Baby Diagnosed with VUR

Hi M.,

My baby was diagnosed with this around the same age. What grade is she? Mine is at a 1 on one side and a 2 on the other. My pediatrician has told me that this is a very touchy subject. He also said that they are now finding that being on the low dose of antibiotics is not preventing children from getting UTI's. My husband and I decided not to keep her on it and monitor her very closely as well. I hope this helps. I struggled with this for a long time and the pediatric urologist is going to tell you that it is the best thing for her. I wish you the best of luck!

My now 6 year old just stopped taking her Bactruim a few moths ago. She has been on it for 2 years. She kept getting break through infections while on it.?(she does have a few other conditions as well large bladder, duplication of the ureters, enlarged kidneys.) Has your baby had a VCUG done yet? Did they say what stage her reflux is? We chose to have the DEFLUX procedure done. Our thinking was it was much easier on her little body and if it didnt work we could always do the traditional surgery. It was about a 15 min surgery and she had absolutly NO pain after. She did say it stung a little after she went pee the first 2 times though. I would strongly recomend this. Look here: http://www.deflux.com/ It has been a few months since the surgery and no infections and no antibiotics. She is doing great! Hope this helps.

Wow. I have been there. I am pretty sure that my daughter was diagnosed with the same thing (the name of it is in her medical records that I have somewhere in the house).
When my daughter was only 2 months old, she came down with a fever that we just couldn't get to come down. We took her to the hospital and her fever was 104. They started running tests. But while they were waiting to get the results, they were setting up to do a spinal tap. I was completely freaking out! My baby was crying from blood being drawn and I was crying because there was nothing I could do to help her. Luckily the results came back that she had a UTI before they got to do the spinal tap. We ended up being transferred to a different hospital and that is where they did an ultrasound of her abdomen and found that she had 2 ureters (tubes from kidney to bladder) on the right side. The valve on one of the tubes did not pinch off properly and was allowing urine to reflux back into her kidney. So she was put on antibiotics and we were told that she was going to need surgery. We had to wait for 4 months for the surgery. I hated having to give her antibiotics everyday. She kept getting yeast infections. They would change the antibiotic and it wasn't strong enough and she would get the uti again. Finally they found one that seemed to do the trick for awhile. When she was 6 months old she had the surgery to fix the problem. I was a wreck as I handed my baby over to the surgery team. But they were fantastic with her. Because the 2 tubes were attached to each other, it wasn't as easy as just removing the bad one. what they ended up doing was to "Y" them together near the bladder and have them both go thru the one working valve. Then they tied off the bad valve and that was it. She had to continue antibiotics for 3 more months until the follow up appointment. But we got the "all clear" at the follow-up and that was it. No problems ever since. She is now 5 years old and you would never know anything was ever wrong. Throughout the whole ordeal, I had found out that it is a rather common abnormality to have. And if both of those valves had worked properly, we may never had know that the abnormality had even been there. Trust me, your little girl will get thru it just fine. It is always harder for the parents to watch their baby go thru something that they themselves cant fix. Hopefully you have a good doctor who can help to guide you thru the options. We lived in San Diego at the time of my daughters surgery so I wouldn't know who to recommend out here. Just make sure that if you don't like what you are hearing, that you are not afraid to get a 2nd opinion about the course of action.
Hope it helps to hear that someone else has been thru it. If you have any questions, just let me know. I will help if I can.

Hi M. -

There are several herbs that can safely be given to your little girl. They include horsetail, nettles, lemon balm and chamomile. The horsetail contains silica, which helps restore strength to the bladder and urinary tract system. The nettles is a specific for the bladder/kidneys and both lemon balm and chamomile are relaxing nervines - to ease the stress on your daughter caused by this disorder. You can have these 4 herbs combined into 1 tincture. I can't give you an exact dosage without knowing what your daughter weighs. If you choose to go this route, contact me with this information and I will let you know.

Blessings,
M. M. Ernsberger
Certified Clinical Herbalist

Hi M.~my DD was dx with bilateral reflux (not sure of grade but it was severe and reached the kidney core) when she was just 3 months old. She went through 2 yrs of antibiotics, multi catheterizations,etc.

I quickly learned that LIQUID ACIDOPHILUS was her best friend to help combat the long term use of antibiotics. The meds are completely necessary to prevent illness, scarring and damage but the acidophilus helped to balance out her natural body's defenses (yeast,etc). She had rashes from time to time and also dx with gstro reflux but I swore by the liquid acidophilus and gave it to her in her bottles,etc.

Hope this helps!!

PS~feel free to contact me and also keep an eye on her developing latex allergies later in childhood due to the latex exposure. Its a scarey time but it sounds like you are on top of her medical care and well informed, which is key!

Hi M.- My step daughter (age 7) was diagnosed with VUR when she was 4.5. We did do the antibiotics, and she still had breakthrough infections. They assured us that they were antibiotics that were specifically for that area. She ended up needing to have the proceedure where the inject the influx to seal the area. She did not need to have the more invasive proceedure. We were lucky with Jenna. She didn't have that many infections when she was little. She had three infections by the time she was three. They monitored the situation and was hoping she would grow out of the reflux. Are they considering that your your little girl?

When I was that young I was diagnoused with kidney reflux. I was on medicine for something like 8 years. I don't remember what it was, but I also don't remember having any problems with it. Of course this was back when you had no choice in the flavoring of the medicine so now I barely tolerate the taste of cherry!