"Complaint about what to do with my son"

My son was born in June, at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. From the day he was born he was a very sickly baby and never slept much. He was sick so much in hospital my partner had to borrow some clothes for him as he went through 5 baby grows in a day we had taken with us to hospital. As we are new parents we didn't know what to expect and were advised this was normal as my baby was delivered by C-Section and he had a lot of mucus he was trying to get rid of this. His first night after he was born he wouldn't settle at all and cried constantly all night. He wouldn't feed from his bottle and he wouldn't bring up his burps. My partner spent the whole night in tears as she couldn't settle him and the midwife wasn't being helpful. She was also in a lot of pain and the midwife didn't offer any other pain killers. In the early hours the midwife finally took him away and fed him but she overfed him and he spent the next day constantly throwing up.

When we got home things didn't get any better for my son. At first we were led to believe that he had colic as the midwife suggested. He would arch his back in agony, he would throw up his feeds and would wimper in discomfort. He would wake up screaming in pain, He was wanting fed all the time but would scream and cry constantly. As time has passed over the weeks this has grown from Colic to Acid Reflux which was diagnosed by the paediatrician.

At three weeks old He was projectile vomiting, wouldn't sleep longer that 20 mins and he had 6 poop filled nappies in a night. He had black mucus in his poop and blood so we went to the doctor we were advised that it was "probably" a viral infection and if we wanted we could be referred to the paediatrician, we asked if we could. we were offered Gaviscon but the doctor said this might make him constipated so we didn't take this option.

Then we were left waiting, after 3 weeks we never heard anything about our referral. My fiance went back to the doctors who suggested we try dairy free milk, we then bought the SMA whey soya powder which made him worse. he became overly fussy, crying and he started pooping dark green and hard smelly poop. he also got a rash all over his back and chest. The doctor confirmed our appointment at the paediatrician was due in September.

The health visitor came for the 6 week check, My son was very jittery and still couldn't settle, My fiance was advised to call the paediatrician to try and bring our appointment forward which she did and managed to get an appointment almost a month earlier. we went back to SMA gold formula in the meantime.

We wrote down a list of everything that we had noticed he was doing and my fiance took it with her, when the paediatrician seen the list she diagnosed him as having acid reflux and gave us omeprazole and gaviscon to try. she also suggested we change the pattern for his feeding to 6 bottles at 5oz a day. My son took a bad reaction to the omeprazole, it made him short of breath and he choked. the gaviscon gave him a very sore stomach and trapped wind and he wouldn't sleep at all. we had to sleep in the living room with him as he wasn't going to sleep until 2am most nights. we decided to put him on SMA Hypoallergenic Formula as it had broken down Cows Milk Protein and doesn't have soya in it. He has been better on this formula but it still wasn't perfect. He was now only spitting up rather than vomiting full feeds.

My fiance was at the doctor 2 days after for my sons 6 week check, she advised the doctor what happened and the doctor prescribed Ranitidine 3 times a day. During this my son was having a very difficult time passing stools, he went a full week without going to the toilet. this happened two weeks running so my fiance went back to the doctors again who prescribed laxatives for him. these helped a bit but he still not regularly pooping and can go 5 days without pooping even though he is getting this laxative.

Last week we went back to the paediatrician who put up his dose for Ranitidine and wrote us a prescription for Nutramigen milk to help with his now mysterious condition. The milk was utter useless and after a few bottles his condition regressed to when it was at his worse, My son screamed in agony non stop for 2 days and he has been getting worse rather than better. my fiance thinks that he has an allergy and we said this from the beginning but nobody seemed to listen to us.

During this whole process I have been disgusted by the way the Doctors, paediatrician and health visitors have had what we feel is an utter disregard for anything we have said. As this is our first child we can accept that we would worry about certain things that are normal, what is not normal though is having constant days where my son screams and cries until he physically falls asleep out of exhaustion. being told that your baby might just cry is a horrible thing to be told when you know there is something wrong with your son. It shouldn't be such a fight to get doctors to believe that there is an issue. I feel that this should have been picked up when he was in the hospital at days old and not diagnosed and still ongoing at 11 weeks old.

At no point has any medical professional decided to send my son for any tests to find any allergies, which we have asked multiple times that we need to help ascertain what is possibly wrong with him,

Throughout this ordeal we have been told "It's normal for babies to cry" which is a lie.

The doctors who have seen him have seemed uninterested in anything we say, the whole arrogance of "we're right and you are new parents" is prevalent, when my son was on the soy milk he developed a terrible rash that spread from his back to his chest and then finally his face and what were we told? it was a heat rash, everyday from 5pm till after midnight sometimes longer my son will scream and cry and will throw his body about in distress and discomfort, that is not normal behavior..

I am disgusted in his treatment and I struggle to have any faith in the NHS for treating my son. We have actually started to look into homeopathic medicines to help our son as we feel at a loss at the lack of help we have received so far!

We need an answer and help, my son should not be a dumping ground for medicine in the hopes that it will work, we want him to get tests done to find out any possible allergies.

Thanks for your time