Alternative Treatments for GERD

absolutely look at diet and especially dairy and wheat to start with. i know that those can be offending factors in GERD. i would also look at any stress that might be happening in the family as she may be very sensitive to that.

I did not have success with dietary changes for my daughters GERD, for her it was an anatomical problem and so no diet would change it. What did work well was Prilosec and if you think the Zantac isn't working well enough I would highly recommend that you talk to your doctor about it. Prilosec saved my daughter from a feeding tube as eating was so painful she was very underweight (like 1%).
H.

Is your daughter still nursing? If so, I cut out all citrus and milk from my diet and it helped my son's GERD immensely.

I have a son -now 4 1/2-that has full blown GERD. They have him on a high fiber diet and Miralax(to clear a blocked up colon)-we did the Gluten free diet and it worked well. Also keep Tums on hand and children's vitamins. The reason we put him on Miralax is that he wasn't #2 potty training.
Good Luck and hope this helps.

Hello B.,
I highly recommend you see a Naturopathic doctor in your community to help you address the GERD symptoms of your daughter. As a Naturopath we try to treat the whole person and get to the cause of the "dis-ease" instead of just addressing symptoms. We have extensive knowledge with clinical nutrition, food sensitivities and allergies, etc. We accept most insurances as well. To find a Naturopath in your area go to www.naturpathic.org or www.wanp.org and punch in your zip code.
yours in Health,
M.

My son had GERD when he was little too. I am sure that his was due to a milk "allergy". It was actually labeled allergic colitis as he did not have a "true allergy". We are actually having to go dairy free again as it looks like he might not have totally grown out of it yet.

Zantac also did not help us. Zegerid, a PPI, worked a lot better for us.

Hi B.,

Our daughter now 14 mon also had Gerd. Diet did help as I am sensitive to both dairy and gluten. I will say even with enzymes and a good diet we needed support with body work and saw two great practitioners in Portland Judith Boothby and Sheila Murphy both DCs. Abby is now reflux free. We also tried Zantac with no avail and finally switched to Prilosec for one round only. That did the trick at long last. Priolosec has a different mechanism of how it works. For short term use it is fine. It also taste much better then Zantac and you can get it at Lloyd Pharmacy compounded with Stevia. Better then fake grape or peppermint. Good luck in your search and watching diet. I know how helpless you can feel with this condition.

Hi, B.. I have a friend in Eugene who has a website for Gluten Free/celiac information. I am not sure if she has dealt with young children but I do know that she has about a ton of resources and may be of help to you. The web address is www.GlutenFreeEugene.org. Give that a try and let us know if you find help. Good luck to you.

One of my twins had GERD so bad they were going to wrap his stomach if he didn't start putting on weight. They put him on zantac and it was horrible. He hated it. My mother suggested papaya which is a natural way to help digest food. We went to the health food store and picked up a bottle of chewable papaya pills. My son was only six months at the time, so he couldn't chew them. We would crush up the papaya pill and put it in the tip of the nipple of the bottle we were going to feed him or we would crush it on a spoon with a little bit of water and give it to him that way. It worked! We did this before every meal and he started keeping so much food down that he gained the weight need to avoid surgery. He also seemed less irritable and grumpy.

This is my first time on this sight, a friend sent this to me, and quite honestly I am a lot older than most of the moms on here, but many times, with age comes wisdom. I quite honestly have to wonder why you are taking a 12 month old with GERD to a chiropracter. While chiropracters can do some good for things that they specialize in, the gastro-intestinal tract is not one of them. If there is a chiropracter that is telling you that this is something they can help, run, do not walk, the other way! I have been an x-ray tech for 33 years, a CT tech for 22, and an MRI tech for 18. A good chiropracter will know when to send a patient on to an M.D. Have you had a pediatrician assess this problem? GERD in a 12 month old is a very unusual situation, something for an expert to handle. Someone with 2 years in chiropractic school is not qualified to deal with this problem. How would I know? I have seen more chiropractic horror stories than I care to repeat. Some in children. Some fatal. I beg of you to get the right care for your daughter. Your suggestion of changing her diet at least made some sense, but once again, an M.D. with training in this area should be consulted. E. M