my 10 year old has bile refluxu

[nibbie]

My 10 yr old daughter recently had an endoscopy which showed infection, ulcers and bile reflux. Since taking antibiotics for a week and omeperazole for 6 weeks, her symptoms have improved,however, she is still throat clearing and has nausea upon waking.The gastro doctor seems to feel Lauren is quite well when she isnt and told me bile reflux is difficult to treat and has basically sent us home with no meds no follow up test and told Lauren to drink yakhult every day. We are seeing him in 7 weeks time probably sooner by the looks of things. What treatment would you recomend for it. Surely i can't be expected to just keep my fingers crossed that it will heal itself.

[CalGal]

Nibble, also consider having her checked for dairy intolerance using both IgA and IgG antibodies. I've run into people with bile reflux that when checked for diary problems found severe food intolerances and when the dairy was discontinued a lot, if not most, of the symptoms disappeared. It's worth a try.

[nibbie]

Thank you for your posts. Funny you mentioned the yoghurt drink Calgal, I thought the same thing myself, so I switched Lauren to probiotic tablets. I called the gastro and he wants to wait until May to see how Lauren improves. She has improved quite a lot in the last 3 weeks, her nausea is mild and stomach pain is not so severe.Her energy levels are very good, she is scootering and cycling with her friends which is great to see. So I am going to see how she goes, the gastro said she could take ursodeoxylic acid, but it may cause complications for her. He explained that she is mending at the moment and may improve even more. I am glad I called him and expressed my concern, now I feel we have a plan.

[Margot49]

Poor kid.  I am 63 and dealing with similar issues but not one doctor has explained yet why I wake up pre-dawn with stomach upset and nausea.  I have about every test done and still suffering.  I also suffer from chronic dry mouth and throat.  Carafate did nothing for me but make that worse.  I was told by one soecialist I have a motility issue.  Saw another specialist at Stanford yesterday and she is saying IBS.  Doing a test next week and I can't take Omeprazole for 7 days and am in bad shape today with stomach pain and nausea.
First doc was trying me on Prozac and low dose Clonidine. I don't want to take calcium channel blockers.  This doc wants me to start low dose Gabapentin (Neurontin), daily Lactulose, Activia, stay on the Clonidine and Xanax (I take low dose as needed). I also use Gas-Xas needed.
Haven't started the new meds, always afraid of drugs.
What seemed to help my stomach for a while was Dyciclomine ?) then Levsin but I developed an irregular heartbeat (probably Levsin) and was told to stop both.  
Maybe some of these drugs, or combos, will help your daughter.  
Good luck.. See different GI docs and get different opinions and these last two I saw are supposed to be tops in the field and don't agree!!

[CalGal]

The doc is correct in that bile reflux - in some - can be difficult to treat.

I assume she had H. pylori? If so, she needs to be rechecked at a proper interval to see if she's cleared the bacteria. If not, she'll need to be retreated.

Did he tell you to have her follow a GERD-friendly diet, and also low-fat to try to assist with the healing process? If not, give it a try. There's decent diet recommendations on www.gicare.com you might want to look at.

You may want to consider using probiotics in capsules instead of using the drink. They will have higher good bacterial counts, and dairy might not be the best idea for someone with a 'torn-up' stomach.

Was she checked for any gallbladder issues? I know it can sound somewhat strange to check a child for that, but it can and does happen.

Did he mention anything like the use of carafate, or something else that helps to 'coat' the stomach and might help with healing?