Ds just had a bad reaction to sheeps cheese

[alison222]

Thats another food to add to the list then.
I'm concerned that because this eraction was servere that it may spread to other types of chesse.
Does anyone have any experience with this - It seems to be a bit of an unusual one.

I've never heard of an allergy to ewe's cheese but not other cheeses, myself, but i guess it's possible.

Could the reaction have been to an additive rather than the cheese itself?

I don't know. It was a block of Manchego from the supermarket - seemed pretty standard to us.
He has been eating all sorts of cows cheese with no reaction whatsoever for several years. We had noticed that the last time he tried goats cheese he was sick, but today it was lips and mouth swelling,(pains in throat so presumably that swelled too) hives and vomiting. Severe enough for me to worry I was finally going to need the epi-pen, but the antihistamine finally kicked in and he is slowly returning to a normal shape.
I've just never heard of anyone with a sheeps cheese allergy before.

How strange.

for your ds

(and also [bump] for anyone who knows more about allergies than me!)

Message withdrawn

Not excessively. And as a very bad mother - he does eat crisps (obviously in moderation) and I've never seen a reaction like this before except to fish. Its definately the most extreme ne i've witnessed. Obviously we've been very careful with food re the other allergies so its been a while since I've seen a reaction.

Did a quick google and other cases of allergy to sheeps milk but not cows milk have been reported. It does sound like you need to have tests to confirm the sheeps milk allergy (could be something like pesticide residue or cross contamination ) but at least it may not mean cows milk allergy .

Thanks Tatt. we have a routine appointment at the hospital on the 6th Oct anyway , so will take some cheese with me and get them to do the test while we are there. They are going to re-do the egg, nuts seeds and fish ones anyway.

He has been drinking cows milk and eating cheese etc for ages now (at first they were excluded as we thought they were aggravating excema, but as that cleared up and cows milk is OK i'm just a bit nervouis that it may spread as it were. I'd heard that if a child has a problem with cows milk for instance that you shouln't give goats or sheep as the proteins are similar and this can often lead to problems too.
I just wondered if anyone knows whetere this works in reverse.

bump anyone????

Don't really have any advice. My ds2 had strong allergy to dairy and wheat but now tolerates cow's cheese, yoghurt every other day. I never tried sheep's cheese. Are they less processed than cow's cheese??? At least sheep's cheese should be a little easier to avoid until tested. hope you work things out.

alison,
does he react to any other sheep products, eg lamb? I would get him tested for plain sheeps milk too.
the only other thing I can think of is, was there a coloured wax coating (manchego usually has black if I remember rightly?), could he have eaten a bit of that? or was there some colouring in the cheese, eg to make it yellower?

Reactions to cows milk can be against the protein, the fat (large particles) or the lactose as far as I am aware.
therefore, I believe that the following is correct:
protein = avoid all milk due to similar proteins
fat = you can eat sheeps and/or goats milk because the fat is smaller and easier to digest
lactose = avoid lactose containing forms of milk

But these are not genuine allergies, they are rather problems with digesting the milk. I think it is quite believable that someone could be genuinely allergic to sheep products and not to cows milk products, because allergies can strike anywhere.

I don't actually know about this but the webpages I found were references to people who didn't have cows milk allergy but did have sheeps milk allergy. Taking the cheese would be useful as although they have extracts of most things they could maybe test it for contamination if a sheeps milk test is negative.

Thats a good Idea, maybe I can get some sheeps milk form somewhere and get them to test that too. I hadn't thought of that.
He definately didn't eat the wax. It was a very pale colour, and he eats tonnes of different cows cheese so I'd be surprised if it was colourings as I presume they'd be found in all cheeses?

Oh and he eats lamb just fine - rather likes it actually