help -Nutramigen-how long for an improvement?

[duende]

My DS (22 weeks) has really bad reflux and is lactose intolerant. We recently had a very good month after he was put on LF milk and omeprazole. Unfortunately, the last 3 weeks have been horrible again. He screams most of the day.
It was suggested to us that he may have a problem with cow milk protein and to try him on nutramigen. he has been on it for 24 hours and is still screaming.
If it was indeed CMPI, how long before we should see a difference on this formula?
it tastes so awful I really don't want to give it to him if it's not helping.

Please help, we're getting desperate again

After my daughter was diagnosed with cows milk protein allergy it took about two weeks of milk free diet for me (breast feeding) to see any change. I presume it will be quicker with formula, though it won't happen over night. Stick with it, and I hope your LO is feeling better soon.

Nellymoo, thank you for answering. Can I ask how you got the diagnosis? and what your DD's symptoms were?

She was fully breastfed, but had terrible reflux, projectile vomiting and unsettled - we could never get her to lie down without screaming. Also, she had horribly dry, inflamed skin. She also seemed to have a very tight tummy, and explosive nappies...

She was diagnosed at ten weeks after IgE blood tests following a nasty reaction to skin contact with formula. In despair at sceaming and lack of sleep/ usless advice from ancient GP, we tried to give her a bottle but got no further than it touching her lips as she went into anaphylactic (sp?) shock. Only tried formula the once, as she reacted to neocate and point-blank refused nutramigen!

This was a pretty extreme reaction, though! And allergies can present themselves in a number of ways. The only reliable way to diagnose food allergy in a young baby is with a blood test, but you should be aware that it is possible to get both false positives and false negatives, as we have just learned following a very frightening experience with eggs, after we had been told that she had out-grown her egg allergy!

She has since been diagnosed with multiple food allergies, but is a very healthy and happy three year old.

Hope this helps.

judging by friends children I'd expect signs of improvement within a day and be considerably improved in 3 days although it may take longer for the full benefit to be felt.

Has anyone checked for a hernia? We thought one friend's child was milk intolerant but once their hernia was fixed they were fine. Look for any swelling around the navel, a bump can come and go.

BIG difference between milk intollerance and actual allergy. A clinical allergic response is very specific, and can continue, or rather be repeated many hours after the initial exposure, even if only a tiny amount of the allergen is present. For this reason, I would expect it to take much longer than one (or even 3!) day for the benefit of a milk-free diet to show any real change in symptoms.

it is day 3 on nutramigen today and he hasn't screamed (yet!) but hasn't seemed quite comfortable either.
I don't know if he may be intolerant or allergic to cmp. he has always suffered really badly reflux and digestion wise, but has never had any bad skin reaction, apart from slightly dry skin on his legs.

what makes me a bit confused is that for 4 weeks after being but on omperazole for reflux and lactose free (but not cow milk protein free) formula he seemed perfectly fine. maybe it is just omperazole that needs upping? surely if the problems were caused by CMP, he would always be bad? on the other hand, I have read that as many as 45% of babies with reflux also have cow milk protein intolerance so I thought it was worth checking.

I'm glad and surprised he is actually drinking this stuff, it is so disgusting.

tatt, he has a hernia, but the paed said it was nothing to worry about and it would heal itself...?

It tooks us about a week for the syptoms to settle down and that was despite ds being breast fed and me being on a milk free diet. we took had the anaphylatic shock reaction to normal baby formula. Unfortuntaley he hasn't grown out of the milk allergy but that is uncommon as the large proportion of kids do before they are 4yo. I am lactose intollerant and it takes me about a week to clear the effects from milk exposure. Bare with it it will get better but the milk needs to clear the system and it will take a few days for that to happen. By the way ds has a double whammy because he has issue with cmp and with lactose. they cause different results - CMP allergic, lactose cramping, dippy tum, screaming. Watch what meds you give as there are alot that contain lactose including asthma medicines!

hernias often do heal themselves but there is also a very small risk of complication. If he starts screaming a lot I'd either talk to NHS direct or get him checked by a gp, probably the gp.