Dairy Question

[laraeo]

My DS has never officially been tested for a dairy allergy but back in October, then 7.5 months old, I gave him porridge made with whole milk and yogurt and he had horrible bowel movements and was not himself. I cut out the dairy and everything improved. Fast forward to mid February when he's 11.5 months. I gave him some fromage frais and there were no issues at all. His bowel movements were fine and he was his normal happy self. Since then he's also had some lasagna with ricotta and mozerella with no problems and I thought he'd outgrown his dairy issues. Last night for supper he had fish pie that had a fair bit of whole milk in it and we had a horrid night. He was fine - playing, etc - until it was his bedtime. Then he was up constantly crying, fussing and was just very unsettled. Is there a difference between yogurt/cheese and plain whole milk?

I should maybe add that back in October, I put a few drops of milk on him and he came up in a mild red rash that faded in about 1/2 hour. When I did the same thing a couple weeks ago there was no rash. He's also pretty chipper this morning.

I think it depends which bit of the protein causes the allergy. The milk proteins are changed slightly during the making of yoghurt and cheese and therefore some (lucky) people can tolerate yoghurt/fromage frais and cheese but not plain milk. I know someone whose baby can drink formula milk but not normal milk for this reason. The rash on the skin does sound like an allergy (its how we were told by the hospital to test at home on a yearly basis) and maybe he's growing out of it - I think many do by a year or two.

My DS was properly dairy allergic at 7 months. He's 1 today and he seems to have outgrown it. His skin no longer reacts and he had a negative skin prick test. We were advised to reintroduce slowly and look for reactions, starting with dairy in cake/biscuit, then move onto hard cheese, then try a very little bit of whole milk mixed into his nutramigen on cereal. We were told he may still not tolerate it completely. Perhaps slow it down and try whole milk in smaller quantities first.