Saturday, May 15, 2010

Medication change up.

Oh gosh I remember when I first came home from the hospital with Wysdom and how overwhelmed I felt with the list of medications to give him. We had this weird iv sodium bottle that we had to use. I remember they showed that to me about 10 minutes before we left the hospital and the nurse could not even get it right. Oh yes and we also had the ng to contend with. Wow how times have changed. Medication don't seem so hard to do now. Yes changes still take a day or two to get used to, but nothing feels like that first couple of days right out of the hospital. Do you remember those?

Well this week we went to see Wysdom's Pediatrician. We have been having a terrible time with reflux for the last month. We are not sure what has triggered it off again...but it is back. Maybe teething? Maybe constipation? Or something else. So we are changing a few things again in hopes that it calms down. We will continue on our motility med's to speed up digestion and just increase the dose to meet Wysdom's requirements. Then stop the Zantac and instead we are going to try Prevacid( I know many of you mom's mention this one). Next...stop the lactolose because it causes to much gas and switch to PEG. Oh yes and bump his feeds up by 20mls too. Lastly, the one that we are really excited about is adding in a blended diet through the tube. Our pedi approved for us to try the blenderized diet as long as we are followed by our dietician. We are really looking forward to it, but we are not starting that until we get all the other changes down pat. We may have to experiment with the PEG and the dosages a little as we have had several messy diapers and poop up to Wysdom's arm pits. Ha. Really. I am not joking at all.!!!

So with all of these changes we are hoping less constipation, less reflux and thus less congestion. It really makes the day hard when Wysdom can't breath through his nose and is gagging every minute. Try bringing him to a baby group like that. Everyone thinks he is sick. I have to declare that he is healthy as soon as I walk in the room and explain the that it's just reflux!!

Anyways if anyone is using PEG and Prevacid I would love to hear how you like it or not and especially how you are dosing the PEG. Wysdom is 21 pounds and a bit and we are giving him 7 grams which maybe a little much. I guess only time will tell.

7 comments:

Josette said...

Jessie has taken Prevacid off and on for a long time. Although it wasn't explained to me well by a dr. we have had much better results with it since we started doing a couple of things I read online and then confirmed with the dr. I give her Prevacid in the morning on an empty stomach, waiting at least 30 min before she eats anything after taking it. Also, this may not be relevant in your case as he is younger..we were taking the dissolvable tablets at one time. It says not to let them chew them (the fact sheet says it can reduce the effectiveness, the dr. said it shouldn't make that much difference)Jessie used to always bite them, chew them, she takes a capsule now that she can swallow it. Making the two changes of on empty stomach and not chewing tablets made a difference for Jessie.

I hope you get relief soon!

Josette said...

Jessie has taken Prevacid off and on for a long time. Although it wasn't explained to me well by a dr. we have had much better results with it since we started doing a couple of things I read online and then confirmed with the dr. I give her Prevacid in the morning on an empty stomach, waiting at least 30 min before she eats anything after taking it. Also, this may not be relevant in your case as he is younger..we were taking the dissolvable tablets at one time. It says not to let them chew them (the fact sheet says it can reduce the effectiveness, the dr. said it shouldn't make that much difference)Jessie used to always bite them, chew them, she takes a capsule now that she can swallow it. Making the two changes of on empty stomach and not chewing tablets made a difference for Jessie.

I hope you get relief soon!

Alaina and Kyle said...

They just started us on Prevacid during this stay and we are now on EleCare (another hypoallergenic formula the next thing right before the blended diet). I'm praying all your changed help and we got that wedge from our therapists. They had an extra one so they gave it to us. They are pretty spendy but you can buy them. When I get home, I will look at the company who makes them and let you know. To be honest, I don't think it helped him much but he did stay elevated.

Lacey said...

What is PEG, I've never heard of that one! I do think prevacid is stronger than zantac, before Jax had the nissen we used prevacid, but its a lot more expensive so now that he has the nissen we just use zantac!

mandd3 said...

First, Wysdom is looking might cute in the new header picture!
Second, Tomas has been on PEG for about 6 months now and it has made a big difference for him. He is also about 21 pounds and I give him 1 tsp a day (don't know how many grams that is). Also, since you are starting a blended diet, one of the things you can look into is adding baby food prunes into the mix, on the days I give Tomas the prunes (2.5oz stage 1) I don't do the PEG - just a little less medication in the world :)
As far as prevacid - I don't know that it is making a difference, but he is only getting 7.5mg a day - I think he may need to go up.
Good luck with all the changes, and you are right - it is sooo much better than when we are all first sent home so overwhelmed. Now, everything just gets taken in stride.

Anne and Whitney: Up, Down and All Around said...

i REALLY hope all of the changes will help wysdom and you guys with his reflux/constipation/etc... by the way, the pictures you posted a couple of posts ago of blyss and wysdom are just beautiful :)

Meghann said...

Reflux has been a struggle with Porter as well, and teething always makes it worse. We uses prevacid occasionally with Porter when he has flare up, it does help him but it doesn't make it go away for P.

I hope that all the changes go smoothly and that Wysdom starts feeling better, reflux is so painful. What a trooper!