Does Gaviscon really work for reflux?

Submitted by I_am_the_Daddy on Thu, 09/25/2008 - 20:32.

Gastro Oesophageal Reflux Disorder (GORD)

Our eldest was prescribed Gaviscon for his reflux (as well as at one time or another domperidone, omeprazole, and ranitidine).

Has anyone ever noticed any difference in their childs reflux symptoms when they started taking Gaviscon?

Our experience is that the sachets are fiddly to use, the powder clumps in the milk and then stops it coming through the teats and it's basically more hassle than it's worth. We never really saw any benefits of the Gaviscon and we are yet to meet anyone who it has worked for and two consultants that we have seen say it's a waste of time.

I'd be really interested to know if people's experience is different to ours.

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Submitted by natalie on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 13:54.

my eldest son was on gaviscon when he was a baby and then it was re introduced when he was 14 months tbh we didnt find it helped much
my youngest son was put on gaviscon at 8 weeks, it made him constipated and did take the egde of some of his symptons however this quickly wore off and hes now on domperidone and ranatidine as well as the gaviscon in his milk

Submitted by I_am_the_Daddy on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 17:00.

Sounds like your experience is very much like ours...

Gaviscon was as good as useless really for us...

Our eldest was pretty quickly moved on to omeprazole and had been on it for a long time until he was finally weaned off it.

Personally I was always a bit concerned about omeprazole because it's not (or certainly wasn't at the time) approved for babies.... But my understanding is it reduces the production of the acid so for a baby that is throwing up a lot, like ours, it can at least protect the throat a bit from the acid because the vomit is less acidic..... Nice subject to be talking about :-).

Our youngest was prescribed ranitidine (at least i think it was ranitidine...Is that the one called zantac?) It was very hard to get him to take it, and it wasn't until we tried it ourselves that we found out why, it tastes of soap! It's disgusting. Are you having much luck getting yours to take it?

Are the treatments working for your youngest?

How has the support from your GP etc been for you?

Submitted by natalie on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 20:10.

hi ya
yes zantec is ranatidine :)

the thing with reflux is its all trial and error have to try a cocktail of drugs to get the right treatment, my eldest is on lansprazole and erthmycin.

samuel who is my youngest will take it ranatidine but hes not keen on it but i dont blame him as the smell is so strong smells like very strong mint.
so far yes they did work then he got ill and gained weight so they got upped and touch wood it seems to be working again.

our gp was abit oh hes gaining weight etc hes fine, but as m eldest has it i got taken alot more serious as i knew what i was talking about, one more visit to a woman doc and she referred samuel to matthews paed at the hospital who is fantastic cannot fault her care at all.
as he gains weight it doesnt get taken as serious than if he was losing, but thankfully hes paed saw past the weight gain and wanted to get the symptons under control

how old is ur son?

Submitted by I_am_the_Daddy on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 19:20.

I've never heard of Lanzaprole... Does that do the same as omeprazole?

I think often doctors get blinded by the fact that a child is putting on weight, when in reality it's not the whole story, my understanding of reflux is that a lot of children put on weight because they feed out of comfort.

It's good that your paed saw beyond just the external things.

My son is 2.

Submitted by Guest on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 15:50.

If we don't add Gaviscon the whole feed will come back up. We use the whole sachet in 125ml using a nuk latex teet which is a standard non silicone teet for colic and reflux.
Along with resting , sleeping at 45 degrees and not burping too much this works wonders.
Anne-Marie

Submitted by I_am_the_Daddy on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 20:44.

It's great that Gaviscon and the little tricks (like keeping your baby at 45 degrees) works for you. How old is your baby?

I know a lot of people are quite sceptical as to how effective Gaviscon is, I also know lhaving looked at the results of the reflux survey that this site posted that lots of people are given infant Gaviscon for their babies gastro reflux but that it seems to have made little or no difference, maybe it depends on the severity of your child's reflux?? Did your baby projectile vomit or did it just sick up feeds in dribbles? Our eldest always used to projectile vomit, hosepiping everything in puke... Not nice!

Has anyone else out there had success by giving Gaviscon? Is it supposed to just thicken the feed to stop it coming back up or is it also supposed to relieve the acid too? I should really look it up and see what's it's meant to do!!! :-)

Submitted by Guest on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 12:17.

Hello,

Without gaviscon every feed comes back up in projectile vomit, I will get days where every feed comes up but then days where all is ok. If i move him within 30 mins of a feed he'll be sick.

My dr wants to try something else but i'm reluctant as in a week i'll get 6 good days. If it gets worse then we may need to try something else.