I created this page just for Katie’s Story!
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To learn more about the symptoms our children suffered from and what we found to help tremendously with their reflux and digestive problems, go to my Home Page!
Martha Koehn, wife to Russ and mom to Quinton, Jackson, and Shiloh Beth
marthakoehn83@gmail.com
Help for Acid Reflux, Heartburn, GERD, Indigestion, IBS, Gastroparesis, and Many Other Digestive Issues 
first off i want to say THANK YOU for writing this blog. in the midst of what seems like the millionth night of i just can’t take this anymore (lack of sleep, crying baby up all night etc) while googling on my iphone holding my son who i couldnt put down b/c he was in so much pain i happened to see your response to someone on some question on a reflux forum. i noticed your answer and clicked on your link to your blog. i cannot tell you how thankful i am you wrote your entire story with all the details. our story is similiar minus the blood in the stools. i am not sure exactly where to start. i too on my own finally figured out i had to eliminate every single ounce of dairy and soy in my diet while breastfeeding to get my son to quit spitting up. until the age of 6 mo he slept in a moving swing b/c he would spit up or make choking noises gagging if i laid him down at all. finally at 6 mo is when i switched him to nutramigen b/c i just oculdnt take eating that way anymore and amazingly he seemed SO much better. wheni started introducing foods is when things got really bad again. rice cereal results in crying, gassiness, total lack of nighttime sleep unless being held. carrots made him throw up. squash made him throw up. i finally quit foods. then everytime i would try any purreed baby food i would give up after a few days and go back to just nutramigen and he would improve a ton. finally at 10 mo i thought he just has to be eating something (btw my son is 98% for weight and height so people find it really hard to believe hes had all these issues). i began with sweet potatoes and at first he seemed fine. it eventually got to where we spent an entire 8 weeks where i couldnt even put him in his crib. he would just cry. i had to hold him all night long sitting upright. i attributed it to teething and just continued on with foods. then finally i had a moment where i realized i think its the food. so i quit all food and just went to nutramigen and he returned to normal. i fInally threw a fit until his pediatrician put him on prevacid. he kept telling me “he was spoiled and just wanted mommy at night.” after prevacid he started falling asleep every time the car was moving and taking a decent nap every day for the first time ever and sleeping ok at night. in his crib but waking 1-3 times a night for a bottle. that contined until july 2012 and he was about 16 mo old. the only food during this time he seemed to handle well was pears – pureed and an organic cheerio from whole foods (the only finger food i could find with very few ingredients). any time i have added any other food in – he either is up screaming, crying, gassy, arching his back, refusing to lay down….etc… he often throws up after eating a new food.
the crazy thing is this. he has been blood tested and he does not show any signs of allergies. i have taken him in twice again a few days ago we went and i started crying b/c i am just so frustrated. he has been to a pediatric gastroenterologist. who said that i just need to wait it out until he outgrows this. i took him in a second time a few months after the first visit to tell him nothing had improved and to beg him for some advice.
GOOD NEWS: i started him on the digestive health mid july and he has been off of his prevacid since then!!! i have been giving him 1 pill twice a day. i have seen no negative changes since doing that and i am so happy about that. SO THANK YOU! thank you for sharing this. i told our allergist the other day about it and i was so excited, he looked at me blankly and said i dont really see how that would help. (didnt really surprise me at all his response). the only true help i have received in this crazy journey has been from other mom’s stories. and only one dr. ever agreed that soy could be part of the problem.
AND i have been taking it twice a day and it is helping a ton with my heartburn as well. i have also noticed i am able to eat things again that used to make me feel funny and sometimes get heartburn, onions, banannnas are two things!!!
so around the same time i started the digestive health i decided to give the alkaline water a try. the lady i got it from started him out on 7 mixed with 8.5. then quickly had me start giving him 8.5. i was giving him only that water. and then getting it every two days. i personally had my heartburn go away. but i noticed he got so fussy. they kept saying it was making him detox. but he was so irritable and restless and not sleeping well. so my big question is, was he being given to high of an alkaline water. i guess i would like more advice on what you did with your boys on that.
i decided i am going to give it another try. i am so hesitant to purchase a machine, b/c i am so scared it wont help him, but there is a big part of me that keeps thinking what if it does. i grew up drinking reverse osmosis and that is what i have been giving my little guy since he was six months and what i was drinking while nursing him.
1) at the age of 18mo-2yrs how many of the digestive health did you give a day? and did you give a whole one at a time or did you spread it out during the day?
2) when you started with the alkaline water with your boys, what level did you start on? and how long did you stay on that level? i have heard differing opinions. i was told by two kangen people to start and move up in a few days.
3) after starting the two things did you ever have reflux flare ups with the boys? just curious
also one other question, have you heard of NAET? if so any opinions? i was so desperate i took him into a dr on saturday that practices it. he was tested and showed he was allergic to most foods. they treat a person for the allergen and then it should make the person no longer allergic. they treated him for eggs. then he had to avoid them for 25 hours and then after i gave him some. he loved them of course. poor little guy has eaten so few things he goes crazy with excitement when he gets something new. so for two days he seemed fine with them. and the first night he slept all nigtht which he has only probably done 6-10 times since he was born, and the second night he woke 1x. but then today he threw up after eating them.
he doesnt throw up very often. but it seems like maybe 1x a month on average and its usually after a new food. for example in april we tried oranges and started throwing up for days then. any thoughts on that? and did your boys do that too?
you also have given me huge hope as well for a third child not being this way. i dont feel i am done with kids but honestly dont think i can go through this again if its going to be this way. my first was hard (didnt sleep well for the first 8 mo and i think had silent reflux) but my second has been a nightmare in the eating and sleeping department. so thank you again for doing this blogged. you have helped me a lot!!!!
martha i also wanted to ask if you have an opinion on if Kangen is better than any other ionizer. for us finances are tight and i am looking at buying one that has a 60 day return policy and also it is half the price of the one from kangen i was looking at. i dont want to waste my money and researching it all online gets tricky. it does seem like from all i am hearing the alkaline water should be my next step as we havebeen drinking reverse osmosis this whole time. i thought i was doing the right thing all these years drinking RO water and now if i find out it is actually creating a more acidic environment for him and me. any other thoughts.
Katie,
Thank you so much for taking the time to write that all out and post it here! I am too am so happy you found my blog. It gives such a good feeling every time another mom tells me that my information has been helpful!
MANY MANY mothers have the same story… my doctor doesn’t know about this, we just aren’t getting help etc, etc. It’s so sad! I know that many doctors are very knowledgable and I’m so thankful we have them but sometimes they are so knowledgable that the simple things are hard for them to figure out. One mom told me that she took a copy of a short article of mine to her pediatrician and after he read it he said. “I encourage you to explore this more. Us doctors aren’t talk about these kind of things. Iguess because there is more money in conventional medicine.” I appreciated his honesty.
As a general rule these kind of food intolerances don’t show up when allergy testing is done because it is not a true allergy. Some call it an intolerance and I call it the inability to break down food properly.
How many pills for what age and how to give them… When we first started the pills, I gave Jackson 3 or 4 a day and he was almost 2 years old. But I normally tell people to start pretty slow in case of side efects. Like.. ¼ – ½ a pill a day and keep adding ¼ – ½ a day until they feel better. There really isn’t such a thing as overdose because all ingredients in the pills are plant base and the body recognizes them as food. Shan (owner of Core Health Products) said that it would be ok for a baby to take up to 6 pills a day if they needed that many. There have been times I have been down to giving the boys just one pill a day and they will be fine for several days or a week and then I notice them started to get restless at night or saying “I’m sick”. So as a general rule I try to give them each 3 a day, one with each meal. The more you can spread the pills out, the better. If someone is only taking one pill a day then I would for sure split it into 2 doses but 3 or 4 would be even better.
Some people notice bad side effects when starting the pills but I think the reason we didn’t was because they were already drinking Kangen water. You can learn more about the side effects by reading my page titled “Side effects of probiotics and enzymes”.
Alkaline water…. I am sure that you have done a lot of research so I am sorry if some of the things I say here you already know. Kangen means to “return to origin”. The Enagic brand alkaline water machine is the only machine that produces true Kangen water. But some other brands will claim they can also make Kangen water. The Enagic brand is endorsed by many doctors and is the only company that meets Japan’s requirements to be an approved medical devise. Many hospitals over there use them to treat patients. Yes, the Enagic brand is one of the more expensive brands. The reason for this is quality. It’s like when you go to buy a car. There are many different types and makes but they all have some things in common. Like… they drive, have 4 wheels, a steering wheel etc. But what’s under the hood, and the quality of the car will make a lot of difference in the price. It’s the same with the water machines. We felt like we needed the best quality of water possible for our children so therefore bought the best brand.
Beings I don’t know a lot about the differences between the different brand of machines I am going to ask a friend of ours that is knowledgabe about alkaline water machines if he would mind coming on here and explaining more about the differences.
What brand of machine does the lady have that you were getting water from? I have heard that some of the alkaline water machines don’t hold their alkalinity very long. When we got water from my husband’s folks it lasted about 3 days. We noticed that when we bought our machine our children did a lot better with fresh water all the time.
Reverse osmosis water has all the minerals taken out of it. Our Kangen water machine seperates the minerals in the water so that we only drink the good minerals.
What pH level did we start our boys on? 8.5. There is no race to see how fast you can get to 9.5. If your child gets worse when you go up to the next level then stay at whatever he’s comfortable with. Yes some say you can go up in a couple of days and some say to wait several weeks. It all depends on the indivual. Yes it is possible that your child could be detoxing with the water. So I’d say to go really slow with it. With Shiloh I drank 9.5 while nursing her and now when I make her bottle I use 9.5. It has never bothered her.
Aslo, has the person you got water from tested the water’s pH level? When you push the button for 8.5 it should be close to 8.5 but it depends on where you are located and what the water source is like and what the pH level is before it’s run throught the machine. If using well water the pH could be acidic (below 7.0) but rural or city water has to be 7.0 or higher to meet regulations. If the water is below 7.0 there will be something added to the water to bring it up because anything below 7.0 will corrode pipes. In travleing with our machinewe have found that with some types of water we had to run the water as fast as we could through the machine to get the correct pH level. And other places we’ve had to slow down the flow. The Enagic brand machine will work any where with any type of water though. The only type of water that Enagic can’t work with is reverse osmosis because it needs to have the minerals in it to work. I have heard that some brands of machines have a clause that says they will only garentee then to work with certain water types or in certain areas. You might want to check on that before you purchase something other than Enagic.
NAET… I don’t know a lot about it but I know it is something that some people have truly gotten help from. My personal opinion is that helps more with allerges like dust and pollen than it does with foods. My husband had a treatment similar to NAET for his allergies to weeds etc and it helped him a lot. I tried it with my children’s stomach problems and didn’t notice it helped. But everyone is different.
Have my children had any problems sincde drinking the water and taking Digestive Health… Before they started Digestive Health they were restless almost every night. The alkaline water had decreased the pain a lot and they didn’t always wake up crying. When they first started the Digestive Health they would wake up or be really restless at night maybe once a week. And then maybe every other week. And it just kept improving.
Two nights ago Quinton was restless during the night and that was the first time in at least probably a year. We were on a trip this last weekend and we didn’t take along our water machine. I had taken water along for Shiloh’s bottles but we were only gone 4 days and I had hoped the boys would be ok. But the day before Quinton was so restless at night, he had only had one Digestive Health pill. I normally try to give him 3 a day. But we had gone out to eat and the bottle of pills wasn’t in my diaper bag. That day he had ice cream at lunch and when they eat fresh dairy I try to be sure that they take a pill with it. So after Quinton got to the point of sitting clear up in bed and crying out I woke him up enough to take a Digestive Health pill with some of Shiloh’s water and he slept fine the rest of the night.
Jackson has more problems being restless at night than Quinton. He seems to have an episode maybe once a month or every other month maybe.? I believe this is due to when he doesn’t take enougth pills and drink enough water. When this happens I wake him up and make him take a pill and drink some water. He will settle down and sleep fine. I also try to get him to eat a bite or 2 of something because he tends toward having low blood sugar like Daddy. Plus although I know it is fine to take Digestive Health on an empty stomach I think it might work better with a little food.
As a general rule, Shiloh will sleep 12 – 15 hours straight at night. She rarely has any tummy problems. But she too was really restless one night on our trip and I gave her a pill and got her to get out a burp and she was fine the rest of the night. There have been 2 other times that she has had tumy pain and that was when she was getting teeth. I was really worried that she all of a sudden was acting like her brothers did as babies. I found that by giving her a pill mixed with 9.5 water and getting her to drink as much 9.5 as I can, she will let out a burp and settle right donw. It has worked every time. I did some research about teething and acid reflux and found that teething causes the saliva to become acidic so that it makes the cells in the gum die so the tooth can come through. Of course saliva is swallowed and makes the tummy sick and also gives acidic diaper rash.
Did my boys throw up a lot from new foods?… to be honest it felt like all my boys ever did was throw up. 😦 I really can’t remember how new foods effected them. I don’t think I was diligent enough to keep track of that. All I knew was that dairy and processed foods like hot dogs bothered them. I didn’t realize at the time it could’ve been many other foods too.
I would recommend that you listen to the recorded call about pregancy and health babies. There is a link for it at the top of the page. I hope very much so that your next baby is as healthy as my little girl! It’s truly amazing!!
I hope I have answered all your questions but feel free to ask more if you have them. 🙂
A few thoughts from waterboy. If you ladies search for laundry detergents, what makes the difference? The price? , or which one gets the job done. They all do some of the same things.
I have been around the alkaline water industry for some time now. When I was looking into buying one for my family and myself, yes I was also concerned about purchasing the correct machine. What do all these options do that the costlier ones offer? Do I need them? (the 2.5pH acid water alone has saved me thousands of $$$ that the ER room never got) I had an uncle looking at same time and he decided to buy one brand and I bought the one My inlaws had, cause I didn’t have the money to gamble. Over the next month we compared, I cleaned up grease stains with 11.5 pH water. He tried the same with some detergent added and his wouldn’t do it. He ended up sending his back, costing him $300 which he didn’t realize cause it had 60 day return, and getting one like I had. We concluded that the one company used good salesmen and the other the product did the selling. We found that the length of time the water is in contact with the plate and if the water is allowed to flow along the plates or through the plates makes a huge difference in the out come of the water. The power source whether constant power or not. His had a nice auto-matic shut-off so don’t waste water. Found out that was actually so machine didn’t overheat.Both machines changed the pH, both made a -orp, but the one with most power and smooth flow of water through the machine gave the results. So in research we also found that pH and antioxidant factors are great, the Micro=clustering is the real miracle. Most companies don’t mention this aspect of the water. I believe this is the secret and the ticket to good health. Remember, water is the vehicle in which nutrition and electrical signals etc,,, get through the body, So the micro=clustered water is the one that is going to get the nutrition to the cells and hydrate at the optimum level. And one last plea, don’t be wooed by a 60-90 day return policy, I know some people have been caught by those, There are other catches involved. I have helped sell hundreds of ionizers and have only had one person return. It was solely finacial reasons so she could pay her sons rent cause he refused to work.. wow eh? Give up water machine that was taking pain out of her everyday life for that. I have been blessed in helping many people find a better, new level of living by changing their water. Since about the first machine I sold, I have told people that if they do not notice anything with the water, I will buy it. I have not bought any other machines yet than the ones from manufacturer. I hope this helps you make the right choice for you and your dear little ones.