Your son is a bit young for this, but we use chewable “Lactaid” (partial tablets) when our son (3.5 years old) consumes very much dairy and that seems to reduce the symptoms that diary causes him. Nevertheless, we give our son regular doses of Culturelle’s pro-biotic and we like to think this helps him digest small amounts of dairy without any trouble (when he was 1 he couldn’t touch a spec of dairy and drank only “Elecare” formula).

Most doctors seem to think that the best diagnostic method with suspected food allergies is to withdraw the suspected allergen from the diet and observe the results. Ultimately if you still suspect the milk is the issue you will have to stop it (after giving it at least 2 weeks to allow for usual digestive system adjustments) and see what happens.

Please do provide an update when you have one. Good luck to both of you!

I am glad to hear you guys are all healing now and on the path to a bright future. Let me warn you that when he gets a little older you might want to try soy milk, like Costco’s Kirkland brand. Then before he gets a soy overdose, start introducing Almond Milk. My wife makes it herself with Costco Raw Almonds for Lex (who is now 3.5 years old).

Thank you!!!!!!!

When she was about 4 months old, I found small flecks of red stuff in her stool. It turned out to be blood. I was exclusively breast feeding. My pediatrician at the time told me I had to stop breast feeding and switch to formula otherwise she’d bleed to death. I told her, “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” her reply was, “It’s too much work and you realy don’t want to.” That angered me. I was hell bent on continuing to breast feed.

After 4 days of formula I got in to see a Pediatric Gastroenterologist. He told me that my body wasn’t breaking down the dairy proteins and they were going into her body which too wasn’t able to break them down. He never actually called it a “dairy allergy”. He told me I could continue to exclusively breast feed but I had to cut out all dairy including any packaged foods that had hidden dairy. I never knew they were so tricky with different names for dairy. Anyway, I continued to breast feed her until she was 18-months-old without incident.

As time went by I forgot about what went on when she was so little. As any parent would do, I tried to give her cow’s milk when she was around 1. She didn’t like it. It took me 6 months and 3 flavors later before she started drinking strawberry milk. She still didn’t drink much, but she loved cheese.

Looking back, she always complained of tummy aches. I never thought much of it. I just thought she was trying to get her way and was making it up for sympathy. They always seemed to subside fairly quickly.

Two December’s ago, the school nurse gave me a call. My daughter had been visiting her alot lately. I had no idea. She kept going in with a tummy ache. So I took her to see the Pediatrician. He wasn’t available, so we saw the Nurse Practicianer. She couldn’t find anything wrong, so she sent us on our way. The next day my daughter was misserable and in the nurses office again. This time when I called the pediatrician’s office, the Nurse Practicianer sent me for an x-ray before our appointment.

My duaghter was diagnosed as being severely constipated. They put her on two 1/2 doses of MiraLAX a day for 2 months. Actually, they never told me when to take her off. The MiraLAX was very hard on her. She would get sevear stomach cramps shortly after taking it. I felt awful giving it to her. So when it seemed like she was having normal bowel activity, I stopped giving it to her and all was well.

This past December became a repeat of the previouse. Once again she was going into the nurses office with stomach aches. I really didn’t want to put her back on the MiraLAX. For heavan’s sake, she’s only six. I don’t want her to be dependant on MiraLAX for the rest of her life. So this time I bipast the pediatrician and made an appointment at the same Pediatric Gastroenterologist’s office.

While waiting for my appointment date, I started cutting out dairy and replacing with Soy. No change in her symptoms after a week. So, I moved on to enriched rice milk in the food I was prepairing for her. After a few days her stomach aches were gone. We met with the doctor yesterday and she told me I did a great job of diagnosing my daughter. She has a dairy and soy alergy. MiraLAX is not neccessary at this point, but we’re going to try the dairy free diet for the next 3 months and see how she progresses. I was supplimenting with Viactive Chews but the doctor told me to stop that for now since the non calcium ingredients within the Viactive can cause constipation.

I’ll probably pick up that calcium suppliment you suggested for those days when I’m convinced she hasn’t gotten enough. Thanks for reading my story. Hope it helps others out there.

I understand your concerns. Count yourself and your daughter lucky that at least you know about the Milk Allergy up front. We didn’t, but of course we were using a Hypoallergenic Formula (Nutramigen) and it took months for our son to manifest his Milk Allergy.

People say goat’s milk works, but it is hard and expensive to get and it may not work anyway.

Elecare and Neocate are both completely free of dairy, but they can be pricey and your child may refuse their terrible taste. Mine has just started to refuse Elecare after 1.3 years of it. Insurance covered it all the way so it was fairly affordable, but you will need a prescription to get coverage and you have to jump through some other hoops.

A tip, if you get insurance to cover something stay away from Byram Healthcare as a supplier because their billing department will make your life very difficult and you will have to do half of their job.

Other options are to just do away with Milk entirely. Some believe that it is a myth that humans need any milk beyond human breast milk. They may be right, but it is a convenient source of fat, protein, and vitamins/minerals.

I’d love to hear other’s insights on this topic. Please leave a comment.

Best Regards,
James Christian

My daughter just turned one on the 8th of Jan. and I’m still a breastfeeding mother, but I’m ready to start weening her but she has a milk allergy. I have no idea what to try and feed her as some say that soy is very allergenic as well. So what about goats milk? Should I feed her formula or adult form. I have no idea I’m so confused.
HELP!

Thanks,
Heather

Your little guy sounds like our Lex, only I think Lex was about 9 months old when his milk/dairy allergy was diagnosed. I suspect that your son had colic as you were using Nutramigen since his fifth week. Ouch!

Our doctors (pediatrician and pediactric-gastroenterolgist) didn’t/haven’t seemed overly concerned about Lex’s calcium consumption. That really bothered us. The peditrician gave us some dietary handout that was full of dairy options (thanks a lot!) and she keeps forgetting about his milk allergy. The specialist told us to get a recommendation from the pediatrician on calcium. Anyway, my wife did like she has always had to do since my son was born. She took matters into her own hands and did lots of research.

Ultimately, she found Kal’s Crystal Calcium to be the way to go. It had the right kind of calcium and more importantly, none of the wrong kind (containing heavy metals or digestion altering). So this is what we us, EVERY DAY. The doctors say “sounds good” to our choice and method and the pediatrician only warned against letting him sip on sugary drinks all day. By the way, our favorite juices are those Juice Blast from Hansen’s for Kirkland (Costco) and lately we put in Carrot Juice too.

I also recommend looking for foods and snacks that have calcium in them. I would not go out of my way to get something that has calcium added because it will probably not be near as good as the Crystal Calcium. Instead look for fruits and vegetables, such as figs and kale (although figs, especially dried ones will be infinitely more popular).

Thanks for your comments.

Good Luck,
James

Thanks,
Misty