Food Allergies

My DH & I do not have food allergies, nor does anyone on my side of the family. My MIL does & my FIL 'thinks' he does as well. I'm not even 100% sure of the extent of my MIL's allergies other than I know a LOT of them are intolerances.

I followed the strict rules of waiting between introducing foods when we started solids & the boys seemed to have NO trouble. Now we're adding a lot of table food into the mix, but I've been lax about that & have just been giving them whatever whenever.

My DS Conner does this thing, usually during bottle feeding, where he'll just wretch & vomit a LOT. He started it about 3 months ago, but it's never more than once a day & this past episode had been about 2 weeks since his prior one. I've TRIED to figure out if it correlated with any specific food & it never has. At one point I thought maybe mango, but eliminating it didn't help & my Ped said he didn't think it was allergy related.

Within the past month or so, he's been getting some NASTY diaper rash. His whole bum gets bright red every where his poo sits. He does NOT sit in dirty diapers long, so it's not from that. His rash will get to the point where it will bleed, but he doesn't seem bothered by it much at all. We do lots of 'air time', butt paste, & I even switched to Huggies diapers with this current rash to see if it'd help (although, I know it's not the diapers causing it, or he'd have the rash everywhere).

My MIL is CONVINCED it's food allergies. And it could be, but how do I figure out from what? It's TOTALLY random & everything they eat is pretty much circulated consistently. His prior diaper rash was weeks ago & there's nothing I could think of that he had then that he just had again now.

What do you all think? I'm wondering if it's not from teething, since I know he's working on his top teeth. He's been doing some whining in the night, but has been overall content & his normal self. He hasn't been bottle feeding as well, but again, I figured it was teething.

Also, I realize now that Egg Whites are highly allergenic & I notice they're in some of the foods I give the boys. For example, they LOVE waffles & now I see they have egg whites in them. Again, the waffles do NOT correlate to the diaper rash or the puking, but should I avoid them because of the egg whites?

TIA...I've read that moms over-obsess about food allergies, but I also don't want to keep giving him something if he's reacting to it!!!

 

Could be a milk allergy/intolerance. My boys were intolerant of regular milk based formula and their syptoms (diarrhea, blood in the stool, persistant diaper rash) subsided once the Pedi put them on Alimentum at 2 months. We transitioned regularly to milk since Pedi said go ahead they usually outgrow the intolerance but that last about 10 months and the problems started again last November they were give a milk allergy test that came back negative so their problem is really just intolerance and not being able to digest the milk properly, they have since been switched to Lactaid and I have had no problems since.

 

If it was a milk allergy or intolerance, wouldn't it have started immediately when they started on the formula at like 1 week old? We have never changed formulas & they've never even had a SIP of regular milk. I just find it hard to believe that it could be milk, although I guess it could be milk products?!?! They have been eating pieces of cheese & having YoBaby Yogurt. Could that be it? As I said, all this started BEFORE that, though. Ugh. I hate the not knowing.

 

Food allergies can be diagnosed with a quick and simple blood test... if you suspect allergies, I recommend talking to your pedi and asking to have your child tested.

 

No. Here is a link I found explaning the difference of allergy versus intolerance and the onset of milk intolerance can present itself at any age and babies are rarely lactose intolerant (mine were) before age two. HTH! http://www.contentinfusion.com/Article.asp...;ArticleId=7071 It doesn't matter if they have never had regular milk yet an intolerance to milk would also be a problem with regualr milk based formula. Aslo, I wanted to add that the only thing that has changed in their diet is I switched Milk to Lactaid Milk with Calcium and Cheese to Lactaid Cheese and I probably will stay away from ice cream other than that, they have no problem with yogurt, butter, etc. What I have read so far is Milk and most Cheese have a high content of Lactase which is what an intolerant person has trouble digesting. GL!

 

My girls are allergic to dairy, wheat, eggs, beef, squash and bananas and have a soy intolerance. Whenever they eat something they shouldn't their bums get red around the anus and many times they have open sores where it is red. Other symptoms they had were rash, whining, crying a lot, gas that would not go away with drops, soft stools, I could hear their stomachs popping, and they didn't sleep well. They moaned and groaned all night long. At 12 months, it got worse when we started cheese and yogurt so we eliminated dairy. At 18 months they had stopped gaining weight so the doctor did a RAST test and found out all of the allergens. They had been eating all of them but dairy on a daily basis. Once they were allergen free they started gaining weight and all of their symptoms went away.

It can take a symptom 4 days to appear and 4 days to disappear. So we always waited a week before introducing a new food. When we would do a dairy challenge it would typically take 3 days for all the symptoms to go away once we eliminated the dairy. There are many hidden ingredients so if using table food, I would make sure you are giving the food plain until you know they are okay with it and then combine the foods to make a casserole or another dish.

 

I didn't know it could take that long for symptoms to appear. Oh boy, how do I even know what to stop eliminating to see if it helps? His diaper rash had cleared up completely until after his poo this afternoon...it's red & bleeding again. He had NOTHING out of the ordinary today, but again...if it takes days to pop up...then how does anyone know?

We go for their 9 mo appt on Friday, so I'll ask our Ped about possibly having him tested. He's been fine otherwise, so I'm not sure what's up! Luckily his lil red butt doesn't seem to bother him too badly....

 

If I were you, I'd cut back on dairy...cheese, milk etc. Also, anything acidic like tomato sauce or marinara or citrus could cause that rash. 9 months is a little early to be eating whatever/whenever so his little system could just be reacting to the fact that it's learning to process a lot at once.

ETA: strawberries or pineapple can cause bad diaper rash too. Also, could he be getting too much to eat and that's why he vomits?