Least allergenic form of cows milk?

[BubsMaw]

Hi,

I'm wondering what is the least allergenic form of cows milk, is it yoghurt, cheese, petit filou, dried milk, or what about dairy in baking, e.g. home made muffins with yoghurt as an ingredient?

Both my kids have milk protein allergy, DD at 4.5 is reacting less seriously on skin prick tests, but only is tested yearly, wasn't tested for milk last time so it will be 2yrs between her milk allergy tests.

DS's paed (different doctor, different hospital) advised us to try him with a little dairy every 6 months or so. This makes me think its maybe time to try DD with milk again. I'd like to go cautiously!

Thanks

Hi Bubs
As a general rule - it's the heating up of the milk that breaks down the protein and makes it somewhat easier to digest. So a child with a mild allergy will be able to tolerate small amounts of milk in baking - but not raw milk.

Personally, I would only follow the advice of your allergy consultant on introducing dairy - not a general paed.

My DD started a programme of very gradually introducing 0.5ml of milk that had been boiled for 20 mins (you boil a larger amount!) and having that each night mixed in soya milk for a week and then progressing a further 0.5ml each week. Once she got to 10ml she then started the same process starting at 0.5ml of raw milk. Even with that she is not allowed now to start having dairy until she has blood tests and s.p tests again. This is a programme of desensitisation rather than reintro'ing dairy back to her diet.

This however was only done once her blood test results showed her milk allergy to be somewhat reduced and was done on the specifica advice of an allergy consultant.

What your paed has outlined is WAAAY to vague - thus you are casting around on MN for answers. Very danergrous OMHO.

AFAIK it is yoghurt as the natural bacterial process involved in yoghurt-ifying it breaks down some of the proteins.

But I agree with PP that its a bit vague and I'd want the advice of a specific allergy consultant rather than a general paed before trying any dairy.

Hi thanks for your replies. DD is not due to see her allergy specialist until March 2011, and her past appointments have always been changed and postponed so it may be a year from now until she's seen, so there's nobody professional we can easily discuss this with. We discovered by accident that she could have dried skimmed milk in baking (McVities digestives - oops!), so in this small way we have already started down the path of reintroducing/desensitising. If only she had to eat a biscuit a day to maintain tolerance - she'd love that!

I had multiple allergies as a child and recall I outgrew the milk allergy at about 5yrs, this is partly why I was thinking now may be a good time for her to try.

Does anyone know what is the worst that could happen if I was a little too gung-ho with this, could I resensitise her and delay her outgrowing the allergy? I'm not too worried about her reaction to milk as her allergy at the mo. is fairly mild, her reaction is not too severe, she last reacted to an accidental milk exposure perhaps almost a year ago (Ready brek mix-up, she ate a little of mine before I spotted the problem!), she got a little red and itchy but piriton fixed it.

Turniphead - your desensitisation description is v. interesting, how often does your DD see her allergy specialist? Something like that wouldn't be possible with our yearly appts. My DD used to be on 6monthly appts but frequency has been reduced.

Thanks

Bubs - we are on normally yearly appointments - but this came up at the last one, and then we did go back again in 5months as a special circ.

Sounds like her allergy is not severe. I don't think there is any danger of resensitising her per se - just that her she may have an unprecendented severe reaction to something. Do you have an epipen to hand as well as piriton?

You could try following the desensitisation thing I described I guess - although of course that should only be done following a consultant's advice etc etc. But it is a lot more measured than your paeads random advice of "introducing dairy" both in terms of the amounts given and the incremental increases.

Best of luck. Hope they both grow out of it. Good sign that she can tolerate small amounts in biccies!

my 3yo DD also has an allergy to cows milk protein and has annual blood tests.

we have been told by her dietician (she has an underlying health condition where she regularly sees a dietician anyway) that if we were to start introducing milk we should follow the pattern below:

day 1: 1/4 teaspoon of petit filou
day 2 (or 3 or 4 depending on how the first test went): 1/2 teaspoon petit filou
day 3: 1 teaspoon petit filou
day 4: 1/2 pot petit filou
day 5: 1 pot of petit filou

followed by days of introducing cheese and then finally milk. I am a bit vague on this bit as DD is still testing positive so I am not in a hurry to do any sort of challenge.

I did ask if it would be OK to start off with biscuits as other friends with children with a dairy 'intolerance' had started that way and the dietician said that the milk content in biscuits is usually in the form of fat and t is difficult to know how much protein there might be in them. she did say that you would usually have to be quite severly allergic to cows milk to react to butter

I don't know if this helps, other than to show that there are loads of different opinions on how to introduce dairy into a child's diet!

Thanks again for your replies. DD is def. less allergic now than she was, at 2yo she would be sick, itch until she bled, and/or wheeze until she turned blue if exposed to milk. The worst reactions would be caused by flavoured crisps, she ended up in hospital after a few salt and vinegar pringles (didn't read the label properly, contained milk proteins, I now know most flavours of crisps do), same happened when another child at nursery gave her some quavers. She has epipens for nut allergy, and is also allergic to eggs. Thankfully for 2 years or so everything has settled down quite well, her virus induced wheezing hasn't occurred for this long either. Even a fairly recent accidental egg exposure was relieved with piriton (M&S cafe gingerbread man - these slip ups are imprinted on my memory!)

It is helpful to read other peoples plans for introducing dairy, I had heard in the distant past that cheese and yoghurt, poss also UHT milk, were better starting points than just milk, other than that I had no idea where to start.

I'm thinking I may buy some petit filou, this sounds like a more simple plan than boiling and diluting milk. Next challenge is choosing a time to do the first trial, and also getting DD's agreement to go through with it, after having coached her her whole life that dairy is dangerous!

thanks again!

don't underestimate how scary it will be for your DD for the reason you state. I was at an allergy conference last year and they arised it. It helped when my DD started her challenge - she was petrified but has slowly got used to the idea. Best of luck!