Eczema and i am sure a milk allergy

[Haily111]

Hello all, my dd seems to be very sensitive to milk. (full fat cows milk) She has eczema anyway but when i add a little bit of milk in her food, her eczema gets very bad and she gets very itchy (she is 11 months) is it worth trying her on soya or shall i speak to my gp and what will he do allergy tests?

Thank you

[MrsBadger]

try goat before soya...

[Heathcliffscathy]

goats milk/cheese and butter all readily available from supermarket (sainsbos or waitrose).

my ds is same and if steers clear of cows milk is absolutely eczema free.

[Heathcliffscathy]

and goat's yoghurt which i've always mixed with a high fruit content jam....

[Haily111]

Oh wow i never even thought of goats milk etc. I take it that is a lot better then soya! Do i need to get it confirmed by the doctor though?

[friendlyedjit]

if milk flares up eczema, often goats milk and soya do the same. Soya not currently recommended anyway for youngsters. As its such an important food group, Gp may be happy to refer for skin prick testing.
If your dd is milk sensitive, its also worthwhile being seen by paed dietician and having a milk challenge later on as often has disappeared by 18 months.

[Heathcliffscathy]

i never even saw a doctor about this....the results spoke for themselves...i mentioned it next time i was in and she said that if that worked then great!

[Heathcliffscathy]

ime, and anecdotally on here, cows milk allergy is often not accompanied by goats milk allergy.

i'd try it for a week and see if it makes a big difference....there is no risk in doing this imo.

[Haily111]

Ok i shall do that. So what are some of the names for goats things? I.e. cheese, milk and yoghurts?
I am right to get her used to milk now though right? (i mean instead of formula)

[foxinsocks]

yes, please see the doc because it's a big food group to exclude!

dd's milk allergy went hand in hand with soya (and other milk proteins) and in the end, she had to have a hypoallergenic formula.

[foxinsocks]

does she have a milk based formula now?

[Heathcliffscathy]

milk is not a great source of calcium compared to green leafy vegetables anyway, and in terms of saturated animal fat it is not good.....i'm not a vegan or a vegetarian but I really feel that within the next 15 years or so, milk will not be seen as the manna and hugely important food group that it was when it came to preeminence after the war when it was a great way of getting nutrients and calories into people....

St Helens Farm is the brand that waitrose and sainsbos do.....they do full fat and semiskimmed milk, butter, yoghurt and hard cheddar like cheese. The other brand is Delamere (which I don't like as much but that is purely on packaging so i'm being a numpty) which Asda does in fresh milk form...but don't stock any other goats milk products.

Be aware that cows milk proteins are in many many products that you wouldn't think they'd be in....if you find that she is allergic to cows, you'll need to read labels very carefully.

Good luck with this, now that ds is 3 we are a bit lax with it, but sure as anything when we get too lax, the eczema on his wrists flares and as soon as we cut cows milk out again it goes immediately.

[MrsBadger]

one of the bigger brands is St Helen's Farm , but it's worth spending a little while in the dairy aisle reading labels and comparing prices the first time you do a 'goaty' shop.

[Haily111]

Thank you sophable, i shall bare that in mind. I do shop in Sainsbury's which helps!

She is on Aptamil First i am not sure if this is milk made??

[MerryMarigold]

yes, as i read your post, i was wondering about formula too. it is made from cow's milk, so i would expect her to react to that (the amount of formula they drink at 11 mths) if she was so intolerant that even a little cow's milk in food affects her.

[MrsBadger]

x-posted Soph - I was trying to remember the name of Delamere!

Aptamil is cows'-milk based but the way it's heated, treated, dried etc to make formula means it's less allergenic for some people than fresh cows' milk.

[Heathcliffscathy]

aptamil is cows milk formula. the only non cows non soya (which i think is dodgy to give as formula) is Nanny which used to be available in healthfood shops but i'm not sure is anymore...she will be on wholemilk soon though?

[Heathcliffscathy]

an intolerance to the aptimil would fit in with a cows milk intolerance that was hugely exacerbated when she drank whole cows milk....you said she had lowlevel eczema that went ballistic when she has whole milk?

[foxinsocks]

yes, that's milk based.

If you do switch milks without going to the GP (and I really would advise that you do go!), watch out for a reaction to the goat's milk/soya.

[Haily111]

yes she has eczema quite bad all over her body, but when she has full fat cows milk, it goes quite an angry red and she itches

[PinkTulips]

dd is the same and is perfectly fine on goats milk products.

any doctors i told about it said it was perfectly fine, were quite happy to hear she was on it actually as it's good for eczema anyway. the dietician she sees now also says it's the prefered choice if it can be tolerated

[PinkTulips]

there are differant levals of intolerance, often how much a milk product is processed will affect the reaction, ie; cheese will react less than butter, butter less than yogurt, yogurt less than milk, milk less than cream. formula is highly processed so won't react very strongly and when she hits one year or thereabouts you'll be switching to unprocessed milk anyway. dd has had goats milk to drink since she was one.

the other important thing to remember about milk intolerance is that it is normally grown out of, most commonly by 2, by most by 5 and the few remaining usually grow out of it by 8. very few children hold onto it into adulthood.

[amidaiwish]

my DD2 had terrible excema, even when i was bf (but i did tend to drink a lot of milk)

when i started her on formula, it got really bad. took her to GP, he said excema isn't related to diet so i went home and gave her fish in cheese sauce. her face went bright red and she tore at it til it bled.

so i saw a kinesiologist. i am not recommending this as a route to diagnose allergies, but she tested all the formulas on the market and said the one she was least sensitive to was "Babynat organic follow on milk". so i switched to that and haven't had a problem since (12 months later). she is now 19m and still has formula. i have had her allergy tested (she has a confirmed egg yolk allergy) but came up clear for dairy. so now i do give her some butter, cheese, yoghurt etc and just cut it out / down if her excema flares up.

we did try nanny goats milk and it turned her poo to putty which was very distressing.

[amidaiwish]

and i totally agree with sophable that milk isn't the great food we are all led to believe.

any alternative practitioner (homeopath etc.) all say in the western world we eat too much dairy and too much animal fat.

[friendlyedjit]

Approx 60% of children who have milk intolerance will also have goat milk intolerance.This is because of the shared protein content which occurs in both cows,sheep and goats milk( curds and whey) you can mount an immune response to one or the other, or both, hence some children being intolerant to all milks mentioned and others being better with goat etc.

I think a toddler may have to eat a load of green leafy veg to get an adequate intake of calcium. I know i couldn't get enough greenery down my 2 year old and she is pretty good at eating.. but couldn't eat a bag of salad!

Good luck! and do ask for a referral to your local allergy clinic for skin prick testing if you're still having problems with goat's milk, so that at least you may have more information.

[amidaiwish]

i may be wrong but if the only symptom from dairy "intolerance" is excema, it won't show up on a skin prick test. My dd's didn't - it only shows if they are truly "allergic" rather than their system doesn't really suit dairy.