Toddler with Ar?
Dear ted... thanks for taking these questions...the comfort from the knowledge you share is greatly needed. My three year old son has been diagnosed with acid reflux, though only by putting him on Prevacid and it seeming to work. I don't like him taking the prescription, especially if no one's really sure what the problem is, I am looking for a natural remedy. Here are his symptoms... Two, or so, years ago he started vomiting small amounts, more like babies spit up, though he never did much as an infant. Upon further observation, I noticed it happened after coughing (though not sick) or when pressure was applied to his stomach, such as climbing up onto my bed. At times, it seems too, he had a sensitive gag reflex. During these times, the vomiting was a much higher volume. When I took him to see his pediatrician, she suggested putting him on Prevacid, saying that it may or may not be reflux, but the drugs would let us know, and were less obtrusive than testing. The Prevacid did seem to help his symptoms, though to begin with the symptoms were not that frequent. He was on for about a year and I decided to ween him off. His symptoms stayed gone for a few months, but then he started vomiting small amounts again. Lately he has developed a nasty sounding cough that seems unconnected to anything else. Then yesterday he coughed badly, then vomited alot. I just want to know for sure what's wrong with him and I want to treat it naturally. Is there something I can do with out uncomfortable testing?
T: The vomiting may be due to water soluble vitamin deficiencies of vitamin B complex (usually its the B1, B3, B6 and B12) and the vitamin C sodium ascorbate, on ocassion. Plus an alkalizing lemon and baking soda, for example.
Babies are notorious on deficiencies that adults don't have problems such as taurine, carnitine, good cholesterols, and other so called "non-essential" amino acid (e.g. arginine and glutamine), that companies don't add causing deaths and digestion problems in babies. Even babies that eat vegan diets can lead to death because vegans are are lacking in B12 and lacking in important cholesterols and proteins found in eggs, fish, etc.
My own experience of babies that spits out or have sensitive stomach were mostly from lack of vitamin B complex, imbalances of electrolytes and all those "non-essential amino acids", such as taurine, glutamine, carnitine, arginine, for example. Babies can die if the milk formula don't even have taurine, a so-called non-essential amino acid. Some companies, even Israeli milk company even forget something as simple as Vitamin B1 in a milk formula (amazing, but true see: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=506881) and it killed the babies. In some babies even without sufficient B1, B3 or B6 can lead to the gastrointestinal upset.
My own remedy for the acid reflux remedy for babies is vitamin B complex, some vitamin C, and a balanced electrolyte (baking soda, magnesium citrate, potassium citrate, and a small pinch of sea salt). Taurine might be missing from a child's milk formula, as does many other amino acids that authorities consider not essential, that can easily kill babies with Sudden Infant Death, or other things.
The other problems that a child has regarding "sensitive" stomach, is that certain babies, which is usually most of non-white babies, but some white babies included is the issue of lactose intolerance. Obviously these information from milk companies rarely discussed the issues of lactose intolerance, which is found in cow's milk formulation, where a breast fed milk is superior.
It should be noted that the acid reflux remedy is different for adults, where usually a baking soda and apple cider vinegar will usually do the trick, but in some tougher cases of adults with acid reflux, or more like bulimia or anorexia, than a possible vitamin B complex, especially the vitamin B3 and B12, but B1 and B6, B5, B7 (biotin), Choline, B8, B9 cannot be ignored. Personally I don't even ignore the B13, which is not found in B complex formulation, but are found in Brewer's Yeast.
The following is my remedy for a child's acid reflux. Assuming a child is one half weight of a small adult of 100 pounds, the remedy is then halved:
1. 1/8 teaspoon baking soda, 1/16 teaspoon potassium citrate, 1/16 sea salt in 1/4 glass of water taken twice a day.
2. Vitamin B complex that I used if 1/2 weight is 1/2 tablet of B50 (which is B1, B2, B3, B5, B8 at 25 mg since it is 1/2 the tablet), while B9, B12 is 25 mcg. This is taken once every other day.
3. Certain amino acid missing from a child in my opinion they should added whey protein in milk formula plus essential amino acid supplements, especially added should also be the "non-essentials" amino acid , carnitine, glutamine, arginine and taurine should be at least present.
It's difficult to mention the complete set of amino acid, so in case you are wondering what those are, here it is: l-arginine, l-histidine, l-lysine, l-methionine, L-phenylalanine,L-Tryptophan, L-Tyrosine, L-Alanine, Glycine, L-Serine, L-Threonine, L-Aspartic acid, L-Glutamine, L-Glutamic acid, L-Asparagine, L-Isoleucine, L-Leucine, L-Proline, L-Valine, L-Cysteine, along with the usual vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K, as well as electrolytes, phosphate, potassium,' and sodium.
There are other important nutrients, such as mineral, calcium, boron, iodine, molybdenum, zinc, magnesium, selenium, manganese, chromium, vanadium, iron, copper, tungsten, silicon for example. There are also essential fatty acid, omega 3, omega 6, pyruvate, and certain sugar that might be essential, good Cholesterol, isoflavones, d-mannose, fucose, xylose, N-acetylglucosamine, N-acetylgalactosamine, and N-acetylneuraminic acid, galactose, and some others. Most manufactured infant milk formula and child's diet won't have it, and this leads to digestive problem. But for me most of the problem is alkalizing and the vitamin Bs, with possibility of amino acid imbalance. All milk formula may not have colostrum either, which impairs immunity and lead a child to have digestive problems too. It might seem a lot, and this is why milk companies feed infants with malnourished milk. They just prefer to save cost. Believe it or not, even a good quality supplements won't have half of my ill prepared partial list of important nutrients.
The above alone is still incomplete when you consider mercury tainted vaccines, monosodium glutamate vaccines injected into the babies to cause lifelong obesity that the parents have to find a cure too, for all the poisons, as well as pseudoestrogen bisphenol A found in nearly all packaged foods today that can lead to precocious puberty in girls, with hormonal imbalance in boys (estrogen is somewhat antagonistic to the testosterone).
One interesting fact is some child's pooh may stink a lot, comes from the fact that their digestion is incomplete, and adding some humic acid and fulvic acid would help appreciably in acquiring better digestion, and less gastrointestinal problems too. Its done in many livestock animal feeds but I am surprised, this is removed almost totally from human nutrition, in an effort to chlorinate water, they had to completely remove any humic and fulvic acid during water sanitation. Actually a better sanitation using hydrogen peroxide, and ozone would be better, without the need of removing the required fulvic acid and humic acid to help the intestines function normally in digestion process of children.