Jac has been spitting up a lot lately. There are usually good days and bad days - once it starts it usually continues all day - and then he will have days where he does not spit-up at all. The doctor has explained that a lot of the spitting-up is caused by reflux.
He takes prevacid for his reflux seems to help - but the dose needs to keep on changing as he gains weight - which is of course constant. At the beginning of last week we upped the dose and it does not seem to working as well as we might hope. Everyone! warned us that his reflux is likely to get worse before it gets better - and perhaps that is what is going on! The estimate is that he will have reflux until he is at least 6 months (adjusted) and possibly as long as 1.5 years! Oh man! Let's hope he grows out of it sooner rather than later!
Here are some pictures taken by Daddy after a particularly bad spit-up which came shooting out his nose. This has happened about 4 or 5 times in his life and it has been dramatic every time. We have to put saline drops down his nose and then use the bulb to suction it back out. This is to try to clear the acid from his stomach our of his nose quickly enough that it doesn't really burn his nasal passages - how effective this is I don't know. We also almost always feed him again right after. This seems somewhat counter-intuitive but it seems to help. I think it helps to coat his esophagus and calm the burning down.
When he does a normal spit-up out of his mouth he is frequently not upset at all and if you happen to turn your head when he does it you don't always even know he did it until you see it.
Hey guys,
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to let you know that some babies tend to urp more often than others. O was definitely an urper. It never seemed to bother her at all, unless something triggered her sensitive gag reflex at which point we all got to enjoy the projectile vomiting. That's fun stuff, let me tell ya.
With O it got better around 9 months when she really started to eat a lot of solid foods, but until that point, the 6 - 9 month period wasn't very fun - the urps got much more smelly once the more solid foods got mixed in. No more getting away with wiping the stuff off my shirt and going about my business - at that point it was change or stink like rotten milk all day.
Hopefully, Jac's urps will get better sooner than later. But if they don't, just know that it's a pretty normal occurrence, that doesn't tend to bother them too much. Don't sweat the small stuff too much - urpies are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.
- Heidi