What are probiotics and how do they help

[mymama]

I have been lurking for a couple of months and have not posted before.

I have a 23 month old with severe allergies to fish, eggs and nuts and intolerance to wheat and dairy (used to be severe allergy but is growing out of rapidly - he had his first severe reactions to nuts through my breast milk). I have noticed a few of you talk about probiotics and I was wondering what they are and do they help with food allergies??? I am very fortunate that he only has food allergies and does not suffer from eczema or asthma etc or environmental allergies such as grasses.

Very interestsing thread! Thanks for all your contributions - I'm a bit allergy ridden too, and will definitely be trying probiotics and flax seed oil against my life long excema, which has been resistent to every treatment so far.

Hausfrau, what did your food allergy testing consist of? I've never had much success from exclusion diets, probably because I give them up too soon.

Haven't found any in a black container yet. Going on shopping spree with best friend tomorrow so will have a look then.

Hi there, I'm just gatecrashing this thread - I'm 22 weeks pregnant with my fourth baby. I have asthma and dust/hazelnut/walnut allergies. None of my 3 kids have any signs of this yet but I have just been recruited onto a probiotic study. I will get powder to put on my nipples and in baby's food. They want my placenta! and blood plus samples of breastmilk, baby poo etc and will track us for five years testing baby. Of course I might get the placebo which will be a damn shame! They have also recruited non-atopic controls.

Does anyone here notice a real difference in their kids on probiotics?

rachel1969 where are you? that sounds like a very interesting study.

I'm in Swansea, the study is being run by the College of Medicine, I think they are trying to replicate findings from a study in Finland. By the way, I was RAST tested for a few things years ago - I had always thought I was allergic to cats but it turned out that the only thing I had a massive response to was good old dust! Strangely I am allergic to walnuts and hazelnuts but not peanuts which I love! (but try to avoid when pregnant)

They are replicating the same study in NZ, all my friends with atopic kids already declined to take part, and just took the probiotics. None of them wanted to risk being the control!

i'm very glad they are doing that research, but i can see why one wouldn't want to take part!

Rachey

The possible reason you're not allergic to peanuts is that they're not true nuts, they're legumes I think, like lentils.

Yes, I'm just surprised because so many others are allergic to peanuts. I have noticed wheezing after pine nuts as well.

I suppose I could just use probiotics myself (but where do you get the powder for newborns?) but the medical researcher within me, thinks it would be nice to actually try and prove something scientifically with a controlled trial.