Gillian Fordyce's Page

I am so glad I have found this website, I no longer feel like I am going mad. My son Christopher who will be 2 in January has never vomitted in his life and has been at the Dr's once about a year ago. However I feel that I have never been out of my surgery with Anna, who is now 17 weeks and was finally diagnosed with reflux a week ago!! I had been saying since she was 3 weeks old that there was something wrong, my health visitor and GP kept saying oh this is all normal, if she had been my first I may have believed them. Anna had every sign and symptom of reflux except weight loss, and that was what they commented on all the time, and ignored the fact that she had every other sign and symptom. I by this stage could not think straight due to being post-natal and exhausted by lack of sleep, rest and having a "fussy" feeder on the breast. At 5 weeks she was started gaviscon which constipated her further, although my health visitor did not feel she was constipated, that it was perfectly normal for a breast fed baby to only go twice a week, I think otherwise. I was made to feel that I was doing something terrible giving her drugs at such a young age so I stopped them after two weeks, I feel that it didn't really help anyway. I took her to an osteopath at 7 weeks for 3 sessions and that appeared to help and by 10 weeks she was doing well, only screaming for about an hour or two and sleeping better during the day and at night. I thought foolishly that that was the end of it as I had been given no information otherwise, then at 14 weeks it all started to get very bad again and I started to panic. Anna was screaming till midnight, my poor wee girl and my poor wee boy, he gets very upset when she is distressed too. My husband had to take time off work, I had been coping on my own for most of it as he works away from home. A GP at the practise diagnosed ME with post natal depression, one day when I was in the surgery on my knees with exhaustion barely able to speak let alone protest at the diagnosis he has never met me before, duely gave me a prescription which I hasten to add is in the bin. I finally after much pestering and perseverance have been listened to, it took three visits in one week to the GP, NHS 24 call, out of hours GP call and a visit to casualty!!!!! Anna has been started on Losec and Domperidone, which has reduced the screaming to one hour in the evening and she has a cons appt next week at sick chicks. Hallelujah! I have also gone on a dairy free diet, not that easy and I feel I am craving what I can't have, diet otherwise good (missing chocolate the most does anyone know of a good dairy free variety?). I feel so guilty and annoyed that I did not listen to myself and my gut instincts, however I now feel I have the strength to get this reflux sorted and to get back my happy giggly wee girl. I am amazed that for such a common problem that the health care advice is so limited and so stuck in the "colic" dark ages. Thanks to this website and the links I have purchased a wedge at a reasonable cost and have some nice "bibs" for Anna to wear with her party frocks at Christmas. I can't shut up now that I have got started, it has been great to rant and get this all off my chest. Speak to you soon, Gillian