Talk to me about dairy / lactose intolerence

[OutNumberedByBlue2]

Ds2 has had issues with silent reflux on & off since birth. He's now 9 months old. We'd have periods where he's relatively settled at night & has slept for up to 8 his straight, quick feed, back to sleep for a couple of hours. Then we have extended periods where we see every hour of the night & only a feed will do.

3 weeks ago we hit another period of horrendous sleep seemingly for no reason. Reflux was flairing again. After several days we had a 'crisis' meeting with the hv who suggested dairy could be the underlying cause. He'd had macaroni cheese for tea the night it all kicked off. She suggested cutting dairy, getting his meds sorted for reflux & constipation & see what happened.

Within 5 days he was much more settled but I wasn't sure if that was his meds, dairy or both. He then got a stinking cold & chest infection so all bets were off. That has now gone. We had 1 good night. Then we reintroduced dairy, not in massive quantities just a small amount of milk on cereal & a little bit of cheese, as didn't think it was an issue & the last 2 nights he's been really unsettled despite being on a higher dose of ranitidine, waking up coughing, smacking his lips & a strong acid smell.

Is this just coincidence or in others experience does it sound like dairy is the culprit? Did your lo grow out of it?

dairy and lactose intolerance are different things i.e. dairy intolerance is an intolerance to cows milk proteins whereas lactose intolerance is an intolerance to the sugars in the milk. It would be more likely to be dairy intolerance as breastmilk is full of lactose. Were you told to reintroduce dairy?

No we weren't told to, we were just left with try it for a couple of weeks, see what happens & let the hv know.

Anyone?

Cows milk protein intolerance is a very common underlying cause of reflux.
My Ds2 was MSPI (milk and soya protein intolerant) and reacted to tiny traces of both via breastmilk, but all affected children (2-3% it's quite common) will have a tolerance level. Only 0.5% react to CMP in breastmilk, the others only react directly, and the more processed the dairy the more likely they are to tolerate it.
I'd stay off dairy completely for several months, then gradually try reintroducing, starting with dairy ingredients e.g. Skim milk powder in a biscuit or cake, and working up to hard cheese, yoghurt, milk. keep quantities small to start with and back off if you see a reaction. The reaction can be delayed by days-hours so you need to trial each stage for several days before upping the ante.
nearly all children outgrow it by the time they start school. My DS was v badly affected and is completely fine and a cheese-monster at 3.
The book "Colic solved" by Dr Bryan Vartebedian is v good on reflux and CMPI, despite stupid title.

If you are going to be off dairy for any significant period of time ask to be referred to paediatric dietician. If you can use soya replacements it's not too difficult, but if not you may need calcium supplements.

Thank you. I've spoken to the health visitor this morning & she's doing a referral to a paediatric dietician / nutritionist. She's also recommended going back to the gp to get advice from them & see if they will prescribe nutramigram (sp?) to use for cereal etc & get a paediatric referral.

Are you breastfeeding? We did try the hypoallergenic formulas but they taste vile and DS would rather have starved. I BF until 2 yrs old in the end, but used calcium-supplemented Oatly for cereal and cooking from 6m and as a drink from a year ( plus 2-3 BF a day) It doesn't have enough fat or protein to be the main drink for under-2s but if you can get those elsewhere in the diet it's fine. The coconut milk is worth a try, it's higher in fat and you can mix coconut milk and coco cream to make a higher fat liquid.

Hi, my 18 month old tolerates lactofree milk, but not regular milk, he tolerates cheese, yogurt OK is seems just milk causes him diarrhoea and nappy rash, he was fine with breastmilk. anyway lacto free milk tastes like regular milk, perhaps slightly less sweet and he loves it - might work for your DC too or at least help to narrow down the culprit.

Thanks for the replies. The GP has done a paediatric referral & is sending him for blood tests. I'm still bf as he is a complete bottle refuser, so I'm also cutting out the dairy.

I've already been using the oatley milk for cereal. Great tip about the coconut milk baking tins, I am really worried about the calcium & fatty intake for him with cutting out the dairy so any other tips would be much appreciated!

We ended up being prescribed a calcium supplement (calcium sandoz) and a general multivitamin. BF can provide about a third of their calcium requirement from 12-24 m (source Kellymom) and DS wasn't having enough Oatly to make up the rest. Dietician can give you calcium contents of foods ( bread has quite a bit) but you may well need supplements. Requirement for BF is 1250mg a day, I took a couple of 400mg calcium tablets which you can buy cheaply from the chemist plus some Oatly.
Fat wise, I cooked with olive oil and was more generous than I otherwise would have been and baked with Stork block. Pure olive or sunflower spread for sandwiches. Avocado full of good fats. Hummus, guacamole.
Bear in mind that if allergy tests (if that is what you mean by blood tests) are negative it doesn't rule out CMPI, most of them are intolerant ( have non IgE or delayed type immune reactions) and will be negative on allergy testing, a fact many GPS seem to struggle to grasp. Gold standard if improvement of symptoms on withdrawing the suspect food followed by relapse when challenged with it.

Hi All,
I was reading this thread with interest as we're sitting here, new year's eve, with a very sad and sick-looking baby. I'm particularly interested if anyone experienced quite bad withdrawal symptoms when milk proteins were reduced/cut out of baby's milk? And OutNumberedByBlue2 - I hope you don't mind me adding to your questions...?

DD2 is 9 weeks old, and hasn't really been 100% since birth. She had a cold at 2 weeks old, which she was briefly hospitalised for (rapid weight loss, couldn't breathe easily etc). Since birth, she's had a persistent cough, scaly dry skin, and ever-worsening silent reflux and stomach pain. Over the last two days, the pain has got very bad, and she's screaming for much of the day. We hired a digital set of scales, and her weight has also dropped over the last 2 days. The doc (we live in Germany) is aware and ready if we think she needs medical attention.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the doctor finally thought DD2 might be suffering from reflux as the cough wasn't shifting. I've had a niggling feeling that something else wasn't quite right for a long while now, and it's really reassuring that other mums have linked reflux with CMPI. It was DH who noticed two nights ago that DD2 would start screaming not straight after the feed, but 40 mins later, with no clear sign of having refluxed. Since then, I've cut out all dairy from my diet (she's fully BF) and we've now put her on special CMP-free formula till the protein's out of my milk. But she keeps getting worse - she wants to sleep all the time, really struggles to settle, and cries with stomach pain. We did only start with the formula 6 hours ago, and I've read that it can take 5-7 days for symptoms to start to improve, but I'm surprised at how ill DD2 now looks... She looked fine yesterday morning, despite the crying.

Did anyone else experience something similar when they withdrew cow's milk protein? She doesn't have a fever/ diarrhoea/ vomiting - just is in pain. Any thoughts?

Thank you!!

Hi all,
Maybe I'll start a new thread - probably better to get a fresh look at it that way! Happy new year to all.