Help we are going milk lactose free for a week

[mummytopebs]

DD has been having problems with her stomach for around 4 weeks, the gp wants us to go milk free for a week. So for breakfast she has had toast with mashed banana spread on it and some raisins. Any suggestions for lasting a week she is underweight anyway so need some fatty stuff as she is supposed to have a bar of chocolate and 3oz cheese a day - but obviously not this week. I dont know where to start

first - how old is she?
I have three df dc and we also have to make sure that they are getting enough calories as I am naturally (unfortunately) underweight. Is there any dietician advice in the pipeline for you?

Go to your local health shop...you can get dairy free varieties of almost everything

for main meals we tend to go for meat/spud/veg for three or four days a week, so they get chips or mashed potato with tons of vitalite marg in (which is df)

She is 4. No mention of dietician yet cos gp just wants to trial for a week to see if the tummy ache goes. Shes not much of a potato fan but loves pasta - is pasta ok? I am stressing about the calorie intake cos she has lost a lot of weight over the last 4 weeks ahe is back down to just below 12 kg - does anyone know what this is in pounds?

Have just found out 12 kg is 26 lb so that sounds quite under weight for 4 - Now worrying even more

pasta is ok - but not good for the calories... but hey ho you can do stuff with sauces. if she likes mushrooms and bacon then that is a yummy creamy sauce - do it with soya or rice milk. I spend half my life baking - we get through absolutely tons of cake in our house. Mine also like eggy bread (bread soaked in egg then fried in oil/marg) - again good for calories. They also drink milkshake (I think soya milk is revolting, fortunately they don't know any different lol) made with chocolate powder or liquid like Crusha. We tend to go for oaty cereals, ds2 addicted to ready-brek - summer and winter and ds1 has toast, marg and honey.

try not to panic re the numbers, my 5yo ds2 weighs the same as 3yo dd. they don't tend to put a lot on quickly at that age, and some of us are naturally scrawny... make sure she has enough energy and skin looks ok.
If she's had problems absorbing things - which if she has a food intolerance, is a likely thing, then it will take a while for her system to take in all the nutrients from her food. My ds1 didn't put any weight on for two years - which was awful, a huge worry, but now at 8.6 he is fine.

Eggy bread is a good idea she used to like that when she was little x The gp has given her perscription for soya milk, will she be allowed chocolate powder? - Do you mean like nesquick stuff x

yes, that and cadburys powder, they only contain the cocoa and sugar

Well we have survived the first day unscathed, she is still saying she has got tummy ache, does anyone know how long it would take for the tummy ache to subside if it was a milk intolerence. Any food suggestions welcome and nice recipe ideas x

It could take anywhere between 2 or 3 days...and 3 weeks.

If you google "vegan recipes" you might find a few good ideas (obviously you can add meat etc to them )

I honestly think it will take 10 days or so to de-tox her system, possibly a bit longer - that is no meidcal opinion, just personal experience with the dc.

What sort of stuff would you / she like recipes for, then I can give you a clue how we adapt them?
A nice treat for her is df ice cream, sold in asda, tesco, morrisons, possibly sainsburys - it's called swedish glacé and it is a black hexagonal tub
Mine eat tons (yes honestly) of Alpro soya yogurt, they are sooo creamy it's delish!

The yogurt will be a great help cos she is really missing yogurts already, and the ice cream. Thanks. What is the df chocolate like?

The gp said the pain should have subsided in a week, well his plan is to re-introduce milk next monday and see if the pain gets worse. I am not convinced it is this and would really like some bloods done or x ray to check liver function etc, as the pain is at the very top of her stomach, however i will try this first to see if the pain goes off a bit. Bless her she was in agony after her tea tonight

my dc like the chocolate buttons and there's a bar version too - same company and similar wrapping. They say it's really nice (but I can't guarantee how that translates to someone who is used to 'proper' chocolate)

This might be a help as well

top tip - with all my dc we kept a food diary - every single thing they ate and drank got written down - a bit of a PITA but well worth it for being able to go to medics and say "look at this". Date the top, then on one side of each double page you write the food and drinks, on the other you put down any symptoms they have - tummy ache [where?] and runny nose / skin rash / wind / whatever her symptoms may be.

Thanks gigglewitch the chocolate buttons look great and i will go and buy her some tomorrow x

I have started a food diary today so will continue with that, she has just woke up screaming in agony again and wet herself she was in that much pain, she has settled again now though.

What type of symptoms did your dc have? She has always had failure to thrive and chronic constipation for last 2 years, she is currently on movicol for this. In the last 4 weeks she has started suffering from stomach ache and had a lot of sickness at the beginning, her poo also went yellow for about a week and now she is left with this upper abdo pain, gp thinks she has had a bowel infection which has kicked off a milk intolerance - does this sound feasible to you ? I am afraid i am a bit of an allergy virgin, she has lots of other medical probs but never suffered from allergies

that sounds like it to me...

FWIW I'll give you ds1's story, the other two have been df from birth on the paed consultant's advice.

He was always a "colicky" baby, I bf him for 10 mo but had tons and tons of cows milk products myself, with no clue about any of this, it wasn't even suspected. Being my first baby, I had no idea that him doing permanently green liquid poo was out of the ordinary and he could projectile poo the length of a room. At night he would only settle laid over someone's arm with their hand in his stomach. his legs were never still and it was obvious that he was permanently in pain. He just screamed all the time. When he was about 10-11mo I stopped bfing him, and his symptoms became worse, eczema all over his body too, but still we had no clue. I could only get him on to the first baby milk, he wouldn't tolerate the 'follow on' milks. Every time we went on holiday we ended up taking him to hospital or calling doctors out because he had what appeared to be food poisoning (which of course is exactly what it was to his system) because we were giving him the baby milk which comes pre-prepared in cartons, and is apparently more concentrated. He used to just hang over the side of the pram, his nose running, with no energy One holiday when he was 18mo was particularly bad, we came home because he was so ill, and my mother said "It's that milk, you know!". So we took him off it. We know someone who keeps goats and she told us to try goat milk as she supplied a local nursing home for their patients who had ulcers and digestive disorders. We tried it. His eczema was gone within three days and he was a different child within a week. He hadn't put any weight on from 10 to 21 months, and it was a long struggle from there to get the weight on him but as his system heals he absorbs better and is a nice weight for his height now (he's 8.6yo)
Blood tests show a high IGE (allergy factor) but strangely it doesn't appear to be to anything specific - obv we know that it is to milk, but the tests don't show it. Even now I'm not convinced that he absorbs all that he should from his food and he is often shown as anaemic in blood tests - and I am assured by dieticians that he has a fantastic diet so this isn't the cause.

The blood tests aren't nice for a little child, but they do put the 'magic' cream (local anaesthetic cream) on their skin to stop it from hurting them. If you are sure that this will get you an answer, then go for it - but if it's doubtful then look into other options.

She has had blood tests before and hates them, i am just worrying its her liver - Total over reaction but dd has a lot of health prbs with no diagnosis for anything as of yet, just all continuing investigations. Will perservere with df and hopefully stomach probs will imporove x Thanks for your information, it has helped a lot. Do you think it is possible to have an intolerance without the excema etc ?

I honestly do think it's an individual thing. two of my three react that way, the other one doesn't. If she has other health probs are you already under a paediatric consultant? They are usually better equipped to deal with this than GP's who see fewer cases, particularly if your dd has a combination of things going on. If she's not already, then I think I'd be wanting to nag for a referral.

btw, in case you think there's anything that I could help you with, in case this thread disappears off our 'current' lists, my email (take out spaces and use @ and . symbols) is gigglewitch at google mail dot com

Thanks gigglewitch x Yes she has a paeditrician already she has an appt in 2 weeks so will be writing all new symptoms down to show her

good on you
Take tons of evidence, and dig your heels in
Good luck!!

Thanks for your advice she has just wolfed down a alpro soya and she loves them and we found the dairy free buttons x Seems much healthier this dairy free lark she has had 8 portions of fruit and veg today, and has had a poo 3 times she usually suffers from chronic constipation x

If she doesn't like potatoes, then there is always rice, millet, buckwheat etc (millet in particular has various minerals in it that other grains usually don't). There is also rice & veg pasta around.
From personal experience with my ds, we went dairy free when he was about 2 and this resolved constipation, but subsequently we had to go gluten-free, as he never really picked up in the big way (gluten blocks absorption of nutrients as in some cases it covers gut on the inside with indigestible glue).
So, if she continues with problems, watch the wheat (& rye, barley, oats).
My ds can now have dairy with no constipation, but is gluten-free and many of his problems, previously described as progresive deterioration, have been succesfully reversed.

oooh, that's an interesting post nightcat. ds1 is still not 100% 'right', seems to have what I think are IBS type symptoms and the covering the gut in gluey stuff makes a lot of sense. We might have to research what to do next, we do know he can't have cereals like weetabix or shredded wheat, they give him hideous pain and wind, and also we avoid brown / grainy bread for the same reason.

Good to hear there looks like a bit of improvement, MTP hope it continues.