making dom peridone and ranitidine as effective as possible

[mummykat12]

Hi all. Like many babies, particularly our precious preemies, lo has reflux (silent in this case). Dp and ranitidine make a big difference, but I'd be interested to hear what advice others have had on maximizing their effectiveness. I believe that dp should ideally be given thirty mins before a feed (difficult with breastfeeding) and that the doses should be regularly spaced out as it can give babies stomach cramps. I'm not sure if there is similar advice for ranitidine. Any info from others?

[littletomato]

We went to GP every fortnight to get DS weighed so that the ranitidine dosage could be re-calculated. I noticed that sometimes on the first day or two after the dosage was upped, he'd have episodes.

my main concern was the acid coming up, as he seemed to choke on it. The ranitidine took care of this (for the most part), so we didn't bother with the domeperidone (which empties the stomach quickly, so it prevents milk from coming up). DS was already having trouble with wind, so I was afraid that domeperidone might make things worse. I wonder if domeperidone is worth it for silent reflux?

Good luck... it's a real pain the first few months but it gets better quickly.

[bytheseaside]

we've just started on this road, trying gaviscon first. (silent too) does this ever work do you think, or is it a matter of time before trying the drugs you're on? I have similar questions about how on earth to best time / manage administering gaviscon with on-demand bf, when she feeds irregularly, and usually goes to sleep straight afterwards so isnt in any mood for syringes of medicine. cant face going back to expressing, so am mixing with water, but its not popular. we've done one session of osteopathy which seems to have calmed things noticeably

[littletomato]

We started with the infant gaviscon. It was effective in preventing DS from bringing up milk. However, it caused constipation, and didn't always prevent him from bringing up acid (which usually happened about an hour and a half after drinking milk).
I was FFing, so it was easy to get the Gaviscon into the formula, but can imagine that it would be a bit of a faff to figure out when to give the Gaviscon etc. Also, it's only supposed to be given a certain number of times per day, but DS was feeding much more often than that (I can't remember the exact numbers). So we'd have to skip a couple of Gaviscons, and of course since it only works per application, we'd have a couple of feeds where he wasn't 'protected'.
This is bringing up memories! And it was only a few months ago. I remember how it seemed like it would last forever...but it certainly doesn't.
We never tried osteopathy. Glad that it worked for you!

[GoldenDaffodil]

My ex-32 weeker has silent reflux and for 5 months was bf. I've always given it in a small bottle mixed with a bit of ebm/formula 3 times a day with at least 3 hours between doses. It's very important to keep getting the LO weighed as you will find the episodes start up again as they outgrow their current dose. DD's reflux is firmly under control now and rarely gives her any trouble. I've also noticed further improvement since she started solids.

We were initially prescribed Dom P too but as its supposed to be given 30 mins before a feed it just didn't work with on demand bf. I also felt like my whole day revolved around reflux medication. I expressed my concerns to my GP and after careful consideration he took DD off the DP. She is of the opinion that it des little to help with silent reflux anyway.