Reflux and Dairy

I stopped having dairy in my diet and found it made a HUGE difference to Eva, she was so much more settled. When I had a tiny bit of dairy she would get upset anywhere from 4 hours to 12 hours later.

We went to see a paed and had allergy testing done, Eva came up with no allergy to dairy so I tried having dairy again (cup of tea with condensed milk - yum) and 12 hours later she was screaming non stop after me feeding her.

So if she doesn't have an allergy to dairy but dairy makes her scream we figured it was the reflux (which had been getting worse - gaviscon just didn't seem to work as well anymore).

So we went to the Dr as the paed said he would prefer Eva to be on ranitidine than gaviscon and got her medication changed to ranitidine. She has been on it since Friday and the change in her is amazing!

She is happy all the time, doesn't scream in pain anymore, spews way less than when she was on gaviscon, her pooing is almost back to normal... we now wish that we had made the change earlier.

Anyway do you think I can eat dairy now that her reflux medication has changed? Has anyone else had a similar problem?

It is just soo hard to have nothing with dairy in it (even tiny bits seem to affect her) and if I could eat a bit of dairy I would be keen on BF for longer but at the moment I am looking forward to her going onto formula. I am waiting for the paed to ring me back as she doesn't have an allergy to cows milk but I don't think I want to put her on cows milk formula because of the bad reflux she got with me just having a small amount of dairy.

When do you think I should try having a bit of dairy? Should I wait until Friday so it will be a week of her being on ranatidine?

Thanks for your help.

Edited by Mel&Kel

I also have a baby born on feb 11th this year with reflux. He was on gaviscon and ranitidine and vomited all the time while screaming...until I put him on goats milk formula! The change in him was amazing...everytime I fed him he would scream so we tried him on cows milk formula and that was worse so I did some research on the net and decided to try goats milk formula it was worth a try I thought. the vomiting is a lot better, he no longer screams and we have taken him off ranitidine and only use gaviscon now. We tried 1 bottle of cows milk formula last week 2 see if he had grown out of the reflux or if infact the goats milk formula was the reason and had a day of vomiting while crying and being very sad again.

Jake had severe silent reflux and I went off dairy completely just on a hunch (when I was BFing). He was on Omeprazole but any dairy set him off even with the meds. I tried him on cows milk formula and it was awful so moved him straight onto goats milk formula. Hes now 2 and he has lactose-free milk, dairy-free olivani, soy yoghurt, etc. Hes had the faeces and blood tests (at 1) and they came back negative but since he had no dairy in his system since we'd kept him off it I think the test was inaccurate.
My doc supported the whole no-dairy thing and we get the child disability allowance from WINZ which is not income-tested and its approx $80 per fortnight. It covers his dairy-free stuff coz it gets really expensive. It'll help with the extra cost of special formula.
Go with your instincts I reckon!!