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Allergies and intolerances

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outgrowing dairy allergy

6 replies

libelulle · 11/12/2010 23:55

I'm feeling a bit glum and pessimistic today... DD is allergic to dairy, diagnosed at about 10 months after she developed hives round her mouth when eating yoghurt.

She is now 2.8 yrs old and in recent months I had some hopes that she was outgrowing her allergy - she is able to have small amounts of cooked butter and milk powder in eg cakes and biscuits without any reaction. However, at lunchtime (and against my better judgement) DH decided to try her with a tiny amount of goat's cheese (maybe half a teaspoon on some bread). Within seconds she was saying that the roof of her mouth felt 'prickly', and within minutes she was sneezing repeatedly with copious amounts of clear snot streaming from her nose (sorry tmi!). A dose of antihistamine seemed to clear things up fairly quickly but now I'm down in the dumps thinking she's really never going to outgrow this.

So I was wondering - can people give me their experience of how and when their DC's dairy allergy was outgrown? And how did you find out?!

Is it a good sign that she can have cooked butter/milk powder in small amounts, or has it always been a 'dose-dependent' allergy and this isn't actually a sign of progress at all?! I was a bit freaked out by her reaction today, as it was so instantaneous, but maybe the lack of hives/swelling (which was how the initial allergy manifested itself) is a good sign?

Any advice/experiences welcome - we have another allergy appointment in the new year but in all honesty they are fairly useless, despite the fact they are supposed to be one of the leading units in the country!

Apologies for the long essay...

OP posts:
jicky · 12/12/2010 00:15

My ds1 had dairy allergy, and at your dd age couldn't even managed cooked dairy and still came out in welts on skin contact.

By 4 he no longer had skin contact problems and could tolerate small cooked amounts, like milk powder in biscuits.

By 5 he was on unrestricted dairy.

I was told 7 was the age I should worry if he still had the allergy.

libelulle · 13/12/2010 16:11

Thanks Jicky, that's really helpful. Can I ask how often you 'challenged' him? And once he could tolerate small cooked amounts, did you keep giving them to him, or keep avoiding all dairy just in case? I've got diametrically opposed advice from two different registrars about whether I should be 'inducing tolerance' by feeding her small amounts of the dairy that she can tolerate, or to steer clear altogether until she fully outgrows the allergy.

Any other experiences also welcome... Apologies for the doom and gloom in mt first post - I'm well aware that most on this forum have far worse allergy issues to contend with, but coming on top of other health issues for my DD, the dairy thing is just one more thing marking her out as 'fragile' among her peers, and it gets v tiring sometimes.

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jicky · 15/12/2010 20:58

Probably challenged him every 3 months with the uncooked.. Certainly let him have it in biscuits etc when ever he wanted. Was great to let him eat pretty much the same as other kids at last!

eragon · 15/12/2010 23:17

my child isnt dairy allergic , but is allergic to a few other foods.

we never home challenged him, but once he passed a hosptial food challenge(7yrs) to cooked egg we included that in the diet.

we did for a brief spell have a low spt for raw egg, and he passed , just about, a food challenge for that at 10yrs. however, he has been unable to include that in his diet with out some reaction.

also had possible severe reaction to trace of egg, eaten when just recovering from a illness.

we have worked out , though accidents mainly, that it depends on the amount of egg, and what ever amount it is, needs to be highly changed, protein strands, so cooked on high heat. like a cake. which is normal for many egg allergic people, is this the same for those with milk allergies?

my son has out grown other foods, that he can now include in his diet, and we have had other hosptial food challenges to confirm this, and we do feel lucky having this service available to us.

we have never done any home food challenges, mainly due to the severity of his accidental reactions, and developing new allergies.

we have been very lucky to only use the epi pen twice, but have become quite familer with our local a and e departments and local paramedics!

both his epi pen moments took about 1/2hr from start,(which i consider quite slow) but differing , severe symptoms each time.

so for us the very idea of a home food challenge is soooo not worth doing!

LittlePushka · 16/12/2010 00:12

my DS does not have dairy allergy bit lactose intolerance which is clearly not the same. However, I wanted to say that I empathise with how you must be feeling - when you are advised that DC may out grow such problems and you never feel they will it makes you feel so down hearted for them.

Our DS1 had his problem from birth and now at just over 4yrs we are seeing some tolerance. It has been a long road. it may be a while for you yet - as jicky shows. So i hope that you can roll with it and not be too down about it. best of luck to your DD. Smile

libelulle · 18/12/2010 17:03

Thanks everyone! I know I need to be more patient Smile - it's good to know that it's still early days and that fingers crossed we'll get there eventually. Sneezing and prickly mouth is better than hives and lip swelling which is where she started from, so there's progress!

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