2 Month Checkup

Jack had his two month checkup today with Dr. Sherwood and he also got his first set of shots.  He weighed 13 lbs. 4 oz. and was 24 inches long!   He has certainly been busy growing these past eight weeks!  He has also been in quite a bit of pain and it has just about broken my heart.  We have spent a good four or five weeks trying to get this poor guy some relief and I was so happy to finally get to see her in person today in hopes that she could figure out what was going on.  It seems like we have tried just about everything to make him feel better.  We started in early December trying to treat what we thought to be reflux like his big brother had.  The day we went in to the clinic Dr. Sherwood was out so we saw Dr. Cook and she put him on Zantac and said if that didn't work we would move on to Prevacid.  I wasn't holding my breath for the Zantac to work since it hadn't done too much for Sam and I could already tell that Jack's reflux was much worse than Sam's ever was.  After about a week on Zantac with no relief Dr. Cook switched him to Prevacid.  It definitely helped him some but he was still obviously in more pain than I thought he should be after being on medication for awhile.  Next we started to wonder if maybe my milk wasn't agreeing with him.  Around Christmas I kept pumping but tried him on some Similac Sensitive formula just to see how he responded and I couldn't tell much of a difference.  I happened to remember that the combination of Prevacid and rice was almost magic for Sam so I called Dr. Sherwood's office and the nurse said it would be fine to go ahead and add some rice to his bottle.  For the first few days I could tell a big difference.  He was sleeping much better, had stopped crying as much and wasn't scrunched up in a ball because his belly was hurting so bad.  Maybe we had found our answer?  Oh, think again!  The screaming and balling up came back worse than ever a few days after we started the rice so I held on for a little longer until today's appointment arrived.  He screamed most of the appointment, which I was honestly glad about so she could really see what we had been dealing with for quite some time.  It has been one of those things that you almost have to see to believe.  She said he was absolutely pitiful and definitely was having trouble digesting not only the formula but the rice too.  She said he had classic colic symptoms in addition to reflux symptoms and she explained how the reflux was only made worse by the colic.  Wow!!  No wonder we hadn't slept in weeks and neither had he!   She said to switch to a predigested formula, either Similac Alimentum or Enfamil Nutramigen, to help with his colic and to stay on the Prevacid for his reflux.  Hopefully by his four month appointment the colic will pretty much be gone and we can switch back to the regular Sensitive formula and add some rice to his diet.  I was thrilled she had finally figured out what was going on with him and I was so happy to start the new formula today in hopes that he will feel better soon!