Dietician or nutritionist? and am I on the right track re soy?

[hovely]

I'm looking for a bit of guidance about the best way forward with DS aged nearly 2. Following a range of allergic/ectopic type issues, we're going to cut down on dairy products, but I would really appreciate a bit of advice about our plans, and particularly on these points:

• is it advisable to see somebody to check his diet is adequate, and if so, who? dietician? nutritionist? how do we get to see them?
• should I scrupulously cut out all dairy stuff for a while, or is it effective enough to let the odd morsel of cheese etc slip through?
• for the past week I have just substituted soya in place of cows milk, but he has quite a lot - milk every morning in either cereal or porridge, plus about 12 oz total to drink in day - and I'm aware of reasons not to rely on soy esp for little boys - but is this too much?

The probs we have had are basically:

• for past 3 months, wheezing & gasping for breath every time he has a cold, steroid inhalers prescribed;
• 2 weeks of hideous runny stinky nappies;
• 2 times dramatic red flush & hives reaction to pesto (ie presumably pine nuts)
• constant mild eczema
• various passing mild skin reactions & rashes
• I had asthma eczema & hay fever when young. Thanks to all who have posted great advice on other threads - I have got some probiotics and will start those as a result of good advice elsewhere, but all tips & advice very gratefully received.

If you want to see if getting rid of dairy gets rid of his symptoms you have to cut it all out, and that includes milk powder which sneaks into breads etc.

At 2 he doesn't need all that milk as long as his diet is varied, and it would be fine to give him rice milk as a drink whilst you do a two week trial without dairy.

Bear in mind it might not be dairy - it could be anything.

I agree with bobbybob - you would need to cut out all dairy including hidden dairy in other products. Dairy can be called many things such as casein or whey etc. My little boy went onto soy at 12 months of age from breast milk (dairy allergic) and drank tons of the stuff and ate soy yoghurt and cheese. The oestrogen thing relates to genetically modified soy. Others on here advise against soy for reasons of nut allergy and high sugar. I haven't found a problem - my ds tested positive to nut and negative to soy at same time before he had ever eaten one or the other. When I compared soy to cows milk the sugar level were same. I never put him to sleep with milk and brush his teeth so I don't think it is an issue. He recently tested negative to dairy and has started slowly with cows milk and is doing really well. I am really in two minds about the scaremongering with soy as it is listed as one of the top 5 "super" foods and I think benefits outweigh the other factors. Have you also considered gluten could be his issue???

the sugar in milk is less cariogenic ( decay causing) than the added sugar in soy. Mymama can you post the reference for the oestrogen problem only being genetically modified soy? Haven't heard that before.

If you're going dairy free you have to be very vigorous or you may think its not a problem when it is. I'm afraid that even means avoiding most probiotics as they are usually dairy based. There are dairy free ones. For a couple of weeks dairy free you can manage without nutritional advice (and you'd have to wait ages to get it). Any longer dairy free and you do need proper guidance and possibly calcium supplements. If your child will eat broccoli that's high in calcium, you wouldn't want to risk bony fish yet.

With a reaction to pesto best not to use soy because of the link with nut allergy. I'm not convinced its cause and effect and rice milk has little nutritional value but, imo, for two weeks with a varied diet it's probably better than soy. Any longer than 2 weeks and I'd be asking a doctor for one of the special "milks".

Personally I'd give probiotics a couple of weeks or even a month first and then try milk free if they didn't help. I'd be very reluctant to take a child off milk.

I agree, try the probiotics first for say a month - taking flax seed oil at the same time improves their efficacy.

I would also try an antihistamine (we use zyrtec tablets crushed up) to see if that improves the skin and breathing issues.

Then cut out the milk if these appear to make no difference.

Thank you - as always here, some really helpful and knowledgeable advice. I will try the probiotics first and see how we get on. Think I will generally try tilting his diet away from dairy sources of calcium & protein, bur we don't eat meat and I know some other sources can be hard for little children to access (ie grains & pulses etc).

meant to say, I did think about gluten mymama, but just something about those vile nappies was telling me it was connected with milk - at least at that time. If I can cut down initially instead of cutting out it might help.

tatt - don't have link. When researching the effects of soy on the net there were many articles that stated that gm soy was the major culprit for affects on boys etc not natural soy. I did only look at medical based articles.

just bumping this cos i was wonderi what the difference is between a dietician and a nutritionist?