if you/your child has a dairy allergy...

[misdee]

was the first reaction mild or severe?

[VelvetCushions]

Ds2 started off with excema when he had dairy. He was bf and I had to give up dairy. When weaning, he would vomit anything with a lot of dairy like yoghurt, but get excema if it was an ingredient in something else, like a biscuit.

[psychomum5]

mine built up over time from wheezing, being sick, hives, then hives & wheezing & being sick, then full on anaphylaxis.

with my children, they had sickness with it, then wheezing and hives, stuck and wheezing and hives, never had major reactions like anaphylaxis, then grew out of it until just being intolerant.

[AcademicMum]

It depends. DS2's first "direct" contact with dairy was at somewhere around 4/5 months when I tried to give him a bottle of formula. He screamed and screamed after only half an oz, got a red rash everywhere the formula had hit (more than went in his mouth). After that he stopped gaining weight (which I later learned is common in children with dairy allergy - wish I knew that at the time...). The second exposure was a fingertip of yoghurt (yes, I know, in hindsight a stupid thing to try him with, but I was still living in hope that the first reaction wasn't really an allergy ). On that occassion I had to call 999 as he went into anaphylactic shock within a few minutes.

He also had eczema from birth (excl. BF) - when I asked HV if it could be allergy related she said "no", he had blood in his poo - again when asked about this, it was put down to upset tummy (after patronising talk). I can't remember what his other symptoms were, but I know there were some. I guess you are wanting to know more about symptoms with direct contact to dairy though?

[misdee]

actually academic mum, thats pretty much what i di and did not want to hear iyswim.

dd4 has had eczema since birth, and had been exc breastfed till around 6months. she had some small allergy spots when feeding, but i had put this down to soap/purfume on me. she has green runny stools, which smell foul! her weight gain has been lower than expected but stead (has dropped through several lines after being born at 9lb 2oz), is now 16lb something at 7months which is good, but her weight has started to creep up after i cut out dairy.

her first big reaction was after eating cereal with milk in it. since then shehas come out in rashes, some huge if shehas the slightest contact with cows milk. we have allergy clinic in just over 2 weeks, and am wondering what they will do. i am mentally preparing myself for a grim diagnosis of anaphylatic to milk, as anyuthing else would be a bonus.

[foxinsocks]

dd was like that misdee. Even a drop of milk on her skin would result in her whole body coming up in hives. She once had it on her lips (not in her mouth) and she swelled up immediately and was very sick.

However, at around 2.5/3, she outgrew it. We had to have 2 food tests at hospital. The first one she failed and they tried again 6 months later and she passed.

As an aside, she too had dreadful eczema which literally vanished the minute she was on a dairy free diet. She still gets it but not the extent she had as a baby (her cheeks were raw, it was horrid!). Other indicators were horrific nappy rash and a tendency to get severe stomach upsets (oh and dreadful, endless screaming!).

[misdee]

any of them really naselly? dd4 snores like crazy, and snorts all the time. its like she has goo permently on her chest/throat/nose.

[foxinsocks]

hmm yes but it turned out she had oversized tonsils and glue ear (had a hearing issue). It might all be connected I guess. She used to get endless ear infections poor mite.

There really is a typical milk allergic child isn't there. They all sound so similar.

hope the allergy clinic is useful

[misdee]

she has had a nasty ear infection already. the surgery gave her stronger anti biotics than normal for her age as it was pretty bad.

she looks like a trypical atopic child. she has atopic shiners, extra crease/puckering under eyes, and is always rubbing her nose already.

i think she has hayfever toop, as her eyes were watering yesterday, and she hadnt been crying. was just sitting happily at the farm watching the kids.

[jrsqueak]

misdee, ds4's paedetrician told us that a baby who is allergic/intollerant to dairy very often is very nasally or unsettled or chesty. All of which ds4 was until I cut out dairy. He too had a really bad reaction to formula and screamed after not even half an ounce with red rash everywhere. He is now loads better since being weaned but won't give him dairy. he is also allergic to egg

[foxinsocks]

yes, the doctors thought dd had 2 black eyes (eejits!) till I pointed out it was a typical allergy sign. She also gets hayfever misdee and is v typically atopic (still cannot use soap etc.).

I wonder if they will test her for other allergens at the clinic. I suspect they won't because of her age?

[psychomum5]

the nasal sound and snoring are what mine did too.....alog with lovely green snot permenently dripping down....and this was when they were free of dairy in their systems!!

from my own reactions, I know that when I am full of stuff my body does not like, then all my 'secretions' (yack word, but covers it all I think) get thicker......breathing is hard, I wheeze, DH says I dont; snore so much as snuffle a lot in my sleep, my hearing is crap!.....I need people to look at me when they talk.....half my understanding is on seeing their mouth move so I can lip-read.

DS1, altho not ever confirmed as milk-allergic, suffered excema and huge tonsils and adenoids and glue ear......when I dropped his dairy intake he had a marked improvement. luckily as a family tho, as we have so many milk-problem people, we have a dairy-light diet anyway. it clearly helps all of them (even DD1 suffers excema if she has a 'build-up').

misdee, keep a diary for the next two week, take any pics of any reactions, draw a diagram of her body and mark the places where reactions come up.

when this was happening with DD2, and we were in and and of hospital with her, I still had a fight to get her DX'd with it. prepare for it.......for some reason they think that it is too rare to consider as a possiblity.....I have had many people tell me that they were ignored, brushed off, looked at as tho they are mad. and then, they get a proper DX AFTER a full on allergic shock episode.

on my part, DD2 had to lose 4lbs in weight in one week, be pumping both ends with vomit and diarhoea, be very floppy, spots all over (hives!), all tests for tummy bugs come up negative, and then my MIL shouted at the doc (condescending wanker man implying I was obviously mistaken in how bad she was and previous weight etc), so he 'humoured us' (his words) and tested her blood and poo for markers of milk allergy (the poo shows up lactose and someting else.....not sure if blood??).

he apologised and half grovelled at me and MIL when it came up positive.........and the difference in DD2 in just 2days of being on an exclusion diet was astounding.

now of course, with hindsight, I wish I had listened to myself more and taken it upon myself to self-treat at home, but I was younger, there was no mumsnet..., and of course I believed all the medical proffessionals as having a font of all knowledge and clearly knew what they were talking about.

I soon learnt!

[AcademicMum]

misdee, good luck with the allergy clinic. In all probability, she is probably not anaphylactic (which would be great if not) but be strict with keeping her away from dairy so that she doesn't become so. I wish in hindsight I'd been more sensible and taken the first "warning" for what it was . They might test for other allergies, ds2 was tested for soya, eggs (ds1 is allergic) and had a test for coeliac which were all prompted because of his non-existant weight gain (so they may do the same for you, given your lo's slow weight gain. The idea being that exposure to these kinds of allergens may decrease absorption of nutrients). It was very much stressed though that although he was negative for those now that this is only a picture of how he is now and not necessarily how he will be forever.

[AcademicMum]

Oh, I should have said that the tests ds2 had for soya etc were when he was also around 7-ish months, so although results can be unreliable they will still test at this age on occassion. They also offered us a blood test (RAST test) - which is actually better but you have to wait ages to get the results back. I think this was only offered though because his eczema was so bad they weren't sure they would be able to see the results of a skin prick test. In our case we opted for the skin prick test as we wanted immediate results, but I wish now we'd have had a blood test when it was offered.

[ilovemydogandmrobama]

DS was admitted rather dramatically to Children's Hospital, and they found out he was severely anaemic, dehydrated and generally a very ill boy

He stayed as an in patient for over a week where he had loads of tests. He could not keep anything down, so the paediatricians finally decided, 'nil by mouth' until they worked out why he was being so ill. (and had to stop b/fing him). They did the lactose intolerance test 72 hours after he was nil by mouth which came back negative, and I had to point out this out to them.

Oh, and then they pumped him full of cow milk via his ng tube, and he was ill all over again.

So, they put him on hypoallergenic formula and he wasn't sick anymore, and started to gain weight

And then about a month ago, he had a piece of his sister's pizza and went anaphylactic

One of the medical students asked for DS red book and studied his weight chart. She suggested that he has always been dairy intolerant which the consultant seemed to agree with.

[Chandra]

DS started with eczema, got his first asthma inhalers being less than a year old, always had a stuffed nose and constipation and a very very bloated tummy. He was also a child who didn't move much.

We didn't know all of this was caused by milk until the day we removed it against the advice of the GP (who thought all dairy allergic children had runny stools). After two weeks the constipation and stuffy nose were things of the past,the perpetual bloated tummy was gone and his asthma improved considerably. The eczema has not returned since (Although from time to time he gets very dry skin). Once the bloated tummy was gone, he became very mobile and I think that now, several years later, he has finally catch up with his peers.

[misdee]

thanks for all your imput.

dd4 has just had another skin reaction. i was in the kitchen cooking pancakes for other dd's, dh and myself, and dd4 was eating her sandwich and banana. i stroked her arms as i went past, and now she has big rashes all over both arms . has been given piriton and is now chewing her dairy-free stuffed lion

[foxinsocks]

it's interesting reading isn't it

dd was also soya and egg allergic in addition to the dairy (we had the RAST tests first - they did the skin prick tests when she was older) - I think those often go hand in hand, those allergies.

are there eggs in your pancakes misdee as that's another possibility? dd's egg allergy was always far more severe than the milk one.

poor dd4! I hope these 2 weeks go quickly. Must be v difficult with other non allergic children.

[misdee]

oh my other kids have allergies, but those are to cats and food colourings. obviously i dont serve up cats for tea, and food colourings are easier to avid now than they have ever been. unfortunatly they can now read that haribo has no artificial colours, so bang goes my party-bag raiding lol.

yes there were eggs in the pancake batter. so could be a double whammy. feel so sad she wont be able to have pancakes. not sure they'd be the same with oat milk

[misdee]

i shouldnt have hjad the pancakes [d'oh]

[psychomum5]

I have buckwheat pancakes made with soya milk misdee......scrummy

still need the egg tho, unless the egg substitute in health food shops is any good?? I don;t know.....when DS2 was reacting to eggs, we just avoided rather than sub it. and I can have eggs....

[AcademicMum]

Quick hijack- How are you getting on with the Nutramigen, ilove? Any use?

On the original topic though, I have a fairly good egg-free pancake recipe, if you want (egg-free, milk-free pancakes, quite ironic considering?) But even so I try to do this kind of stuff because I don't like the ds's missing out. Most recipes work quite well using olive oil + starch to replace the eggs.

[misdee]

this may have been stupid of me, but i dabbed some egg on her. this was the result here

[psychomum5]

oooh....

how much did you do?? assuming that it spread for it to go so high into her hairline.

[misdee]

fingertip dab only.

its all gone down now. clearer pic

[psychomum5]

well, you can at least take the pics in when you go for the appontment, and also, you now know it is eggs as well as milk.

gotta say, tis not a fun ride with multiple allergies. much sympathy.

it gets better as you get used to it, but the finding out and learning how to get used to it is the tricky bit.

and then of course, you get used to a certain food, and then they change the recipe in and stick milk in it (but that is a whole other rant and thread of its own)