To ask for quick dairy free help for ds?

[bobstersmum]

I posted the other day as my 5 year old ds has been having blood and mucus in his stools, he's now had loose stools for going on a week. I had his doctors appointment this morning and after a good examination he said his first port of call is to try dairy free for two weeks.
For background my ds has had over a year of stomach problems. He is on omeprazole for acid reflux as he was randomly vomiting, but has virtually always had either constipation or loose stools. He was bf until almost 3. Recently he's been on the toilet up to 10 times a day and it's usually very mucussy.
School have said they can facilitate a dairy free lunch although I'm nervous about this as I know its not as simple as no milk or cheese!
Can anyone give me some easily available foods that are dairy free please?

I’m sure it will be one of the GP’s next steps as early days, but blood, mucous and having bowels opened multiple times per day are symptoms of IBD - crohns or ulcerative colitis. Do you have any family history of these? A simple stool sample ( faecal calprotectin) gives a very good indication of whether this is the cause.

To start with, go for things which are naturally dairy free as everything else will taste strange. Breakfast is the trickiest, but maybe toast and jam or porridge made with water.

You can make oat milk yourself if you have porridge oats but it is a bit of a faff.. In short, soak one cup of oats in 3 cups of water for 30 minutes, then blend for 10 seconds in a nutribullet or similar then strain through cheesecloth / muslin (or a new j cloth or something similar depending on what you have.)

www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2019/02/04/all-hail-oat-milk-the-dairy-alternative-thats-cheap-and-easy-to-make-at-home/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e973fa3e7b96

My DD's friend at school was dairy free. The bits I remember (6 years ago now!) was that I used to buy Pure margarine, Alpro sweetened milk, various sorbets, Oreos, and Walker's Ready Salted (but not any other flavours). My DD isn't dairy free, but chooses to have Alpro unsweetened milk, and also the chocolate flavoured ones. DD also has the Alpro yogurts, again through choice.

Don't forget to look for whey in the ingredients lists, as well as milk or milk solids.
If coming off dairy completely works, then you might be lucky and find your DS is only allergic to cow's milk, which will allow you to introduce goat's milk and butter (try St Helen's Farm brand as it doesn't have the sharp taste some others do) and cheese made from sheep's or goat's milk.

I'd recommend that you download the FoodMaestro app (it's free). This was recommended by our dietician, you put in your allergins and then when you search for different items it will tell you if they are safe or not. It has most of the main supermarkets own brands as well as 'premium' brands.

Also a couple of other common things not yet mentioned that have hidden dairy in that you may not realise are ham and cucumber (just the skin on cucumber, it's often sprayed with casein - peeled cucumber is fine)

Finally, everything is a 'may contain' even if not stated, unless it is a free from product. Good news is that the majority of those suffering with allergies are fine with may contain - very rare for IGE and the allergist we saw said they weren't aware of anyone with non-IGE ever reacting to a may contain.

Once you get used to it dairy free isn't too bad (although I really miss real cheese!). We've been dairy and soya free for nearly 2 years now (me as well as still breast feeding) and you quickly get used to checking everything and asking for the allergy file whenever you go out to eat.

Oh and in answer to your questions about yoghurt and cheese, Koko yoghurt is good, violife cheese (they do a cream cheese too). Oh and I add to the Oatly recommendations: they've just rejigged the branding, dark blue is similar to full fat cow's, pale blue is like semi-skimmed and the white is like skimmed (in terms of fat/vitamins, rather than taste.)

I actually prefer oat milk to cow's.

PS Oatly barrista makes great Yorkshire pudding.

Sorry, last post and then I'll shut up. Good places we've found to eat out are: pizza express (their dairy free pizza is really nice), Zizzis and Harvester.

And Wagamama. Largely dairy free.

There is some brilliant advice and suggestions here thank your so much. For breakfast he usually likes a cereal bar or brioche, banana and glass of milk or fresh juice. But he also likes cereal with milk. For evening meal we have spaghetti bolognese, roast chicken or roast beef with veg and mash and gravy, sausages and mash, corned beef hash is one of his favourite meals I hope to not have to cut out, shepherd's pie and veg, chicken curry, usually korma but I can change that, fish pie not sure what sauce I can use for that,fish fingers and chips, and he loves pizza. I think a lot of the meals I've mentioned are still OK just the odd one that will need tweaking.

We buy pizza bases and sauce and make cheese free pizza's so pizza is easily done.

I did ask the doctor about a stool sample. He didn't think it was needed? He said as there is no known history of ibd in the family it's doubtful, and that along with the fact that ds is not underweight and looks healthy. However I did tell him that I've never known ds ever have normal stools, they ate always runny or small and bitty, plus very mucussy these days. He tried to blame the omeprazole but I said he'd men on it for a few months with no problem. My mum thinks I should ring out of hours for advice as he's had 4 bowel movements since getting home from school with blood in again. This morning before school he had 3 toilet trips and one at school. He missed school one day last week when it was so bad because we never know if it's a bug, so it needs sorting!

Some things that are dairy free:
The croissants that come as dough in the fridge that you roll out and bake yourself.
Party rings, most ginger nuts and hobnobs.
Sainsbury's meaty variety crisps.
Bisto red gravy granules and bisto best onion gravy.
Hellman's vegan mayonnaise is surprisingly good.

There are a few vegan korma pastes and sauce jars available. I think the Patak's paste pot is one.

I think you are right to keep pursuing this, your DS symptoms sound quite bad and has PPs have said you need to rule out more serious problems such as coeliacs.

My DS is on an exclusion diet, I was advised to give prebiotics at the same time as if they have a lot of diarrhea for a prolonged time, the gut bacteria will not be normal. I give Optibac.

I would also second avoiding replacing dairy with soy, as it is not good to eat soy in large amounts.

Good products I have found: Sainsbury's cheese alternative, ice cream alternative, free from flapjacks. Mrs Crimbles coconut rings and almond slices. Rich tea biscuits, but careful as some brands contain dairy. Ready Brek is a good breakfast as it has added calcium, important if you are not getting dairy.

Also watch out for low fat mayonnaise, which can contain dairy. Full fat is safe.

Lidl is usually good. Try their Firenze cake and individual apple pies.

Their wraps are DF and done of the chocolate is too.

My ds is dairy free and oatly not only do great milk which I prefer to cows but they also do cream, custard and creme fraiche. Some meal ideas; pasta, oatly creme fraiche bacon and peas. Just roll do dairy free pastry and I make pies from it. Obviously meat and veg but chicken and turkey gravy granules have milk. I make cakes using oil recipes and substitute butter with pure for a lot of baking. There is dairy in a lot of wierd things like steak McCoys! The symptons you describe are very similar to what my son went through and dairy free has fixed them but I have to make sure he doesn't have a lot of soya so he can't have pom bears. Good luck.

Naked Bars are good for snacks.

I bought s waffle maker and make plant-milk waffles for breakfast at weekends.

Jack Monroe - on FB as “Bootstrsp Cook” -is having a vegan year. Follow the FB page for vegan inspiration that is therefore also dairy free.

My DD (9) is allergic to cows milk protein (and soya protein) and I found a good place to start was looking at vegan stuff - veganuary.com/starter-kit/accidentally-vegan-products-uk/ so much is naturally dairy free and it includes lots of treats!

We found Waitrose best of both bread was good as it was normal price but no dairy in it, flora do a nice dairy free marg and the Swedish glacé vanilla ice cream is divine! (Chocolate one is pants)....

I found some really nice gluten and dairy free recipes online (I’m coeliac) and do together we have been making cakes we like and can eat.

Asda has a decent free from range too. Tesco is okay, Sainsbury’s not too bad but ASDA definitely comes out top for us

It’s worth asking for blood tests to see what he’s allergic too, the paediatric team did DDs when she was 18 months

Good luck!

It's just been veganuary and vegan products are milk free , the big supermarkets are stocking lots of vegan products now so if it says vegan you know it's dairy free , sainsburys have lots of vegan products like halo Nutella vegan ice cream , croissants ,chocolate etc for treats . oatly is a very nice milk alternative for cereals/ porridge for breakfast and vegan cheese is getting a lot better to with loads of varieties including Parmesan , you need to check labels when shopping , the milk is usually in bold so easy to spot , Google is great for a quick check if your unsure , people are sometimes surprised just how many products have milk added to them .

I think Lidl's Malt Loaf is DF too

Looking at your usual meals- I believe there is one supermarket brioche which doesn’t have dairy in but am not sure which. A lot of cereal bars are fine. I also make American pancakes with oat milk (if you mix the dry ingredients the night before you only need to add an egg and oat milk in the morning so it’s really quick), omelettes, beans on toast etc.

Roasts/shepherds pies etc are obv still good as long as you check the gravy granules, and make the mash with olive oil or dairy free spread (I prefer olive oil). Risotto (chicken usually) is also v popular here and doesn’t need any dairy.

For pizza, the best cheese around is Mozzerisella. It’s the one they use in pizza express and Zizzi. You can get it on amazon but i have found it cheaper to order from a local health food shop.

For fish pie, I use dairy free spread to make a Roux, then add oat milk and fish stock to make a white sauce then add parsley or chopped spinach to flavour it.

Nigella’s chocolate olive oil cake (made with flour rather than ground almonds if you don’t want it too heavy) is incredible.

Hope that helps! It all seems v daunting at first but, assuming it is a dairy thing, you soon get into the swing of it.

I found that elimination of the gross amounts of dairy helped very quickly. Even if trace amounts haven't disappeared