milk allergic dd4 and breastmilk, should i give up

[misdee]

am only on day 3 of me avoiding foods containing milk, cows milk, fish soya and nuts as recommended by the gp until dd4 allergy clinic appointment comes through.

but i feel awful. i am very tired and stressed anyway, and am worried about messing up and making dd4 unwell.

am wondering if it wuld be easier just to move her onto a specialised formula and be donev with it.

in my heart i dont want to give up bf, but i want to keep her safe.

i am talking allergy hre, and not intollerence.

misdee - can you give more details? Age of baby? Symptoms?

It's not a good idea to cut out all those foods at one go. No wonder you feel crap and tired.

This 'scatter gun' approach will do nothing to work out exactly which, if any, foods your dd reacts to. If you wanted to do it the hard way, you'd have to do a proper exclusion diet, cutting out just about everything allergenic (leaving you with rice, lamb and pear, IIRC!) and then intro'ing one food at a time. The other way is to cut out one food at a time, to see if it makes a diff. Start with milk, as its the one with most evidence behind it.

Hope this helps.

she is 6months, and this happens if she touches milk let alone ingests it here

GP advised avoiding the list of foods above as they are 'high risk' foods. she has referred dd4 urgently for tests, but that could still be months away

tea with rice milk isnt nice. could be caffine withdrawel as well

You have my utmost sympathy as I had to do this with my DS.

He wouldn't touch the hypo formula as it is so vile, so I had no option but to continue bfing him. Once he got older and more established on solids the odd slip up on my part didn't seem to bother him too much

It does get easier and becomes second nature to avoid these foods. You do need to make sure you are getting enough calcium from other places. Oats and broccoli are good or you could get a supplement on prescription.

3 days is very early so I would give it a bit longer before you make a decision as it sounds like you would like to continue bfing.

Oat milk is much nicer than rice milk in tea btw, although I actually preferred to take my tea black and got so used to it that tea with milk tastes vile to me now.

thank you.

I breastfed dd1 with this same allergy-she still has it and is nearly 3.

IIt is very hard to keep an eye on for you but I really preferred it because at least I knew what she was getting if you know what I mean.

I suppose I am very pro breastfeeding but I just wasnt happy putting her on specialist formula that contained goodness knows what.

I am allergic to soya so that was fine-dd seemed to be ok with me having milk in tea but perhaps your dd is more sensitive.

I would persist if you can at all-I really believe in the long run the allergy and her will benefit from not having the formula but having your milk full of anti bodies etc

I do really sympathise tho as I know how limiting it all is!

misdee Just wanted to check in and say 'hi'. I haven't had a chance to catch up on the postnatal thread for a while. Sorry to hear you are struggling with this. My sympathies to you and dd44.

Just wondering. Before dd4 got the reaction to the milk that splashed her was she showing signs of problems with breastmilk or was the reaction a complete surprise?

oops dd4 of course.

she kept coming out in small rashes during feeds, and has had eczema since birth.

the first reaction was when i fed her cereal and milk. second one was the skin test i did after the hospital told me to feed her milk again to see what happened.

It really puts you in an awful position. You want to do your best for her and how hard that must be if what would normally be best puts her at risk. Is there no way the appointment can be brought forward?

Maybe trying to be dairy free to start with and see how that goes and then removing the others one by one. I can only imagine how difficult it will be though as we only need to avoid egg with dd1 and watching out for that is hard enough.

Exact same as my dd misdee-eczema since birth and first break out when i started solids-porridge caused first break out.

Please stick with the breastfeeding-it will be fine-she will need it less and less anyway.

We are up to the hospital every 6 months for re-testing anyway-skin test is still showing an allergy.

I always felt better feeding her and being in control of it all to some degree. Just my experience.

just had a sleep and an orange, it was lovely. cup of tea was yuk.

i know bf her will be tyhe best thing for her overall, but am just worried.

Sorry misdee I didnt mean to dismiss the worrying-of course you are worried and rightly so

I just wanted you to know that it is possible to keep on going -and if you need to worry on here then go right ahead and we will do all we can to reassure you every time.