Cows milk protein intolerant DD (7.5mths)... will butter and cheese be ok?

[Gonkster]

Sorry a couple of questions in one go...

DD violently sick on formula, and then cows milk when I tried it in her cereal (tried 3 times - I can't do it to her again. It was just horrific.) Worked out that it is most likely cows milk protein intolerence (not lactose). Off to docs this week. But am desperate to know now, whether she will also be v ill if I feed her butter and cheese?

If so, what can I feed her to ensure she gets the calcium (and fats) she needs?

(Am still bf 3 x a day as daren't drop a feed until I know she is getting a balanced solids diet)

I know the doc will advise, but am desperate to know now as I'm not sleeping for thinking about it!

The protein is still present in processed foods like butter, cheese yoghurt, so if she is intolerant to the protein, this should not change. Also, she should not be able to eat goats or sheeps products, though DS had a dairy intolerance and he could have goats products, they didn't affect him as much as the cows (though not entirely great).

I used to give DS Pure spread, which is dairy free, it comes in a soya version and a sunflower version and is widely available. It might be worth trying things like goats cheeses or feta maybe to see how she gets on, but it can be a painful time, trying things over and and over, you feel like you aren't doing her any favours by making her sick but you are trying to find something she can have.

Also Alpro yoghurts are dairy free, there is quite a lot of stuff out there but you have to get used to checking packets and it gets tiring!

Also, don't be so sure about the doctors, I found that I had to try a few at my surgery to get someone that didn't just dismiss the idea out of hand. Keep trying.

We did use soya milk for a while (stopped because he didn't like it) as you can get this in long life form, and when only one small person is using it, this is important. You can also get rice milk, oat milk.

Stops posting now

thanks so much. i was really hoping that somehow because it was processed in butter and cheese it would be ok. but i guess i will just have to try each thing and deal with the guilt of making her sick. it's so horrible though as it's not her fault and it all in all takes up half a day from eating it to being sick (which lasts about 2 hrs in all) and then the recovery. is that the pattern of sickness you had with yours?

lack of caps as typing onehanded

Well DS didn't experience sickness, he came out in awful eczema which he would scratch, he still has some scars.

On the plus side, he has grown out of it now (took about 2 years, though there is history in my family of having it as a child and outgrowing it, don't know about you) and it is a massive relief.

I'm not sure to be honest if it was vomiting them I could bring myself to try things out on him, maybe I would just stick to non-dairy and try every six months or so to see if it still happening. As I could manage the eczema to some degree with creams and steroids (once I had a supportive doctor) then it was less of an issue than vomiting, IYSWIM?

On the plus side, you have worked out what it is quite early, it took me ages with DS to find the link between the milk and the reaction.

That's really interesting that they have such different reactions... maybe my assumption that it's cmp intolerence may be wrong... thanks so much for your help. I WISH I had found mumsnet when I'd first had her. Would have helped me through the first few months with the blues etc!

Gonkster - I had dairy intolerence as a child. Projectile vomiting if I had lots (eg milk), eczema if I had less (eg milk chocolate). Like LLPJ I would keep trying every few months as I did outgrow it (not sure what age, though) and can eat anything now

Hi MamaChris- thanks for your post. It's good to hear that if this is what it is, she may well grow out of it.

Gonkster - the pattern of sickness sounds absolutely like my DD when we first tried her on formula (at about 12 weeks I think, then a couple of times again up to 6 months old).

I tried yoghurt when weaning at 6 months and the same thing happened - only there was a slightly longer delay, up to 24 hours I think. The sickness each time was awful, just constantly being sick for around 2 hours then recovery.

She also didn't gain weight well between 10 weeks and around 1 year. (I was exclusively bf apart from the experiments with formula, and it was possibly because I had dairy in my diet.)

I kept a diary of the sickness and went to the GP when she was around 6-7 months - she was referred to a paed as the GP said she didn't have enough specialist knowledge. The paed diagnosed cow's milk protein allergy. The reason for the delayed vomiting reaction is apparently because the reaction comes from the lower gut.

Advice was to carry on bf for as long as possible, but they will prescribe a formula such as Nutramigen if you can't exclusively bf.

Re diet, soya is another common allergen (though my DD was okay with it), I was a bit wary about giving her too much though. I gave her calcium fortified rice milk as a drink and in cooking (not replacement for bf), and included lean meat and lentils in her weaning foods. Dairy really isn't necessary for nutrition, there are plenty of alternatives.

Re butter and cheese, I would also avoid these for now, but when reintroducing dairy (I was recommended to try at 18 months) then these are the first things to reintroduce as they are easier to digest than raw milk.

They are supposed to grow out of it by 5 or before - my DD got eczema when I tried at 18 months, but she seems okay now at 2 with butter, cheese and cooked dairy products. I haven't tried yoghurt or milk yet though.

Sorry for the essay - of course there may be another explanation for your DD's sickness but hopefully the doc will be able to refer you to someone who can help.

If you have any other questions let me know

Thanks Pixelherder. I really appreciated the essay. I feel so lost as I haven't had one bit of advice or one story that hasn't in some way conflicted and I am getting to the end of my tether. I saw the docs this morning and she basically said 'try again' and then keep trying. Then I suppose one day when I get cross about it, she'll organise some tests and an appointment with a dietician (or whoever). I guess, thinking about it, that's all I can do, but it is absolutely horrible to make DD that sick.

Oh, and to explain a bit of background, DD had formula at 6wks (thrush issues) although it was only for the 2am feed. And she was absolutely fine with it then. That was for about 2 wks and then went back to exc bf without a hitch. Then tried formula again at 5months and that was the first violent sickness situation. A month later I tried formula again - same thing, and then about 4 wks ago, I tried some cows milk in her breakfast - identical scenario.

Some people have told me that by feeding her that little bit of formula at 6 wks, I probably contributed to her problem.

Which makes me feel brilliant of course. But at the time, after a pretty dreadful birth, that was really all that I could do.

I don't think I was warned enough about the guilt complexes that come with being a mother!

Sorry - my turn for an essay.

Gonkster - I just remembered, DD was also fine with her first exposure to formula, it was all the subsequent ones she reacted to.

And don't beat yourself up !!! If it hadn't been formula which triggered it, the allergy would still probably have been triggered the first time she had any dairy when weaning, so fairly inevitable really, if that's what it is.

Gotta dash now but I'll post more tomorrow

Just a quick question... did you ever manage to make a white sauce without the dairy?! People seem to use rice milk in cooking generally, but couls I use say pure dairy free margarine instead of the butter?

hi - sorry to hear that the gp wasn't helpful Is there another one you can book in to see? I guess I was lucky that mine was so quickly prepared to admit that she didn't know enough about it to advise, and referred us. LazyLinePainterJane is right about the fact that a lot of GPs won't take it seriously, unfortunately there is a lot of confusion and lack of info in this area. I kept getting health visitors banging on to me to feed DD lots of cheesy sauces to make her put on weight, grrrrr...

If you haven't done this already, I found it was helpful to put down in writing exactly what happened with each episode (age, what she ate, how soon sickness followed etc) and stick this in front of any medical professional you see. It was from this rather than any tests that the paed made the diagnosis. She said that there are no useful tests that they could do as eg a skin scratch test would only show a skin reaction, not a gut reaction, and it was the gut reaction that was the problem.

Is your DD generally a 'sicky' baby? Just wondered as my DD really isn't - since she was around a month old she has only ever been sick when she had a bug or when she had dairy, she can go for months without being sick normally, which made the allergy more obvious and easier to diagnose.

There are quite a few threads on Mumsnet on dairy / cow's milk intolerance / allergy if you do a search

eg
www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=29&threadid=533549#10877617

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=29&threadid=451070#9155925

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=1364&threadid=266147#5333962

There are tons more as well

Here are a couple of other sources of info

www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=302&id=1785

Not to be confused with lactose intolerance:
www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/lactose.html

Re diet, I never made white sauces, but I think you can could probably try it using rice milk and a dairy free spread. Dairy-free weaning food can include things like lentil and root veg casseroles, avocado, banana, eggs, minced lean meat/chicken/fish with veg, rice, frozen peas & sweetcorn, mash made with olive oil, bread with olive oil. Hipp Organic do lots of dairy free jars which aren't bad, I always chose ones with meat in for the protein.

DD was prescribed Nutramigen which I mixed with Farleys soya formula to make it more palatable (though if they will take Nutramigen on its own that's preferable). Not sure but I think she started having this at about 10 months to supplement bf as I was back at work.

sorry this is a bit rambling, if anything doesn't make sense let me know !