My baby has been extremely colicky from day 1. Some days were better than others. The pediatrician thinks he has a milk protein allergy. So I am now cutting out all dairy from my diet. Have you experienced this? I know that it can take up to 2 weeks for the protein to completely leave your system, but when would I start noticing an improvement?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Id rather be at the beach // Nov 5, 2008
Smart doctor to suggest this! I had to figure this out on my own.
My son has a dairy intolerance, and has a soy allergy.
You need to not just cut back, but completely eliminate all dairy (even if it is listed as an ingredient on a package, even if it says the product contains “whey”) Once you do this (and I know it’s hard!!!) you should see an improvement in a week or so. You might notice that he’s got other intolerance at this point once you get rid of dairy. And you might have to cut more foods out of your diet. Breastfeeding is wonderful because you can completely tailor your milk to your son’s needs. At 5 or 6 months I started trying to add foods back into my diet. And eventually I was able to eat anything I wanted. Although, once weaned, my son couldn’t tolerate certain foods himself.
Good luck to you! Hang in there! I think you’ll see a big change in your baby soon
2 lbd77 // Nov 5, 2008
Did your doctor recommend an allergist to you? I would push to have him write up an order to see one, and have them get that done asap, if it hasn’t been done already to get a skin test done. Just to make sure 100% that it is a milk protein allergy. Colic is usually normal. My son was colicky, no milk allergy though. Some nights I had to have my son sleep in his carseat at night so he could be upright, sounds terrible, I had to though because it was so bad. You can also put a rolled up towel under their mattress, depending on how old he is. My daughter was diagnosed with milk protein allergy when she turned 7 months. She is turning two next month. This allergy is very difficult. There are so many products that contain traces of milk. Some soy milks also have traces of milk. I had an emergency c-section the night she was born. I was having problems with my recovery so I couldnt nurse her right away. The ped nurses kept coming in telling me that she was not tolerating any formula they were giving to her, so I had to force myself to nurse. I was planning to nurse her anyway, but that night was so bad I could barely lift my head up because of my reaction to the anesthesia. Anyway, she tolerated my breast milk and latched on right away. No problems. (Mind You, during this time I still had no idea that she had this allergy, and I ate a lot of milk products) Then I found out I was pregnant again when she was 6 months old. My body went throught some weird changes and my milk supply was diminishing, so I decided to stop nursing. I went through so many formulas and it was terrible. She had projectile vomiting coughing and a terrible rash around her mouth. I had to switch pediatricians because the one she had when she was born kept telling me that she just needed to get used to the formula. What? Like Oprah say’s go with your gut! Soooo, I went with my gut feeling and found another doctor that could explain what really was going on because it was happening immediately after the first ounce she would drink. My current pediatrician recommended me an allergist and had an ordered an xray of her bowels. They made her drink berium to see if she had acid reflux, and watch how she would digest, but nothing. She was fine. Then we went to the allergist my ped recommended, and when they did a skin test her arm had a huge welt after they tested for milk. She also is allergic to soy, and peanut. There is alot of trial and error when it comes to these allergies. You have to do alot of reserch. Its super hard at parties when everyone wants to feed your child. Anyway, there was a formula that was super duper expensive that we found for her. Neocate. It is completely milk free. As i had said earlier, for some reason she was ok with my breast milk until i switched, and my current pediatrician still cannot explain to me why. It took about 5 days for my daughter to get used to the formula. So in my opinion, keep up with what your are currently doing, nurse and cut the milk products and see if there is a difference. I would push to have an allergy test done. I wish you all the luck with this and I’ll keep checking to see what is going on with you and your baby. Not sure if this helped you. Hope it did. Here are some websites that helped me get a better understanding of her allergy.