I want to start off by saying all allergies are difficult and I applaud those dealing with them in such a graceful manner.
In our house, we have several food allergies. Dairy Allergies is one that I’ve been dealing with for 15 years though.
When my oldest ball cap was little, he had a dairy allergy. When he was a month old, he was losing weight because he wasn’t able to keep down regular formula. We tried a many things over the next couple months, including acid reflux meds – which helped some. Eventually, we found out he couldn’t tolerate cow’s milk and put him on a soy formula. He was a totally different child then. Once he was old enough to try milk, we put him on soy milk instead of whole milk.
Once he started daycare at 15 months, he started getting sick and sent home a couple times a week. Daycare’s rule is that if you get sent home, you have to stay out the next day. So it was getting hard to find people to keep him while I was at work and he was being sent home. Finally, we talked with his doctor some more and she agreed – we needed to run some tests. She wanted to start with an allergist to see if anything came back on an allergy test before running more extensive testing.
Sure enough, the allergy test came back as a dairy allergy (among other things). Once we found that out and cut out dairy – he quit getting sick.
He eventually grew into lactose intolerance. Now, at 15, he’s pretty much grown out of it completely.
Fast forward 10 years, a little ball cap was born.
He had a hard time keeping down regular formula. We switched to sensitive, then to Nutramigen – a hypoallergenic formula that is created for those who can’t tolerate cow’s milk. Once he was old enough to drink milk, he went to soy milk. However, with him, it isn’t a full allergy. He is able to eat cheeses, yogurts, ice cream, etc. He just can’t break down cows milk when drinking it directly. Even Lactaid (lactose free milk) makes him sick.
The next year, little miss bows was born.
She had the same issue. No regular formula. She, however, couldn’t even have Nutramigen. At 2 months, we switched her to soy milk and she did amazing. At 1.5, she began having diarrhea and being sent home from daycare – sounds familiar huh?? I instantly knew what it was. We began cutting out dairy at home and I talked with her doctor about getting her in with an allergist. Once we saw the allergist, her test came back positive for a dairy allergy.
When we started this long dairy allergy Road, I didn’t know where to look or what to do. I educated myself as much as possible (thanks google). However, I hated how much my oldest couldn’t have due to his allergy. No cakes, no rice crispies, no goldfish – unless he got sick to his stomach in the process (no thank you!). Now, there’s SO MANY MORE options for little miss! It’s insane!