I was trying to feed DD2 her breakfast this morning. I was feeding her weet-bix with a little bit of full cream milk. I usually feed her weet-bix with jalna organic yoghurt, but I would prefer her get used to it with milk. Anyway she was screaming and refused to eat it with milk. It got me thinking if perhaps she has a milk allergy.

These are her issues:

She has had reflux issues since she was around 6 weeks old, she was fully formula fed by this time as she spent time in hospital with bronchi and it stuffed up breastfeeding. The pead put her on novolac reflux formula. She still vomited quite alot but usually not straight away, it mostly came back up lumpy after a few hours. We have since moved to Nan HA Gold and it seems to have gotten a bit worse. Now she is sick straight after the feed and again after a few hours.

She seems to have had a snuffle for a couple of months.

She does green poos (90% of the time), often it is either runny or hard and rarely in between. I have noticed after she has cheese she gets quite constipated.

I know with my 2.5yr old DD1 my doctor is not keen on getting allergy testing even though she has had an adverse reaction to eggs and has eczema... so i’m not sure what my GP will do if I front up with suspicions about DD2 and I would like to have some idea of what I’m talking about before I go.

Does this have potential to be a milk allergy or is she just chucky? Should I try her on Soy formula first before going to the GP?

Thanks

not 100% sure about your DD's symptomsm but my DD2 is lactose interolant. She was always a chucky baby...quite often a few times between 4 hourly feeds. She REFUSED all solids at 6 months and screamed and clamped her mouth shut. She had 12 days straight of watery poos and would dirty her nappy about 10-15 times a day. Took her to the doctor and straight away he said she was lactose interolant. Stuck her on a soy formula / lactose free food and she's been great ever since! She's now 19 months and we have just begun to challenge her with her lactose. I give her full cream milk in her breakfast now but she still has lactose free yoghurt etc. I don't really check the labels for things now but don't go straight out and give her a cream based sauce (yet).

For what it's worth...my doctor never did allergy tests on her. Good luck!

DD2 has intolerance to lactose. She can't eat milk and she'll get green poo when she does. She was screaming and vomiting after each time she drank it or cheese or yogurt and would scream and vomit all night, but thank goodness at 2.5 has just settled down now.
I'm the same that i want allergy testing done but they won't do it. DD2 is always covered in a rash and it gets worse after she has her milk, she has lacteeze drops in light milk. Both kids can't handle full cream and i've always put them straight onto light milk. I guess talk to your GP, we had DD2 tested early as she was sick from Breastfeeding, but it's an easy test to see if they are. Or just change your milk and see how you go. Probably easier doing it yourself as i know it's hard getting the Dr's to do anything, well here it is anyway!

If your daughter had a milk allergy she wouldn't be able to have the yoghurt either, far more likely to be an intolerance

Sounds to me more like lactose intolerance rather than milk allergy. If it was an allergy, milk and yoghurt would both get a strong reaction. With lactose, there is a lot less lactose in yoghurt and cheese (albeit there is some) so the reaction can be less or not detectable.

Is the baby having any reflux medication? My DS reacted just like your baby when he was on losec.

i'd also say lactose intolerance. ds1 had almost all those symptoms you have described before we put on lactose free formula. when we started solids i tried him on baby yoghurt and after him screaming for 5 hours straight and vomiting we stuck him on a fully lactose free diet. at 8 month he had normal yoghurt and was fine, but yoghurt has a lower quantity of lactose (same a a lot of hard cheeses). he was put on lf milk after 12 months and as of 27 months (actually 3 days ago) he is now tolerating normal milk and dairy. i saw a dietician when he was about 12 months and she told me that real lactose intolerance is rare but a lot of children (and adults) can have a low threshold for lactose and overload easily (hence why he could tolerate some dairy as long as it was low in lactose), but that most children outgrow it by the time they are aged 2-5. we did have some times when he would overload again and we would have to go dairy free. i'd try her on lactose free formula first before going to soy. my ds2 is intolerant to cow's milk protein (and soy) and it doesn't matter to him if it is any sort of dairy he will react
good luck
maya

I would agree that if it was a milk allergy she wouldn't be able to have the yoghurt either.

The first dairy we ever gave DD was yoghurt and she had a horrible reaction to it.

If it was a milk allergy she would also be getting the same reaction to yoghurt, although it might be that the yoghurt she has been having has also contributed to the current problems with diarrhoea etc. Does your DD2 have eczema as well? Eczema which is resistant to treatment is often a key sign of allergy.

As well as a possible lactose intolerance as per PP, it may also be a cow's milk protein intolerance (which is different to an allergy). Intolerance more typically presents with gastrointestinal issues and some people with a milk intolerance may be able to tolerate small amounts of processed dairy such as cheese and yoghurt.
If it is an intolerance, you may be able to get away with using A2 milk (if the intolerance is to a particular protein) or use soy formula/milk as an alternative.

If it is an allergy depending on what source you read between 30-50% of children who are allergic to cow's milk protein are cross-reactive with soy. So soy would be out. I am mentioning this in case you do swap to soy formula and don't see an improvement to bear this in mind.

As a well-travelled Mum down the allergy path I am not entirely surprised that your GP was dismissive of your DD1's obvious problems. If you are looking to seek medical advice regarding your DD2, I would consider changing GPs to someone who is more supportive.
If you do see an improvement on soy formula, I would personally still push for the allergy referral. Some children have more than one allergy and it is best to find out about these things in advance rather than ride in the back of an ambulance to hospital.