how long for dairy/ soy to stop being in breastmilk?

[parentsvsPIL]

I cut out dairy 1.5 weeks ago and soy 1 week ago. Anyone know how long it might be before EBF DS (4.5 months) stops having allergy symptoms (FPIAP: blood in his poo), assuming dairy and soy are the culprits? (obvs they may not be. Cut out wheat, tomato, potato, peanuts 3 wks ago — oats, rice, corn, egg all still possible allergens).

Charliezzz - we have had the occasional fishy-smelling nappy - I would assume this is causd by something like Gardnerella rather than by you eating fish. I had attributed it to stale wee rather than poo though - tend to only smell it when there's been potential for the nappy to be wet for hours before changing (ie on the rare occasions DS sleeps several hours consecutively at night).

MamaHanji - yes we have had lots of slimy diarrhoea nappies. They stopped quickly when I cut out wheat, potatoes, tomatoes & peanuts. Came back again this weekend (dairy & soy out but corn introduced - so possibly corn).

Thankfully being down to zero processed food I now don't have to read labels!

farfallarocks - thanks. Yes the timings suggested here for improvement are WAY longer than those suggested in the literature (48-96 hours???)

Ah that makes sense OP. I've seen people do TED - total elimination diet, where they suspect multiple allergens so give up all the main ones. I'm not sure exactly what they are but sounds like you're doing something similar, then after some time (4-6 weeks) challenge each food group individually. I guess it will take a shorter time overall to do that.

Either way, it's all such a long process isn't it :( all the while poor baby is suffering!

Really hope you get answers soon and all you're doing makes little one feel better!!

*Parent
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Omg I have been eating so many tomatoes the last few days!! That might be why she's been worse the last few days :(

Her eyes are also almost swelling shut when we leave the house now and sneezing non stop. Poor thing definitely has hay fever too :(

This is so depressing.

It is depressing. It feels a bit martyrish and other people don't get it - DP offered to join me on my diet in solidarity and he didn't make it to 24 hours!

If you persevere, tho, it does mean that you can carry on breastfeeding, which is loads easier than formula and what we were recommended to do when we talked to the specialist at the Portland. A friend tried neocate with very little success - it tastes rank, apparently.

It does also get better with time a lot of the time, provided the problem is intolerance rather than allergy. Allergies I think are a different cup of tea. Definitely worth testing for.

Yep - long process and others really don't get it.

Gp reckons I'm being martyrish by not just eating as normal until we see the paediatrician. My idiot mother reckons that as it's not like her hayfever (of which I've seen no evidence in the last 30+ years btw) then he clearly doen't have any allergies and I'm making it up to get attention. Father thinks allergy is all attention-seeking crap. PIL refuse to discuss anything negative at all and politely ignore any mention of it. Friends make catty comments about me being obsessed with my appearance and dieting and tell me I should go back to work as I evidently don't have enough to think about. etc. Grrr.

LaPharisienne - it gets better with time if it's allergy too in most cases. See link above. Allergy can be IgE-mediated (immediate reactions like hives, swelling, vomiting), non-IgE-mediated (delayed reactions like FPIES or FPIAP in babies - the standard manifestations of cow's milk allergy), or mixed (including FPIES that progresses to IgE-mediated reactions a few years in). Allergy testing is based on presence of IgE, so reveals nothing in cases of non-IgE-mediated allergy.

Intolerance is definitely real, in a clinical and epidemiological sense, but is much harder to describe reliably (partly by definition - it would be described as something more precise if the mechanism were known).