Lactose Intolerance

[CJ1990]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this? My four week old possibly has it :(

The doctor has asked us to try gaviscon and then if that doesn’t work we have to try drops that break down milk enzymes etc. If that works then she does have it. She has really runny / painful poos, sicks up a hell of a lot and generally seems uncomfortable with gas.

My issues is I’m breast feeding but both these medicines I have to give in bottles with her milk. I can’t express enough for a feed, so it’s got to be formula. I’m happy to do that as she has a bottle of formula every so often when DH takes her for a few hours when I need some sleep! But if she isn’t lactose intolerant then I’ve moved her over to formula full time for no reason.

I’m just wondering peoples thoughts. I just want the best for her and Just so confused about What is best! :(

Hi 🙂 I'm in the same boat with my 12 week old. Very congested all the time and throws up breast milk consistently. Will take a bottle and has the thicker formula but it says you can't take the gaviscon with this, however, I've just used one packet and it's fine, he can still drink the bottle. You don't have to change to formula though, the dr told me you can give the gaviscon with water, it's literally 15ml in a bottle so you can still breast feed if you want to!

Lactose intolerance is quite rare in such young children. Could be a cow's milk protein allergy though. If breastfeeding, try an elimination diet by cutting out all dairy and see if it makes a difference.
This is what I did with my son and the doc has FINALLY prescribed specialist formula to use (I'm back to work soon) but I had to demonstrate evidence of my belief that he had CMPA through the diet change.

Load of stuff online if you google it. Hope it works out x

So let me get this straight.. your doctor told you it’s lactose intolerance and you have to give medication with cows milk formula???

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Firstly, it’s CMPA not lactose intolerance.
Secondly, to diagnose it you have to first eliminate all diary products (this means you cutting dairy out of your diet, and if giving formula it has to be a hypoallergenic formula). Then after 6 weeks of being dairy free you do a test (reintroduce it briefly) to see if symptoms return. If they do CMPA is confirmed.

Here are some useful links

www.allergyuk.org/information-and-advice/conditions-and-symptoms/469-cows-milk-allergy

dilanandme.com/dairyfree/cmpa-faqs/

PS You might not need Gaviscon. If it is CMPA then eliminating dairy may well stop the reflux. But if it doesn’t and you still need to give Gaviscon, you can mix it with water. That’s what we did when we had to give it to DS (breastfed).

Agree with Namechange (although MN won’t let me copy and paste today for some reason). It does seem a bit bonkers that they are telling you Cow’s Milk is the problem, then telling you to add medicine to cows milk. Did the Dr even ask how baby is fed?

The Allergy U.K. info linked earlier is excellent. I agree with the pops who say that Lactose Allergy is extremely rare. It’s much more likely that it’s CMPA.

If LO has the symptoms mentioned in the Allergy UK link I wouldn’t bother with the medicine. Gaviscon can cause constipation which will only add to your worries.

Instead I’d read this on Kellymom and eliminate all Dairy from your diet. Elimination can sound daunting at first but it does get a lot easier