anyone got experience of lactose intolerance in babies?

[Tras]

Hi all, I have a six month old baby who has been on lactose free milk since 6wks. However whilst I think she has lactose intolerance, I never got this confirmed with a stool sample. As a result I am left thinking was it some other type of allergy such as a milk intolerance. Starting to wean and am thinking it would be lovely to not worry about avoiding diary especially if she is not lactose intolerant.

Basically after six weeks of screaming before, during and after every BF I couldnt take anymore and bought lactose free milk from the pharmacy. Had been to my Dr on many occasions and he thought it was colic. Gave us gaviscon which she threw up! We then got Ranitidine which she is still on but it didnt help at the time.

Basically her symptoms included
hives, projectile vomit, foam coming out when passing stools, wealts forming over face and moving down body, food refusal. When i switched her over to the lactose free milk, she stopped crying within 12 hrs and the hives and wealts cleared within 1 wk.

However we are still left with possible reflux. If anyone else has experience of lactose intolerance, were my DD's symptoms similar. How long did the intolerance last? How did weaning go? All advice would be welcome!

BUMP

That sounds awful! I really hope someone gets back to you tonight.

I'm going to bump this again as no one has come back to you.

Thanks, hopefully someone will see it soon!

HI, I would ask your GP to refer you to the paediatrician's at the hospital so you can get it investigated by them and the dieticians. My DS was cow's milk protein intolerant (diagnosed at 5 months) but by 13 months I had weaned him onto a full diet following the dietician's step-by-step advice. However, we still had to avoid many things (dairy, bread etc) until that point as they contain cow's milk protein as well.

The fact that her symptoms cleared immediately suggest that he problems was the lactose. Have you tried her on anything containing lactose since? When dairy free weaning is well established then you could try giving her something little (like a bit of one of those biscuits flavoured with grape juice) to see if the symptoms return. If she tolerates it then offer it again, if not then push for the appointment.

As for the ranitidine, we were also given this as the intolerance was misdiagnosed as reflux. He didn't need it and I took him off it sharpish as it is a pretty potent drug.

Good luck with it all.

my ds2 has had lactose intolerance since 2 weeks old diagnosis we try him every now and then with some food with a small portion of milk in to see if he can tolerate it as yet 3 yrs 6 months no signs of out growing it however dd1 outgrew at 12 months and never looked back. ds2 never used to settle, used to get diarrhoea and constantly pulled his knees up in pain but never had hives etc. Both children were diagnosed with reflux ds2 was on ranitidine omeprazole gaviscon and at one point all three however once diet was under control reflux eased off. Ask your gp for a referal to a dietitian and take it from there

Good Luck

Not sure that the fact it cleared up quickly would indicate a lactose vice cow milk protein intolerance. Definitely ask for a referral as it is possible it could be an allergy?

But elimination is a valid method of diagnosing an intolerance. When DS had a stool sample, it came back negative, however I did point out that he was nil by mouth for the previous 48 hours, which can invalidate a stool sample as apparently it needs some lactose/cow milk present to test accurately.

DS is under a gastroenterologist and a dietician, and am fairly sure that it would be a referral to a paediatric consultant to make a full diagnosis.