Am I being paranoid? Dairy allergy experts please help.

[Summerhols]

I have posted on here quite a bit about my DD's eczema. After a month or so of hell we have eventually worked out what creams work best for her and have managed to get it pretty much under control, apart from her face, which is still very dry and bright red.

Anyway...my DD is 6 months so I have started to wean her. We are doing both BLW and a bit of puree.

On Monday I made her mashed potato with full fat milk, butter and cheese in. Very yummy. But when I tried to feed it to my DD she went crazy. She was screaming and pulling at her face and neck.

She is not taking to purees so I just thought she was being a bit stubborn and refusing to eat so I persevered [bad mummy emotion]. But she was scratching like crazy and then her face and neck went bright red, it looked like a sudden outbreak of really bad eczema. I eventually twigged something was not quite right so stripped her off and washed her face.

Now I am a first time mum and have a tendency to go to the Dr's a the slightest sniffle and so do not want to jump to conclusions.

So after this long post. My question is...

She seemed to be in pain/irritated just by the contact of the food on her skin. Is this possible with an allergy? Her skin became red very quickly. I just assumed that the wetness of the food irritated her skin. But I am now worried that it could have been allergic reaction.

Does anyone's LO's react like this?

I am assuming that it would be a reaction to dairy as the only other ingredient was potato.

Thank you!

i do remember being told with weaning L.Os esp. those with eczema in the family you have to try ONE food at a time. You can have allergies to ALL those foods (including potato)!

try parsnip,swede and carrot all naturally sweet so babies like them .

Go with the 1 food at the time. There is a list of foods that are the least allergenic to try first. Been a while since i needed it, but someone will come along and give you a link (or google). Your DD will have very little knowledge of the yummy foods that we all like. A pear or swede puree will get her used to puree and is far less likely to give her a bad first impression of this eating malarkey.

I have a dd with a dairy allergy but to be honest I didnt give any of my kids cows milk til they were over a year old.

If she's not taking to purees then don't force the issue. Leave it a week and try again. She doesn't have to start solids because she is 6m, that is just the earliest you should start - particularly if she has eczema or you have concerns about allergies.

Give her one food for a few days (ie one ingredient only) and if she doesn't react then add another food. So she gets new single-ingredient food not more often than twice a week. Of course she can continue eating the previous foods, too.

Once you are no longer concerned about allergies; then you can let her almost anything.

And it doesn't have to be purees, either. Let her experiment with chunks of veg or fruit, or plain rice-cakes.

To clarify, I have been feeding my DD finger foods such as veg, rice cakes, fruit etc as I am doing BLW.

It was just that she reacted badly to this particular 'meal' and apart from some plain yoghurt and butter she has not had any dairy products.

Like I said I am just curious if a food reaction can manifest itself through direct contact on the skin?

If you do BLW (not just finger foods, actually let her feed herself) she may automatically avoid foods she's allergic to.

You can have an allergy to pretty much anything. The most likely culprit is the dairy, but allergies to potatoes are not unheard of.

As babybarrister says, skin contact reactions are possible.

That's great advice from MoonUnitAlpha about BLW - I found that my DS nearly always refused foods that made him feel grotty. (I think he can almost smell allergens!) On one occasion, when he was about a year old, I got fed up and insisted that he ate some sauce that I "knew" was okay for him, only to find out later that the ingredients in the margarine I used had changed and that I was giving the poor child traces of dairy - he was really ill afterwards.

As PrettyCandles, said, it's a good idea to give only one new food every few days. It can also be useful to keep a food diary so you can trace any slower reaction (eczema etc.) back to its source.

Good luck with it all

Poor you. Its rotten having to deal with eczema and weaning when you suspect a food allergy,

Yes its very common i think for a milk allergy to react on skin contact.

Why don't you rub a small amount of milk on her arm - somewhere that doesn't have eczema - and see if there is a reaction?

NB you might want to have some piriton handy if you suspect a bad reaction.

Be careful.

She may be allergic to dairy and if she is reacting this way there is something up. Tkae her to the doc and get some allergy tests done. Remember the first time a child is exposed to an allergin they may not have an anapaleptic reaction but the next reaction can be severIt is not worth the risk. We have learnt that if our son rejects a food not to force it. She may well have been in pain. Our son reacted like this to a tiny amount of cheese. Looking back we should have gone to ER as he was having a severe reaction and it could have gone very badly indeed.

Eczema is often accompanied by allergies.

Hi, yes totally possible. My daughter has a dairy allergy and the way we found out was from her skin reaction. At 5 months we gave her a bottle of formula (she is BF), She threw up which I could have mistaken for her stomach not being used to it, but wherever it touched her skin it left a red mark, sometimes with white bumps. We are lucky she is not anaphalctic but dairy can cause this in some so be careful. Ask your doctor for allergy tests, we had blood tests. It could well be the cause of the eczema.