Rachel - question about DS milk allergy

[nigele]

Hi Rachel,

I mixed formula into Thomas's cereal since I was out of EBM. He broke out in hives and ped thinks he has a milk allergy. We are scheduled to see a ped allergist at Duke on March 10. Can you give me any information or web site links to learn about how dairy in MY diet might be affecting him?

TIA!

[Rachels]

Well, it could be causing his nightwaking, for one thing. When I learned about all of Abigail's food sensitivities (more on that in a minute), I radically changed my diet. 24 hours later, and for three days (until our ER disaster), she started suddenly sleeping 5-6 hour stretches. She's waking more than that now with my having been on antibiotics, but she still will sleep three hours at a go, and sometimes more. Pretty dramatic given that she was waking every hour or more. She is also now taking good, long naps for the first time in her life, and that too started immediately after I changed my diet.

The dietary changes are very hard. I really miss dairy especially. But it CLEARLY is making such a huge difference in how she feels. Her reflux symptoms are better, too.

FWIW, I didn't take her to an allergist. Too long a wait, and too many needles! I took her to a naturopath who tested her for food sensitivities with applied kinesiology. It's muscle testing-- if you have an irritant near you, as it turns out, your muscles turn to mush. Weird, weird stuff, but completely noninvasive and unbelievably effective. I don't really understand it, but I absolutely believe it. Again, like I said, it only took 24 hours to notice a difference after I cut out the foods he suggested. I was able to get a naturopathic appointment within a week. So you might think about that. It was $60, and he told me he'd give me every penny back if it didn't help her.

You also don't have to wait-- try cutting out dairy NOW. Stop with milk, cheese, etc. and read labels carefully-- you will also have to avoid anything with whey or casein in it, which is a lot of stuff. It can take up to two weeks for all the milk proteins to really clear his system, so if you do it, give it that long and DON'T CHEAT. (It's hard-- but milk hangs in there in their little bodies, so one sneak has lasting effects.) Also, I learned that Prilosec has milk in it, so don't let anybody prescribe that for reflux. You should begin to see improvement soon. He will probably sleep better, and the reflux will get better, and he'll generally be more comfortable if he indeed has a milk allergy.

Either way, I totally recommend the kinesiology route. SOMETHING is waking him up, right? For me, it was worth every dime to have a reduction in that.

HTH! Let me know if you have other questions.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[Sandy]

DH is severly allergic to a ton of food so we ended up taking Alexander to a allergist to make sure that he wasn't. Luckily at this point he isn't and hopefully he will not become allergic to any foods in the future (cross my fingers)

According to our pediatric allergist babies immune systems are not mature enough to handle certain foods and when introduced at a early age can cause a food allergy to develop. There are also foods that can cause a food sensitivity to develop versus a allergy(i.e. reactions to citrus fruit and strawberries are often sensitivities that they will outgrow.)

She gave us some general guidelines to use in introduction of foods and I thought it might be helpful to share this.

Slow introduction of all grains starting at about 6 months. This would also be a good time to start fruits and vegetables. Start introducing chicken, beef, pork, lamb at around 8 months.

Avoid cows milk and dairy products in general til at least 1 year (we use soy as Alexander tested clear of a allergy for soy. Keep it mind that babies can be allergic to soy too but cows milk is usually the more common culprit). They do have formula's for babies that are allergic to both and we had Alexander on that for his occasional bottle for a while before we switched to soy (but they are very expensive) but Alexander is mainly breastfed.

Avoid eggs til 2 years

Avoid Seafood and nuts til 3 years.

This may seem excessive but in general we follow this because my husband is in the 1% of people who are severly allergic and could barely eat anything as a baby and has ended up in the ER several times and almost died at least once when he was little. We just would never want Alexander to have to go through that.

If you decide to have Thomas tested it can be a very traumatic experience for both you and the baby. I could barely stop myself from crying during the process. We decided ultimately for us it was worth it because I was petrified everytime I introduced something new to Alexander and this has give us tremendous peace of mind.