Diagnosing reflux

How was your baby/child diagnosed with reflux? With the gremlins they didn't even examine them, they just said "oh they scream all the time and they spill so they have reflux."

So I was very impressed when I took lil miss to see Dr Allen Liang (one of Maya's allergy paeds) the other day as I suspected she was getting a bit refluxy. He examined her so thoroughly, and he asked me heaps of seemingly random questions about my pregnancy and her behaviour now, and then he confirmed that it is definitely reflux.

Some of the things he asked were whether I got heartburn during pregnancy and what I took for it, whether she got the hiccups a lot while I was pregnant, whether she passes a lot of wind, whether she seems to strain passing a bowel motion, whether she tries to "climb" when I put her over my shoulder or if she draws her knees up, whether she has cradle cap, whether she fusses over her feeds etc.

Then he pressed on her tummy and when he pressed a specific spot she started sucking and he said that is the definitive sign. As soon as he stopped pressing she stopped sucking. Apparently the sucking is a response to the discomfort when pressure is applied to that part of the stomach causing the acid to rise.

I find the whole thing so interesting, coz like I said no one ever examined the gremlins, altho I have no doubts that they definitely did have reflux it was just interesting listening to his questions and seeing how they also applied to the gremlins.

Wow, go the good Doctor! You'd wanna keep him on! Sorry to hear that Chiara has reflux though - that's not such great news.
Ella's was diagnosed purely because she spilled SO much and SO often, but it wasn't treated for months after diagnosis, as she was labelled a "happy spiller" because spilling didn't make her cry at the time (instead she cried about all sorts of other things!). Hers was only eventually treated because of failure to thrive, in the hope that keeping more food down would help her weight. Next time round I'll be insisting that there's no "happy" about reflux and it needs to be treated!

My plunket nurse said "Maybe reflux, but there's not much they can do about that" when I asked her about his insane puking, so I took him too the Dr. She watched him feed and noticed he'd pull off, then listened to it moving up and down in his throat afterwards.
Also, when she picked him up, he curled up into a little ball!
Sorry to hear Chiara is reflux too, I hope she responds well to treatmeant! Yay for an awesome Dr!

Gosh thats really interesting. Isla ticked yes for all those things. Like Deb said ist a shame more drs dont know to ask those q's and hit the reflux spot! It might have saves us all a lot of stress,...and Isla lot of pain

Sorry poor Chiara has reflux tho. Glad your Paed is so onto it and its been picked up early on.

All three of mine had reflux, my eldest was misdisagnosed slient reflux, so had battle with him, HV and GP haven't got clue....but then that was 5 years ago. He was turned out got a food allergy.
My middle child had severe gastro reflux, she started to reflux soon after her birth, so she went sent to hospital at a week old cos GP doesn't know what to do with her!!! She hospitalised twice in her first month of her life, she was so sickly baby and very poor weight gain. she had milk & soya intolerance as well as food allergies.
My youngest child, from my experiences with my middle child, I just knew he got milk allergy and gastro reflux soon after his birth. Our new GP believe me as mother know their children better than Dr and also got strong history of multi-food allergies.

Have you heard of www.cryingoversplitmilk.co.nz? they help