Saturday, November 03, 2012

Reflux is of the devil

It took me a little while to come to the conclusion and accept it, but my baby girl has acid reflux. Thanks to numerous friends and family members suggesting that it was the culprit, I took her into the doctor for a checkup and in hopes they could help her out. She was prescribed Prevacid at first. However, when Miles went to fill the script, they wanted $250 for it. The pharmacy called our insurance who said that it requires a pre-auth first. On Monday, I called the doctor's office to ask them to take care of it. They said we had to try Zantac first. It has been almost a week now and I am not seeing any big improvements. And half the time, soon after she has taken it, she does a big spit up and I worry most of the medication is just coming right back up. Not to mention, she HATES taking the medication. I asked the office how long she has to stay on it before switching. The nurse seemed a bit uninformed, but said she thought at least a month or longer. Ugh!

For now, this is what we are dealing with:
• LOTS of spit up - sometimes right after eating, sometimes an hour after eating. One night I woke up to the sound of her spitting up and it hitting something. After some searching, I found she had projected her spit up from the bouncy chair she sleeps in next to me in the cosleeper, onto our bed (about two feet away).
• A squirming, squealing, screaming baby when she's being burped or the reflux is hurting her.
• A frequent eater (Sometimes she will eat on and off for 3 or 4 hours straight with just small breaks in between.) I think it's for two reasons: 1) She spits up so much she's still hungry 2) It's comforting to nurse and also helps keep the acid down.
• Waking frequently at night (usually every 2 or 3 hours...sometimes shorter).
• Laundry every day (multiple outfit changes, tons of burp cloths and blankets).
• Congestion (This just started last night. She spit up out her nose and due to residual junk left behind/inflammation of her nose membranes, she is now severely congested.)

It really is awful and I feel so bad for her. I really hope her medication starts working or that I can figure out what to do to help her.

I'll leave with a couple pictures of her giving stink-face at having to take the medication. (And this doesn't even do justice to the faces she pulls.)

4 comments:

Megan Potter said...

I would call the insurance company and demand they approve the prevacid! I'm so sorry you have to deal with all this. Keep taking deep breaths and know that it will get better. Miss you!

NatalieW said...

Ugh I'm so so sorry you have to deal with this. I truly feel your pain and I hope it gets better quickly!

Jan and Carol Van de Wetering Family said...

Awwww, wish Grammy were there to hold and hug and comfort that baby so you could get some rest.

jessipants said...

oh my goodness. this is really sad :( i'm sorry kendra!