Dairy allergy

Miles had a little blood in his diaper the last few days... the GP thought at first it might be related to a tear or fissure, but there's no evidence of that. I took him into emergency finally after getting a referral to a gastroenterologist at the Children's Hospital was taking forever, and they felt that it was more likely due to a dairy allergy. This makes sense as his two biggest episodes happened after I ate lasagne and pizza! He's had no other symptoms at all.. no fever or anything like that.. he was even laughing at the doctor when he was being examined, so that further confirmed their suspicion that it was allergy related. I am cutting out dairy and I have nutramigen for him. Just wondering though.. is it common for these allergies to just crop up out of nowhere? Was I missing symptoms before (i.e. could his fussiness at times have been related?)?

 

Allergies can develop at any point in a persons life, with no warning. I was never allergic to anything until I was about 20, now I have quite a few food allergies. I hope the Nutramigen helps! :hug:

 

My DD's milk protein allergy appeared around 4 months and it ended up being pretty severe. I too thought that maybe I had missed signs, but I think it just took her that long to develop symptoms. She drinks dairy now and I actually think that the reason she had so much trouble with dairy to begin with was because of all the antibiotics they and I had around their birth. I hope he feels better soon! I noticed a substantial difference within 48 hrs of cutting dairy from my diet even though they say it takes up to 3 weeks to leave their system completely.

 

OMG....I can empathize. My first child, I breastfed, and I had to cut out all dairy and wheat until she was over a year old. When I ate something with either in it, the screaming lasted for HOURS. Now, with my twins who are two months, my son does great with whatever I eat. My daugher, who was significantly smaller, has such a hard time digesting. I am working now on eliminating all dairy and coffee out to see if this helps her crying and grunting. Oh, it's so hard! Good luck to you.

 

Allergies can just crop up, but it is totally possible that they were mild and you were missing them. I took Derek to the GI for reflux and she tested him for a milk allergy. She asked me if I had seen any blood in his stool and I said no. But there was microscopic blood so she said that can possibly indicate an allergy. So, we switched to Alimentum. And we waited until after one year to introduce dairy and whole milk again.

 

Yep, me too. One of my DS started refusing the breast, arching his back and screaming at 4 mos. First the ped thought it was reflux, but eliminating dairy has done the trick and he's back to bf. I don't know, maybe the intestines start waking up at 4 mos!? Hope your LO starts feeling better!

 

YES! I ate anything I wanted for the first few months with DS...and then at like 4 months, he suddenly developed a dairy allergy. Had to cut dairy for a YEAR. In all its forms!

To add insult to injury...one of my girls also has a dairy allergy...so I'm back to eliminating dairy again! UGH!

 

Yes they can start up quickly, and out of the blue!!!! Although I had to supplement formula from the get-go Wyatt's rashes did not start until I stopped BFing (didn't have a choice in the matter I just stopped producing.) This was at about 3-3.5 months. (He did have pretty bad reflux though) I asked the ped and she said to not change the formula but my gut told me to try soy....I tried soy and all rashes (and spitting up) cleared up immediately. Fast forward a few months and the eczema came back and got severe...infected....all over...despite my efforts (and knowing a lot of what to do since I grew up w/ severe eczema as well.) Long story short after two more pediatricians, two different allergists, and a dermatologist, I finally ended up at a natropathic doctor's office by referral by their 3rd pediatrician (and the one I FINALLY like.) The first allergist did the skin testing for things in his diet but they all came back negative - because the skin test only tests for severe allergies. I kept asking for more sensitive testing for intolerances, etc but no one would do it they just wanteed to put him on lots of meds and prednisone. I refused the prednisone and MORE antibiotics, except for topical. I wanted to get to the bottom of the cause rather than mask w/ meds. The natropath tested him via a blood delayed alleregy test from Alletess Medical Labs. The test covers 94 different food sensitivities/delayed allergies and low and behold he is allergic to sooooo much stuff!!! Most importantly milk, yogurt, corn, and coconut. He also has a sensitivity to soy. Corn and coconut are in almost all forumlas as fat and carbohydrate sources so even though I could get away from the milk via the processing in the Nutramigen or the powder Alimentum they stil had cocnut and corn. The only formula w/o all of them is the Alimentum ready to feed. I am now battling our military insurance to try and get it paid for because it costs us $400 a month....and I still have the other one to feed. :woah:

So, to get back to your question yes allergies can show up out of no where and suddenly. Before we got the blood tests back he had cleared up some but we woke up on a Sat morning and he had tiny red dots all over him they looked like little pin pricks of blood underneath his skin....not like any eczema I'd ever seen!! We freaked (I was freaking about meningitis or something bad lol) and took him to urgent care and two doctors looked at him and agreed it was eczema. What brought it on - no clue!!!

Anyways, sorry for the long story I guess after all this I just think don't give up when you are not satisfied w/ your dr's answer and your baby is still miserable!!!