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Allergies and intolerances

Rice Cereal made my dd vomit for 4 hours!! :(

16 replies

veruuca · 28/09/2007 04:59

anyone else have a baby who reacted badly to rice cereal? my 6 month old daughter is dairy intolerant, and has reflux. i started her on rice cereal at 5 months, she loved it but got constipated... so i took her off it for a while and started again last weekend. she ate a tiny bit at 10 am, and by 12:30 she was vomiting and didn't stop. i took her to the hospital after 2 hours of retching, couldn't figure out what was wrong, she didn't react to rice cereal the first time she was on it for a week! i noticed she had chewed some paint off the eyeball of a toy and thought it must have been that. she stopped vomiting after 4 hours (mostly bile after the first 10 minutes), and was back to her normal self... thank god! so that was 5 days ago... i tried rice cereal again this morning (new box and different brand, just incase), and the same thing happened! took her to the Dr., who has never come across this situation before. anyone know what i should do?

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chloesmumtoo · 28/09/2007 09:16

Oh no, poor you and dd. Thats awful. Sorry I am not much help on this. My dd has lots of allergies and I am having her tested on rice today funny enough. Nothing serious like with your dd but because of my dd being allergic to maize/corn I have read you could also react possibly to rice,oats and barley. Because of regular hives to oats and itching after rice I am having her tested today. Well, should be as long as they are testing what I have asked for. Fingers crossed! Have arranged more test through her dermatologist.

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Roskva · 28/09/2007 09:21

I suppose it's possible that she could have developed an intolerance to rice, too. I would leave it out for a couple of months, then maybe try it again. maybe try a bit of mushed up banana if you want to give her some 'solid'? If she reacts badly to that, then it think it may be worth asking for a referral to a paediatrician, because that might indicate that there is something other than dairy intolerance and reflux going on.

My dd has dairy intolerance and reflux; anything with dairy in makes her violently sick, but she has been fine with other foods. probably a really silly question, and I don't want to come across as patronising, but some brands of baby rice contain added skimmed milk, I assume you didn't get one of those? My hv referred dd to a dietician, and I've found her advice helpful as to what foods to introduce as I weaned dd, so again, it might be worth asking for a referral.

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chloesmumtoo · 28/09/2007 09:21

I think reactions to rice are uncommom though. So I dont really know if this is anything to do with your dd vomiting. Hope someone can come up with more info for you. Not nice,must have been so scary. Best wishes for you and dd.

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KerryMum · 28/09/2007 11:42

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tatt · 28/09/2007 19:25

rice is one of the things you are allowed on a strict exclusion diet so would be unusual - but nothing is impossible. What was it mixed with though?

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veruuca · 29/09/2007 00:31

the cereal was mixed with breastmilk. hmmm... i made sure there was no dairy in the ingredients, but i suppose it could've been one of the other additives. we're waiting for an appt. to the pediatrician, in the meantime she'll only be breastfed. poor thing, she really wants to eat!

chloesmum: good luck with the testing! how old is your dd? i want to get my dd allergy tested, but Dr. says it's too early, she'll be sensetive to everything.

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tatt · 29/09/2007 08:15

one of the other foods in very restricted diets is pear - so you could see if she vomits that. It would need to be a very ripe pear, pureed. Or you could try a little carrot, most babies like that as its sweet. If she vomits those as well it suggests reflux/infection rather than allergy.

Are you giving her probiotics or lactase? Probiotics may help her outgrow the milk intolerance. Lactase will only help with lactose intolerance.

Problem with allergy testing a very young child is that they normally only react the second time they have a food. Also you risk sensitising them to foods they haven't eaten yet. And the tests can give you a very itchy baby if they do react. So unless you've already had a reaction and need proof to get medical help there's an argument for not testing before 3.

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chloesmumtoo · 29/09/2007 08:35

veruuca the testing was a disaster!You wont beleive this but we collected her from school and dp came home from work. Entered hospital,with lots of foods to be tested lol. Waited in waiting room, she got weighed,measured and blood pressure done. Waited again, finally saw this doctor who confessed a mistake had been made when they had canceled my app last. He was not an allergy doctor and could not do a thing! I am now waiting for them to get back to me on sorting out the mistake. 5 months we have waited arh........couldnt believe it. You end up feeling so frustrated. I wondered why they had changed our dr. Thought he must have been a new one. DD is 5 years old,by the way. Has had allergy tests from around three and a half years old which came about due to needing to confirm her peanut allergy originally. She also suffers with eczema.

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KerryMum · 29/09/2007 11:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

veruuca · 29/09/2007 17:05

i have been off dairy completely for 2 months, it's been hard (i'm a recovering cheese addict), but if i had to eat spiders and eyeballs i'd do it for her!! i've heard it could be the added iron in the cereal is hard for some babies to digest, i can't wait to hear what the pediatrician has to say!

chlesmum: how annoying! poor u...

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xXxamyxXx · 29/09/2007 17:08

my ds has no food allergies but vomits when given anything riced does the same thing with cake or muffin its the texture not the ingrediants that does it to him

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Mustdobetter · 02/10/2007 23:04

My DS also had severe reflux till he was 9 mo. When I gave him rice for the first time he was fine, but the 2nd time he woke with projectile vomiting about 2 hours later. I tried him on rice again a week later, with the same response. I don't know if it was allergy or the texture, but the consistent 2-hour gap made me suspect it was allergy. He's 3.5 now, but I'm still not brave enough to try him on rice again, though he's been okay this year when I tried him with plain rice bubbles and rice cakes.

Everyone told me it wasn't possible to be allergic to rice, but I did some searches on the net; while rice allergy is not so common in Western nations, it is very common indeed in Asian cultures, for example, where much more rice is consumed. I know I have to test him on rice again, but I never get around to it in the school hols, and I don't want to do it at night in case he chokes in his bed and I don't want to do it during the day in case he vomits in the car on the school run. He's fine with everything else, so we just don't have rice to often and I give him pasta if the rest of us are having rice.

Intereating that a few of the posts here have all mentioned reflux.

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veruuca · 03/10/2007 04:33

mustdobetter: that's so strange, my daughter was on rice cereal for over a week the first time with no problems! (except she got constipated, that's why i took her off it for a few weeks). i think it's an allergy, too... i think babies can only develop an allergy after they have been exposed to something before. still waiting for my pediatrician appt., can't wait to get this girl on solids - she's breastfeeding like crazy lately!!

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canada185 · 02/01/2008 21:40

The same thing happened with us. We first tried giving our daughter rice cereal for about a week at 6 months or so - no problems. A few weeks later, she had severe vomiting for 1 - 2 hrs 1.5 - 2 hrs after eating rice cereal, no matter the brand or what it was mixed with. Tried about 3 times with the same result. Our doctor thought that she likely could not properly digest it given the long window between eating it and showing the reaction. We stopped all rice products until she was about 1 year old. She had no problems when rice was restarted (not in cereal form). She loves rice now and eats it all the time (she will be 3 in a month). She has no food allergies and eats everything.

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bluedomino · 20/01/2008 00:15

My DD is allergic to rice too, we knew she was allergic to milk & soya, but tried to wean her at 6 months with some babyrice and she started vomiting immediately. Shes had the same reaction every time we've tried to introduce it. It is very rare, so often people don't believe you. Watch out for rice flours in other food too, its common in gluten free stuff.
Ask your GP to refer you to the paed dietician if they haven't already. Stamp your feet if they don't listen. Good luck.

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veruuca · 22/02/2008 04:18

FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT!! we went to a pediatric allergist on monday... she tested negative for all allergies on the skin prick test, because it's not a normal allergy. the Dr. said she has "food-protein induced enterocolitis syndrome". it basically means that her body reacts to certain foods as if they are poison. some common reactive foods are cow's milk, soy, rice, oats and poultry (some react to one, some all). it's not very common so not many pediatricians are aware of it, but luckily the allergist has one other patient currently with the same problem. the good news is they usually grow out of it by the time they are 2 or 3 yrs old. i hope this helps anyone else going through this scary experience!