Enfamil Ar baby formula

taxi36

I know that asking medical advice is'nt allowed on the forum so before I post I just want to point out that I'm not asking for medical advice , merely opinions please.

My Baby Grandson who is just turning four months has always been quick sick after his bottles. My Daughter on advice from her Health Visitor has changed his formula a few times without any reduction to the sickness.

Our GP then referred him to our local childrens hospital where the Doctor has told my Daughter that he has a reflux. He has been prescribed presciption milk - Enfamil AR.

My Daughter thought that the sickness would improve pretty quickly but unfortunately , even with being on the new milk from Thursday morning the sickness has not improved at all.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a baby on this milk? Did it take a few days for the sickness to reduce? Did it not work at all for you?

Remember , I dont want this thread deleted if the mods see it as asking medical advice so please just give opinions on my questions above.

Thanks for any opinions offered.

pinkmexican

As it would be a reaction to the milk I would think that it should fix it straight away rather than be a gradual thing.

My son had reflux misdiagnosed as colic until 3 months. He was given Gaviscon to thicken up his milk to stop it coming straight back up. It wasn't perfect but did minimise the amount that came back up and that worked straight away, which is why I assume this milk would work as quickly.

We also used comfort milk not sure if that helped or not, but at that time we were too scared to change again.

HTH

Gillyx

Hi Taxi36, was it the childrens hospital up in Belfast you got referred to? We saw a Dr Thompson up there and he was great. To keep feeds down I'd recommend milk thickener in normal milk. Apparently it's not the "done" thing anymore, but my GP is quite old fashioned. We got prescribed Carobel Thickener. Cow & Gate make it and you can buy it from Boots pharmacy for just over £3. You could buy a box to see how it goes and if it's rubbish then nothing lost, if you like it, you can ask your GP to prescribe it. It has to be put into normal formula though, so you'd have to go back to SMA, Aptamil or whatever it was you were using. If you have any questions you can pm me x

P.s the staydown formulas done nothing for us either.

kingfisherblue

OP, I've sent you a PM.

skintchick

This is a charity run by parents

http://www.livingwithreflux.org/

They have a forum. It might be worth posting there and reading their information.

koalamummy

hi Taxi sorry your grandson is having such a hard time.

My daughter was prescribed enfamil for a brief period but it did nothing to help her at all as it turned out that she was intolerant of cows milk proteins, which this formula contains. She ended up being prescribed hypo-allergenic formula, which has improved her situation no end. She unfortunately still has reflux too, but things are nowhere near as bad as they used to be. If this persists go back to your GP, repeatedly if need be, until they do more to help.

shortdog

My daughter was on Enfamil, and I'm sure it helped almost instantly - it works by thickening as soon as it hits the stomach, so if she was sick, it was almost like jelly. We tried allsorts else, and nothing else worked as well.

taxi36

Gillyx wrote: »

Hi Taxi36, was it the childrens hospital up in Belfast you got referred to? We saw a Dr Thompson up there and he was great. To keep feeds down I'd recommend milk thickener in normal milk. Apparently it's not the "done" thing anymore, but my GP is quite old fashioned. We got prescribed Carobel Thickener. Cow & Gate make it and you can buy it from Boots pharmacy for just over £3. You could buy a box to see how it goes and if it's rubbish then nothing lost, if you like it, you can ask your GP to prescribe it. It has to be put into normal formula though, so you'd have to go back to SMA, Aptamil or whatever it was you were using. If you have any questions you can pm me x

P.s the staydown formulas done nothing for us either.

Hi , yes it was the Royal and yes , we were seen by Dr Thompson.

Our own GP had already tried the baby on gaviscon and also a medicine called rantidine (sp?) neither of which helped.

Dr Thompson told us that the baby had been "under treated" by our own GP as (he says) neither gavison or rantidine are effective for treating spit up in babies - he says that both of these medicines will help the burning sensation caused by the vomitting but they WILL NOT stop the vomitting occuring.

We have also tried carobel in his feeds , I bought him a box of this in our local chemist but unfortunately the problem continued.

Im really starting to get concerned now as it has been going on since he was born....

I think maybe we need to go back to the hospital and maybe the next step would be testing to see if maybe he is allergic to something in the formula , maybe wheat? or something else?

Another poster has given me some handy tips via pm which I will gladly pass onto my Daughter.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to reply.

koalamummy

Taxi it may be dairy intolerance like my daughter had. She had been prescribed every combination of medicine available, (with the exception of domperidone, which I refuse to allow her to have) to no avail. It wasn't that she was under treated....they were just treating the wrong thing. My baby had a particularly severe reaction to carobel, which I have been told is more or less expected in dairy intolerant children as carob and soya are so closely related. Most dairy intolerant children are also soya intolerant.

http://global.neocate.com/what-can-i-do/tools/symptom-checklist/

try filling this in and see if it gives you any answers.

Gillyx

taxi36 wrote: »

Hi , yes it was the Royal and yes , we were seen by Dr Thompson.

Our own GP had already tried the baby on gaviscon and also a medicine called rantidine (sp?) neither of which helped.

Dr Thompson told us that the baby had been "under treated" by our own GP as (he says) neither gavison or rantidine are effective for treating spit up in babies - he says that both of these medicines will help the burning sensation caused by the vomitting but they WILL NOT stop the vomitting occuring.

We have also tried carobel in his feeds , I bought him a box of this in our local chemist but unfortunately the problem continued.

Im really starting to get concerned now as it has been going on since he was born....

I think maybe we need to go back to the hospital and maybe the next step would be testing to see if maybe he is allergic to something in the formula , maybe wheat? or something else?

Another poster has given me some handy tips via pm which I will gladly pass onto my Daughter.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to reply.

Hi again, when I went I asked for hypo allergenic formula. The stuff you want to ask for is Nutramigen AA, apparently he doesnt prescribe neocate but this is a new formula the exact same. Dr Thompson also told us we'd been fobbed off we had actually gone out and bought Enfamil and Normal Nutramigen off our own backs because of how crap our baby clinic doctor is! The fornula we're now on is great i would try and go back and see him again as he is very understanding. The fact your gp gave you ranitidne for sickness reflux is insane, it would help control the burning but would hold nothing down. As koalamummy said do keep going back, ask for a rapid response referral, we only had to wait about 5 days to be seen and just ask for the formula. I really hope you get it sorted.

Nicki

Please don't undermine the OP's confidence in her GP at a time when she may need medical support. You may think the GP's actions were "insane" but they did in fact follow the NHS protocol for treating reflux to the letter, as he is required to do by NICE guidelines. If criticism is to be made, it is for the prescriptive nature of those guidelines which requires all doctors, whether GP or consultant, to try gaviscon, then Domperidome, then ranitidine in that order, before moving on to consider changing milks as a more expensive alternative.

OP - my baby had very severe reflux and was failure to thrive as a baby until the age of 6 months, including being hospitalised on more than one occasion. The NHS was hopeless and we ended up seeing a couple of top specialists privately more than once to resolve the issue, and we still tried that protocol first to see if it worked, because it does for many babies. Ours turned out to be caused by lactose intolerance and was resolved ultimately by stopping breast feeding and switching to neocate milk combined with early weaning on medical advice. Reflux isn't always easy to treat and resolve but rest assured your GP and your consultant have both done everything right, it just takes trial and error before you find the right approach, and what works for some won't work for others, or may make things worse.

My own opinion though is if there is no change in baby's symptoms after a week of trying something new, provided he hasn't got dehydrated in the meantime and is not in increased pain, you should go back for a change in approach, and sooner if you have concerns his situation has worsened.