Milk protein allergy

gershurd · March 2012

My daughter was diagnosed with milk and soy protein allergies when she was about 6-8 weeks old. I nursed for 8 months (on a dairy- and soy-free diet), then she switched to Neocate, a prescription formula. Now her pedi. told us to slowly introduce soy and milk protein. She did OK with the soy, but started spitting up a lot after we gave her cow's milk yogurt. So, the pedi. automatically diagnosed her with a milk protein allergy. We love our pedi., but it feels like he jumped to the conclusion rather quickly. Has anyone else been through this? Did they give your child some kind of allergy test? If not, how and when did your pedi. come to the conclusion? Thanks for your input. (We made an appt. with a pediatric food allergist a month from now. Just wondering if it's worth putting my daughter through the testing, since her pedi. says it's unnecessary...) Any advice or experience you could share is appreciated!

(FYI, I couldn't get to the "allergy" board. Otherwise I would have tried posting there too!)

desmarais2be · March 2012

My daughter was diagnosed with a milk protein allergy about 1 week after birth - I found blood in her stool and they tested it and found out that was a milk protien allergy. She is just a couple weeks shy of her first birthday and we have been given the go-ahead to introduce milk products. We have begun a few things but I want to do it really gradually. She is still taking soy formula because I have a stash that I want to get rid of before we try cow's milk Our pedi gave us a requistion for bloodwork to be completed in 3 months to see if the allergy still exists.

We are in Canada so we have a family doctor (the only reason she sees a pedi is because she had a few issues at birth and was in the NICU) Our family doctor said allergy testing isn't really effective until they are either 2 or 4 years of age (sorry, I can't remember what he said). But I guess they can tell by blood work if the allergy still exists.

That is all I know! I wish you and your baby the best of luck!

amy21tom · March 2012

like PP said, the skin tests aren't that accurate when they are young so a lot of doctors don't recommend it. Are you seeing a GI or just a pedi? DS is allergic to milk and soy. Our GI is having us introduce milk and soy at 11 months, and if it doesn't go well we are just going to keep avoiding it and keep trying it every 6 months or so. He said about 60% of kids outgrow it by 1 year, more by 2, then 3, 4, 5, etc and then a very small percentage never outgrow it.

I would just avoid for now and then introduce at a later date and see if the spit up is any better. HTH!

nickinbrandon · March 2012

My daughter was diagnosed with MSPI around 10 weeks old, I too felt my pedi jumped to the conclusion because there wasn't a solid test that convinced me she had both the milk and the soy protein intolorance. Her symptom at the time was low weight gain, spitting up a lot, and fussiness while eating, so the ped checked her stool which came up positive for small traces of blood. The ped said usually if there is a milk protein intolorance then they will have soy too. We had her on Neocate for a while but then decided to give soy a try since all my nieces and nephews had to be on soy. After a while she randomly started throwing up (sometimes projectile) but it took us several weeks to figure out what it was from because it would only happen once a week and she had did so well on the soy for a while it didn't occur to us it was soy. She is now fine on alimentum but the ped gave me the okay to start introducing cow's milk to her around 11 months, i'm nervous to give it a try since I don't want to go through the whole trial and error thing again

chloephoebecali · March 2012

Allergies and intolerances are a bit different, too. Intolerance (what your LO has from what I read) is when the stomach cannot handle the proteins/break them down and it makes their stomach bleed (very basically put). An allergy will cause hives/anaphylaxis, etc. An allergist could give your kid a skin test, but it seems like it is more of a stomach issue/gastro. For example, DD was intolerant of milk/soy and some other stuff, but was not allergic and never tested positive in her skin test. She did test positive for egg and nuts allergies. They are totally different issues and doctors. Allergist versus gastro. She grew out of her intolerances at 11 months after a few reintroductions at different times - 9ms, 11ms. I would stay dairy free for a while and then try reintroducing in another two months or so. She still has nut allergies. Talk to a GI if you don't want to wait and see what they think/recommend. You can always do your own reintro, too. We did it on our own because I felt I knew more than my ped and I wasn't thrilled with our old gastro. It is ultimately your kid and you are doing so little and slowly. Just do some research on it. GL!

smiling76 · March 2012

For DS1 we got blood tests done --and I'm glad we did or things could have gotten very very bad as honestly--that was one of the ways we knew about his nut and peanut allergies (oh....AND his wheat...and egg and soy....)--and milk....which is what we thought was all we were going there for. LOL silly us.

So I am planning on doing that with DS2 as well since we know for sure he has at least a milk allergy.

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