has anyone's dc had a barium swallow test?

it seems like our ped and gi do not want to put hannah on previcid for her silent reflux until they do a bunch of tests. :( while i understand why they want to do the tests, i just wish they would have agreed to put her on it. but b/c she had gross bleeding from the rectum, the gi said she needs to rule out other causes of her discomfort. *sigh*we now have to wait until nov to have the test done. so that means no changes in meds until then.

she is doing much better with sleep now that she sleeps in her bouncer chair, getting about 4 hours of sleep in a row. but she still exhibits behavior that would suggest she is in pain.

so what will the barium swallow tell us?

Re: has anyone's dc had a barium swallow test?

yes. I had to feed her the barium while she was under the xray machine. They watched to see if the barium came back up from the stomach to the esophogus. She actually liked drinking the barium...I think the worse part was that before the test she could not eat for a long time (we were actually inpatient and had to wait for transport which seemed to take forever).

Re: has anyone's dc had a barium swallow test?

Hi Jo,

Jack never had to do this so I have no advice.

Just sending some hugs and that I've been thinking about you and that sweet lil' Hannah

Re: has anyone's dc had a barium swallow test?

We never had to have it done, but I'm a speech pathologist and have administered barium swallow tests. Basically she will have to drink a barium solution. They might mix it in with her formula. (I've only done this with adults so it might be different). The barium will allow them to see the path of the liquid as she swallows and as it makes its way down the GI tract into her stomach. It's pretty much an x-ray movie. They will be able to tell if the liquid is coming back up into the esophagus. It can also detect polyps, see if the liquid is pooling somewhere, detect if there are spasms of the esophagus or back of the throat, but in your case they're probably mainly looking for reflux. It's been a while since I've done them and I was dealing more with the swallowing portion than with the GI part so I don't know if this is helpful at all. Good luck! I hope it gives you some answers and Hannah can be more comfortable.