FAQ
Are PPI medicines safe?
Answer:
Can I mix my baby’s PPI with their milk?
Answer: You can if the PPI is immediate release. If it's delayed release you can't give a PPI with any foods or it will make the PPI less effective or ineffective. There are ways to make PPIs immediate release and you can read more about that here.
Can I use famotidine and a PPI together?
Answer: You can use both an H2 Blocker such as famotidine, rantitadine, or others with a PPI if you time them 4 hours apart. The way that H2 blockers work will cancel out the way that PPIs work if you don't time them apart. You can read the exact science behind that on this page.
Can you overdose a PPI medicine?
Answer: The short answer is NO! This is because PPIs are "pro-drugs". This means they do not work in the blood stream and only effect the direct area of the cells that produce acid to shut them down. Because they are not working in the bloodstream, whatever additional dose you take that is not needed will get expelled in urine.
Why was my baby was doing so well on an H2 Blocker, but now it’s like the medicine has stopped working- what’s going on?
Answer: H2 blockers are meant to be used for milder, shorter term episodes of reflux because they build tolerance in any human body at any age, typically in 2-4 weeks. So if you saw results from an H2 Blocker and your baby is starting to show symptoms again, it's more than likely due to tolerance against the H2 Blocker. Increasing the dose will not help. Different and further steps are needed to control your baby's symptoms. This is when a specialty doctor that knows how to treat Infant reflux is so important.
My doctor says my baby is on the ‘maximum’ dose, but they are still in pain- where do I go from there?
Answer:
My doctor says my baby will outgrow reflux by 4 months- can’t I just ride it out until then?
Answer: From our experience, reflux is a continuum or a journey, especially if your baby is experiencing moderate to severe symptoms. Most reflux symptoms do resolve but this mostly happens when the baby is sitting up more and eating solids and their esophageal sphincter muscle is more devoloped. But here's a tool that will help you now. It's our reflux quiz and it will guide you through they symptoms, what they are and why, and what you can do to get your baby help.
What about ‘risks’ of PPI use that I’ve read about? Things like bone loss, etc?
Answer: Bone loss is a very extreme side effect as is most side effects reported in the use of PPIs which were done and reported based of off 20 plus years of use of these drugs. Most PPI therapy for treating infant reflux is less than 10 months. All medication use have a cost benefit and it's best to know both sides and make a decision. This page goes over a very detailed explanation of the studies done of PPI use so you can make an educated decision if you want to use PPIs to treat infant reflux.
If change my diet or my baby's formula, can that cure reflux?
Answer: Changing diet and formula is not something you should "just do". These changes in diet are typically called Elimination diets. The principle is that you eliminate a type of food (such as diary, or gluten or corn). The only way to really discover what's triggering the reflux is to do each category one at a time, wait 4-6 weeks to see if that is the triggering foood type, and then keep it out of your diet completely. There are many problems with this.
- Putting your baby through the waiting time and potentially finding our after 4-6 weeks that the one food you eliminated wasn't the trigger. Only to start the whole process over again.
- It's so hard to know what's in food. Labels are not even explanatory and the FDA doesn't require some foods to be listed even if there is a very small amount.
The best way to approach these types of elimination diets is to do a food allergen test, which can be mailed to your home and shipped to a lab so we can assist you in diagnosing the results and put together a plan that will eliminate those triggers. Read about them here and let's get you and your baby on the right track.
What if I don’t want to use medication?
Answer: There are many choices in treatment in the infant reflux world. But trying to discover what the triggers are, and then finding a treatment that is effective in that area first which doesn't always have to include medications, is the first step. Which is why working with a doctor that not only specializes in infant reflux but was trained in functional medicine is the first and best step.