Baby with possible food allergies - advice and reassurance needed!

[chasingthegoose]

It looks as though my 7 month old baby may have multiple food allergies. I would love to hear from others who have been in a similar position.

He has been diagnosed with a likely cow’s milk protein allergy and he and I (breastfeeding) have both avoided products with any trace of milk or egg for over a month. I have also been avoiding soya and more recently fish. Unfortunately he still reacts frequently. The main symptoms seem to be red rash on face, severe eczma on legs, constipation and waking in the night screaming. We have been keeping a detailed food diary but since the reactions are so frequent all that has really done is put most foods he or I have tried on to a ‘suspect’ list. His symptoms have improved since before I cut out the dairy though. He is now much less likely to be really unhappy for extended periods in the daytime. I would have said his sleep has improved but it now seems to be getting worse again.

I’ve seen the GP who has referred us but the appointment is not until January. I’ve also seen the community dietician who has given me guidance as to which foods are higher risk – they told me to avoid those for him, but that I should be more relaxed beyond what I’m already doing. But I really want to try to avoid the worst of the symptoms so have been playing around with cutting out other things. And every new food he has seems to be followed by symptoms – which might or might not be associated.

I really want to carry to breastfeeding but I’m starting to question whether this is right for him. I’m trying to slowly introduce neocate, mostly so I can skip the odd feed but also just incase we decide to go down that route.

I’m wondering about private testing. How much could we end up spending? How long would it take to work out what’s going on? Would that be silly given we have a referral for Jan?? Is there a longer term impact of not getting this sorted ASAP?

I’m really worried about Christmas partly as I’ll have less control over food as we’ll be away. Also we’ll be sharing rooms more, possibly with our daughter as well, and I can see us getting no sleep over the festive season.
If anyone can reassure me that things will get better I would love to hear that.

Thank you for reading.

Hi - what are you currently weaning him with? do you have any health insurance? January is not that far though it sounds like he is quite unhappy. You could always call the hospital and ask for a cancellation?

He's having a lot of sweet potato carrot parsnip and pureed chicken. Also apple and pear and a few other things.

We don't have insurance. I guess January is not so far now - we've been waiting g a while already. Good idea to ask for a cancellation.

Thanks for your reply.

Sounds like you are keeping things pretty simple - stick with simple fruit and veg till you go to the hospital and introduce new things really slowly - good luck getting a cancellation!

Potato and tomato can cause some allergy problems in babies - my DS reacted badly to tomatoes when weaning - rash everywhere.

Potato is on our 'suspect' list and tomato seems to have been a problem as well (either that or lentils or both). Avoiding these at the moment although we might try potatoes in a controlled way as it would be good to get more starchy foods in his diet. It's frustrating not to be able to introduce more foods at this point as he's very enthusiastic and I know from experience how fussy he'll probably get in a few months time!