Reflux / thickened formulas / wind - help!

I'm new around here so apologies if I've missed a similar post.

My son is almost 4 months old and we have been struggling with reflux and wind since he was born. We've tried a variety of teats and formulas, including moving to goat milk formula for around a month. The goat milk seemed to get rid of the wind issue but the vomitting was out of control.

So at a recent visit to the paed, he said to change to Karicare Aptamil AR... so the vomitting is significantly better (one load of washing of bibs and towels every 2 days instead of 1-2 loads each day!) but the wind issue has returned big time. We have high pitch squealing after each feed, and he's still burping and passing wind several hours later (i.e. right before he's about to feed again).

I've tried Infacol and Gripe Water (the non-alcohol variety) and warm baths and massage etc but the poor little man is still struggling with the wind.

So I'm thinking instead of trying to treat the wind, we need to prevent it... so any ideas? Has anyone had any success with an AR formula that didn't create wind problems? Anyone used a thickener instead of a pre-thickened formula? Does it sound to anyone else like it could be the cow's milk that causes the wind?

I should point out that the AR formula has not caused the constipation issue we were told to expect.

So... any advice? Willing to try pretty much anything to stop the little man from struggling so badly (first time Mum seriously struggling to watch her little man in pain).

Thanks,
Meg

You could try lactose free or soy formula to see if that's any better. Karicare make a separate thickner you can add to these to thicken for reflux, this way you can customise how thick you need the formula (I did have to go up to fast teats to accommodate thickness though). My DD1 had reflux and terrible wind and tummy issues as a baby. We tried nearly every normal and specialty cow's milk formula on the market, including lactose free but it didn't make any difference and in the end the only option we had was either soy or goats so we went soy first with thickner and after 3 months of hell from birth we had a completely changed baby. It's didn't take away the vomiting but reduced it and took away the pain. She got sick at one stage and wasn't drinking the soy formula so I bought a tin of goat's formula thinking it was another "dairy-free" option until we had a baby screaming down the house all night after 3 bottles and I read the ingredients and lactose is an added ingredient.

She's 6 now, still has soy milk, cheese and yoghurt, just because that's what she's used to but can handle dairy now without too many tummy troubles.

I also used chiropractics (a baby friendly one) with DD2 as she had severe reflux too but was breastfed and that worked wonders. She was 7 months when we started and improved the reflux to a point before she finally grew out of it at about 18mths.