Follow doctor's advice? Food Allergy Q
iwubrory
member
XP from my regular board, Feb 14. Sorry, it's lengthy.
Yes, I'm seriously asking if I should follow a doctor's advice... This is specifically for anyone who has experience with breastfeeding a baby with a food allergy.
DD began getting green mucusy stools over a week ago so I looked up the symptoms and saw that it could be a few different things. Then she had a diaper with a tiny amount of blood in the mucus. It seemed like it was most likely either a milk protein allergy (seems to be most common food allergy at this age) or an infection. I emailed her pedi on Sunday asking about it. On Monday she responded that it was probably either of the two problems I just mentioned. She told me to limit my dairy intake. I had already stopped eating all dairy products the day before, not easy, since milk products seem to be in everything! She put orders in to have dd's stool tested but they gave us a ton of vials to fill, so it is taking a few days to be able to gather enough poo for the samples.
Anyway, the doctor emailed today asking if I had given her formula, if she was fussy, and a couple other things. I updated her and told her that she seems totally fine aside from the odd stools and also that we had seen blood in a couple more diapers. A half hour later she called me to talk about continuing to breastfeed or if I wanted to do a special formula. I told her I wanted to keep breastfeeding and that I had eliminated all dairy. She told me that it could take a week or two for her symptoms to start improving once I stopped eating dairy. Then she started talking about other common allergens (eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy) and asked if I had been eating those things. Obviously the answer is yes. So, she said I should eliminate all of those items from my diet as well for the duration of bfing, since that could be the problem. This is what I'm questioning. If I eliminate all of those things I won't know what she's allergic to, not to mention that leaves me with very few options on what to eat. I'm not sure how she went from "It's likely a milk protein allergy" to eliminating all of those other things. She also said that if things don't improve by next week then we should go to formula. Basically, it sounds like it would be near impossible to continue breastfeeding.
I've been doing a ton of reading about this over the past week and it just doesn't seem like this is the normal course most people have taken when dealing with this issue. It seems like most people go off of just dairy first and that it takes 2-3 weeks for the symptoms to ease up. Then if that doesn't work they try eliminating something else too, usually soy. Obviously one week of reading doesn't make me smarter than the doctor but I can't help but question her advice here.
So, anyone who has experience with breastfeeding a baby with a food allergy, what are your thoughts on this? What was your experience attempting to get the allergy pinpointed and your diet started?
Re: Follow doctor's advice? Food Allergy Q
Anyway, being dairy/soy free isn't as bad as I expected. It's not easy by any means, but....
There are basically 2 schools of thought, eliminate one at a time and eliminate more as needed, or eliminate all and add 1 at a time and watch for reactions.
IMO, I'd start with dairy and soy (a lot of dairy intolerance is also soy intolerance) as it's the most common.
Check out mspimama.com
I personally didn't cut out soybean fats (soybean oil/soy lechitin) because most soy intolerant LOs can tolerate soy fats.