Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Gastroesophageal reflux (GERD)

Turns out all the fussiness throughout the day and night accompanied by arching his back and stiffining up his limbs, thrusting his head backwards, spitting up after every meal (projectile sometimes), crying and pumping his legs throughout his sleep (see night terrors entry), waking up from a dead sleep to arch his back and crying (basically not sleeping), crying after eating or during it, etc is GERD - aka acid reflux. For the past two weeks Brian and I just thought he was a fussy baby and would outgrow it as that's what many other parents have told us, however once we came across the symptoms of GERD we realized it's more than just being a baby. In fact, I learned that many parents often associate these symptoms with gas or possibly a milk allergy which we did of course and tried all sorts of things to help with either of those cases. I stopped with my dairy intake and we had no luck with Mylicon or gripe water.

So now the issue becomes getting Ben to take the medicine to help him. Turns out the liquid medicine, which smells like candy, he hates. You would think that since he liked all the other stuff we tried he loved he would love this too, but of course, the one thing that can help him is like poison once it touches his lips. I keep trying to tell him that this stuff will make him feel better, but for some reason he doesn't listen. Instead he just spits it out forcefully and cries. Hopefully we can find a way to settle this battle between baby and medicine soon so that he can start feeling better and I can start sleeping more! I'll spare you pics of him during his pain as it's hard for me to even watch let alone capture a picture of what he thinks is the horrific event that occurs all the time.

1 comment:

  1. poor baby! maybe you can pump some milk and mix that with the meds in a bottle? I hope you all get some rest soon!

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