Hi, just wondering if anyone has experienced the below or has any helpful insights.
My baby is almost 7 months old and has always been EBF. About a week before he turned 4 months old, he had diarrhoea, and has had it pretty much every day since. As we didn't have any issues until then, I thought it's something in my diet, the only new thing I was having was a bowl of cereal with cows milk for breakfast, and I re-introduced caffeine with one espresso a day. I stopped both to see if it made a difference, but it didn't. I however never completely cut out dairy like cheese etc, only the milk was new in my routine as I was pretty much having other dairy most days since he was born. I went to the GP and was told to try probiotics, "Enterol." I assume it altered the taste of the milk a bit as my baby was not a fan, but we did persist with it, but it never stopped the diarrhoea. His stool sample came back as fine too, no evidence of bacterial or viral infection.
I limited the dairy I was consuming, and thought maybe once he's on solids it'll improve. WRONG. Oh I was so wrong. We started weaning almost 3 weeks ago and I now can't tell if he's intolerant to certain foods as he constantly has diahhroea and it's hard to tell if any foods are making it worse. I've taken him back to the GP, another stool sample has came back all clear, and I've been advised to cut dairy out completely for 7-10 days to see if that makes a difference, if not, to go back. We're a few days in and currently no change at all. I also called the health visitor who said it might be lactase he can't digest so to try lactose free foods, which we have been doing.
My baby has 0 other symptoms other than the constant diahhroea, he did have dry/rough skin when he was younger, but we were prescribed Aproderm which helped that. He's not unsettled or seems like he's ever in pain, he only cries when he's hungry or overtired, he's been putting on weight still, thriving with his development, and has never shown signs of dehydration despite the constant diahhroea (this is my biggest worry). Despite all that, obviously I do worry as surely this is not normal and something is causing this? I worry there's either a gut issue there or it's something he's reacting to, and that the constant exposure to it could cause damage.
Because of his lack of other symptoms, I don't think this sounds like CPMA, could potentially be lactose intolerance? As he's inevitably getting that through breastmilk. TMI but the diarrhoea is either super liquidy and dark yellowy/green, or green and mucusy. A few times there's been a speck of blood which I told the GP about, but they never commented on that. I guess with constant diarrhoea you could be sore and the blood might be from fissures. But again because of the lack of other symptoms, I might be wrong, but I don't think it seems like an allergy either? But definitely an intolerance of some sort.
I really don't want to stop breastfeeding, but I'm so stuck on how to move forward from here! We literally go through multiple outfits a day as nappies can't hold the diahhroea and it always ends up going on his clothes. It's also challenging to go out as being in his car seat or pram seems to be optimal position to relieve himself, but also ends up getting on both of them which I then need to try clean and wait for it dry before being able to be used again. Obviously though that's all secondary, my main concern is his health and wellbeing.
If anyone has any advice or similar experience, I'd really appreciate it 🥲.