When Milk Allergy Appeared

I discovered streaks of bright red blood in my daughter's stool when she was 4 weeks old (she is breast fed). I called my physician and they told me it was a milk allergy. Shortly after she began to become very fussy right before she had a bowel movement secondary to colitis (per the physician). She also had a rash all over her body. After 2 weeks of eliminating dairy from my diet the rash cleared up. Occasionally she has blood in her stool which I think may be a result of dairy I mistakenly had. In summary her symptoms were blood, pain before bowel movements, and a rash. It all appeared at about 4 weeks.

My first born did not have this problem, but my new baby does. She is now almost 4 months old. I think you mainly want to know what early symptoms to look for. My baby started spitting up a lot more right around the 4 week mark. She also broke out in a rash on her face that the pediatrician initially said was baby acne. Then her stools went from mustard yellow (normal for breastfeeding) to a greenish color. THey were also mucusy. THen I noticed red mucus globs in the stools sometimes too. That was when I finally called the Dr. SHe was about 6 weeks at this point. However, the Dr. told me that the green color also meant there was blood even if you couldn't see it. THe mucus is caused by the inflammation caused in the digestive tract.

As for treating, every baby will need different things and the other posts definitely give you good ideas to try. I personally cut out soy and dairy for a month and she still had issues (although the rash cleared up at this point) so I cut out ALL the common allergens. She still had blood in her stool so she is now on a prescription hypoallergenic formula called neocate and doing GREAT! If your baby only has issues with milk then obviously you don't have to go that far.

I hope your second baby doesn't have these issues. It is not fun. Good Luck.

Has your 2 y.o. cleared her milk allergy? My 5 y.o. was allergic to Dairy, Peanuts, Shellfish, Potatoes & Eggs. I suspected some of the food allergies when I was nursing some as early as 3 weeks old because she either refused to nurse, spit up more than usual, had extremely runny bowel movements or a diaper rash. By 6 months, she developed really bad eczema on her wrists & ankles. At that point, I started to eliminate the instigating foods from my diet while I was nursing (very hard). I had her tested for food allergies when she was a year old & the tests confirmed my suspicions (it's a skin prick test that's very pleasant so I don't think you'd want to do the test before a year old). At 5 years old, she's cleared most of the allergies except for dairy & peanuts, which has now expanded to all nuts. I also have a 4 month old & she is showing signs of being sensitive to the same foods through the similar signs so I am eliminating those foods once again until she is weaned. There seems to be more than 1 school of thought on how to handle food allergies. Some with medication, suppressing the symptoms, others with eliminations & others with trial & error. I prefer elimination & so far it's worked well for us. It's not an easy road to take, but I can honestly say my daughter has one of the healthiest diets of any 5 year old we know since she can't have a lot of the processed foods. I hope this helps. Feel free to contact me for more information. I also have a sheet our allergist gave me when I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter regarding avoiding & handling food allergies in a child during pregnancy & breastfeeding.

I found out my daughter was allergic to milk when she was 5 1/2 months old and I quit nursing. I ended up in the ER the first time I gave her formula. I ended up switching to a soy based formula. (I quit nursing because it was so hard for us and she just didn't do well. Now I know why.)
When I had my 2nd child, I still nursed her, but did not drink any milk or eat ice cream. I nursed her for 9 months and she is not allergic to anything. I also have a friend whose son is allergice to peanuts, but not her daughter. It may just be the luck of the draw. I would just not give your younger child any milk products until she is older. Good luck to you. Living with this milk allergy really stinks for all of us!

We have had tons of experience with food allergies in our family over the past 5 years and finally have found something that really works to get rid of the allergy! I can't explain how it works or why I can just tell you that it does work. My niece was being hospitalized 2-3 times a year at Primary Children's because of her allergies. My sister would go in with different allergy specialists and list all of the things here daughter was allergic to and they would laugh and say "She couldn't possibly be allergic to..." only to find out that she was in fact allergic to everything on the list. After years of trying tons of different creams, meds, and various other things my sister attended a science fair where a girl had done an experiment on herself. This young girl was deathly allergic to peanuts and through a certain program she was able to work through the allergy to the point of being able to eat peanuts!!! I am happy to report that my niece hasn't had to be hospitalized in over a year! It really works! If you are interested the website is

http://www.alternativetreat.com/
or
http://www.naet.com/

My baby is going through the same thing. His allergy first showed up at 4 weeks and it appeared as eczema and colic, with and occaisional stuffy nose. Doctors think it's milk but I have an appointment next week with an allergist to make sure. Good luck.

Two if my four children have a milk allergy at birth. I didn't figure it out with my first until he was about 6 weeks old. He would cry most of the day and had bad gas. As soon as I quit drinking milk and gave it a few days to get out of my system, he was fine- a very happy baby. He outgrew the allery at about 18 months. My other child, my 11 week old had the same problem. I noticed it before she was a week old and stopped drinking milk. She has been fine eversince. I drink soy milk and stay away from cheese and icecream- for the most part. ;-) I would guess that if your 5 week old hasn't shown signs yet, she's ok! I hope so! Good Luck!

So my first little guy showed signs almost immediately- blood in stool, irritability, etc. It ended up being a blessing in disguise. He has been off milk dairy his 3 1/2years and when son #2 was born last year I went ahead and made myself dairy free again. I was curious about if #2 was really dairy allergic so I started introducing it into my diet again about 2 months later. I saw none of the signs I saw with son #1 so I thought I was in the clear. Fast forward to this winter: Son #2 has had chronic ear infections (3 in a row) after the 3rd, I took him and me off dairy again and he hasn't had another since. So #2's allergy symptoms showed up differently than #1's. This is my experience and I thought I might share this. The boys know no different and are happy as clams with their rice milk. There are plenty of options out there that do not contain cow's milk that I have never felt like we're hurting and I don't have to worry about sippy cups getting mixed up. Hope that helps!
mare

My daughter was allergic to dairy for first 2 years of her life. Some of the signs she had very early on (before 6 weeks). Projectile vomiting, mucousy stools, lots of irritableness - crying for long periods of time. She also had acid reflux too. Some of the reflux symptoms were hiccups, stiffening up like a board, drawing legs up, abdomen being firm. Hope your baby isn't allergic it isn't fun. I breastfed and had a restrictive diet - a very restrictive diet.

PS you can do stool sample smears to see if blood is in the stool, which can mean a dairy allergy

My son's allergy showed up at about 6 weeks also. I think the pediatrician said that's typically when you see signs. Refusing to eat, though... nope he never did that. We just found blood in his diapers.

My 14 month old grandson had a GER problem which is much like acid reflex in adults. They thought at first it was an allergy to milk and changed his formula numerous times. Finally a good friend of mine suggested we use the 'Gentle Ease' formula and it worked like a charm. I wonder if your baby could benefit by this?
By the way I am not a young Mom, but a 69 year old Grandma who has helped, since birth, care for my 14 month old grandson. You wouldn't believe how much I've forgotten since my girls were babies, and how often I've had to ask for advice from my younger friends. It's been a blast!
Good luck with your baby.

My baby had this problem and suffered it through my nursing. If I had dairy in my diet it caused him problems. He had terrible gas and constipation. I switched him to formula and it continued. The doctor clue me in that it may be a milk allergy or so I switched to soy formula. That took care of it. He out grew it when he was around three.

My second oldest had the same thing (he's now 15 and still gets stomach aches from milk). If I had it to do over, I would have given him formula made with goat's milk. It is so much easier to digest and is much more like mother's milk than cow's milk is.
K. Loidolt Author, Shopper's Guide to Healthy Living

As an adult, I still have severe milk and soy allergies. I have been allergic to both since I was a baby. My mom always told me that I would have projectile vomiting right after I would drink milk. I also had diarrhea for 6 weeks if I injested anything soy. Hope this helps!

Milk allergy can come up in eczema on the skin, cramping, constipation. Typically you as a mom will know that something isn't right. Most Pediatricians will go for the milk allergy right away when complications arise. I know they thought for sure though that my daughter was as she had a lot of tummy issues in newborn stage and it wasn't that at all but needed the predigested formula to help her thrive. And thrive she did after I put her on Nutramigen. I had at first to eliminate all dairy from my diet when I was giving her breast milk, the we went to formula, the lactose free just constipated her and made her worse, then we finally tried the predigested and she did great on that. Ask your Dr to print off a list of what to look for, they should be happy to do that for you.

My daughter developed a milk allergie at about 2 months. I started noticing little, rash like spots all over her body, and lotion didn't help. So we went to her doctor and switched her over to soy formula and the spots went away. I never noticed that she didn't want to eat or anything like that. It was just the dry patches on her skin. The only thing though is that later on when she was about a year old she started getting really bad gas. I mean this girl could clear a room!!! So I switched over to rice milk. It worked. I could hardly even tell when she was poopy. You might also want to check with your doctor about the difference between your children having a milk allergy and a milk intolerance. My doctor told me that they will grow out of a milk allergy by about 2 to 3 years old. But if they have a milk intolerance then they will always have that. My daughter is now 3 and she does really good with milk and cheese, but if she has to much, or any amount of yogurt then she gets those little dry patches again. So she's slowly growing out of it. I hope this information helps you figure things out. It's hard to figure things out when they can't tell you how they feel. Hang in there.