How on earth do you work it out?

[verybusyspider]

I'm probably posting in the wrong place as ds def doesn't have an allergy, I'm thinking more intollerance, at 9 months after a particularly bad d&v bug he couldn't tollerate cows milk, after a month or so he could have formula again (although watered down at first) but he could only drink formula at 2yrs and milk made him sick, if the milk was processed or cooked it seemed fine and he could tollerate more and more.

He's now 3.5yrs and I've still got a hunch about cows milk and cream, yoghurt, cheese etc I've put him back on goats milk and recently starting getting soya yoghurt and cutting out any cows milk derived stuff that I see as unneccessary ie not giving cheese sandwiches...

After a week his appetite has doubled and he's cough (which he has been fighting for over a month) has gone - now am I right to think he's intollerant or am I seeing what I want to? I don't want to unneccessarily resistrict his diet plus I have 2 other ds's and don't want to be cooking diff meal variations if I don't have to.
I know its not as major as having an allergy but if you have any ideas I'd be grateful to hear them.

I've a similar problem with my DD, though hers became more apparent after heavy antibiotic treatment for pneumonia, & she eventually ended up with an IBS diagnosis, which means shes sensitive to a lot of stuff,

as you say your DS is okay with cooked ore processed dairy, I'm wondering if it is actually the lactose he is intolerant of, that is I believe the most common type of diary intolerance,, & if so is much easier to deal with, in that you can just by the diary milk with added lactose enzymes to aid digestion, DD drinks plenty of this stuff without any problems, & its much easier that faffing around with almond milk & the likes.

With DD, & myself too for that matter, it is pretty easy to spot, in that symptoms show up after only 20 minutes or so, making you bloated, gurgly & burpy, & then continues later with diareah.......when younger, too much milk would cause constipation, now its the opposite........I have also notice with DD, that if she is stressed, that she becomes much MORE intolerant, which makes sense now knowing her intolerance is really difficulty digesting the lactose, or milk sugar, as stress affects digestion,...

so maybe keeping a lose food & symptom diary would help you pin point exactly what his problem is, & try him on lactolite milk or similar, if he;s okay with that, then he's lactose, rather than dairy intolerant.

good luck

thanks rockinhippy he does seem much better with the goats milk so it does seem like a digestion thing - I wonder if it was the antibiotics he had for 6 wks after he was born (they thought he has kidney problems and wanted to wait till 6 wks to do an acurate scan) he was breastfed till 9 months so we didn't really have an issue in the early days.
I hadn't considered lactose intollerance - you can get latco free milk can't you? I will have a look out for it at super market, thanks again x

bear in mind that "temporary" lactose intolerance after illness is common and probably caused their initial difficulties. Also that most coughs disappear within a month so the latest "problem" could well be coincidence. Also that cheese/live yoghurt generally cause fewer problems than milk.

The only way to be sure about intolerances is to withdraw a food and reintroduce it and to do it more than once. Symptoms that improve when off the food and worsen when back on it indicate intolerance.

thanks tatt I agree that its likely to be temporary, I just want him to be well whilst he gets over it, thanks for your advice