked 5th in the nation, so it must be a good place?? I'm lost and don't know what direction to go in. Do we keep waiting it out until he's cold-free? Do I try an elemental formula? Do I try a PPI? Do we skip both a do the endoscopy to get an answer? I'm lost, tired and just want my poor baby to eat!
M/C #1 - BFP-1/16/08 Dx Blighted Ovum-2/4/08 D&C-2/8/08 @ 7 weeks
M/C #2 - BFP-3/31/08 Early M/C-4/10/08 @ 5 weeks
M/C #3 - BFP-6/31/08 Early M/C-7/13/08 @ 5.5 weeks
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Re: Elemental, PPI med or both?