Pam?

[Julied24]

Hi Pam,

I haven't been around for a while, if you remember I put my son back onto cow & gate because we were having no luck at all with Nutramigen & Neocate, he was taking 1 bottle a day if we were lucky.

I bought the colief drops that you told me about and mixed them with the cow & gate and for the last month everything was going fine until last week when he started being very windy again and I am lucky to get 2oz down him every 4 hours. He is taking solids fine, even Danone baby fromage frais goes down fine but he is so hungry all day because he cannot take his milk.

My dietician told me that if the Neocate didn't help then Soya would be the only answer and she will not prescribe Neocate after 6 months anyway, he is 6 months in 3 weeks time and I really do not want him on soya milk but I have no idea what to do.

What do you think? Do you think the milk intollerance is back? He seemed fine up til last week, was feeding and gaining weight really well but now I feel we are back to square one. I have been so upset this week with it all, he just cries all day with wine:-(

Sorry to bother you.

Julie

[Julied24]

I meant he cries all day with wind not wine, I am the one who needs wine :P

[Pam]

How long have you been giving him baby danone? Is this what is causing the wind? Yoghurts and fromage frais used to cause hysterical screaming fits in my daughter but as the reaction was 3 hours after eating it took a long time to come to the conclusion that it was the milk that was causing our problems.

Try going back to complete milk exclusion - if you want something like fromage frais, why not use Alpro Yofu Junior - no bits, dairy free yoghurt. They are quite big though, so I would split a pot into two and leave the other half in the fridge for another day. These contain soya, but it isn't as concentrated as the soya would be in formula milk so unless you actually have an allergy to soya you should be ok.

These food intolerances are funny things, after a period of exclusion, reintroduction can cause either a much stronger immediate reaction, or it can take a gradual build up of discomfort to show up, so it can be really hard to identify what is causing the problem.

Now you are starting weaning you will be introducing new foods, some of which may also be causing him discomfort (eg tomatoes and citrus fruits cause problems for lots of babies) and you will find that a lot of the foods you want to give him will have hidden milk so you need to start being vigilant when out shopping. He will soon be wanting to share crisps, biscuits, chocolate etc with other children and all of these can contain milk so this is when you need to start becoming more aware of words which mean 'milk' and where they are hidden.

Regarding the dietician stopping prescribing Neocate, you could try appealing to her better nature and remind her how long it took to get him settled. Maybe there is a next stage formula which would be more suitable without having to resort to soya. Get yourself armed with lots of information so you can give her your reasons for not wanting soya and she may relent. There is a lot of scaremongering about soya formula and lots of children have been successfully raised on it with no problems (my daughter is fine). It is only in recent years that professionals have started to opt for hypo allergenic formula.

Keep us updated.

[Julied24]

HI Pam,

Thanks for your reply.

Well he did seem to settle back on cow & gate with the colief drops in it to break down the lactose but after 3 weeks he stopped feeding as well as he was (he was taking 6oz every 3 hours and sleeping through at night) now the only feed he takes fully is the 6am and throughout the day he is fidgity and really hungry. He takes solids really well but when he cries for milk he constantly fidgits on the bottle and after what feels like a battle he sits up full of wind and has only taken 2-3oz and he refuses the rest. He doesn't scream and cry after the feed like he use to when he was younger but he just seems full of burps and blows out alot of wind down below, haha!

He has had fromage frais and seems fine eating it but the main thing ive noticed is bottle time, he is very fidgity and after 2oz stops and is full of wind.

Does this sound like the intollerance/allergy? what would you say it is? Dietician thinks an allergy.

I am going to put him back on the Neocate but my worry is that he will go back to not feeding like last time he was on it, he refused feeds and wuold go 8 hours before he would take a few ounzes.

Julie x

[Pam]

My daughter was very similar to this, she would scream as a baby, like she was really hungry, so I'd feed her and she would be resonable for an hour or so (but never really liked being put down). Then she'd do the hungry screaming thing again - very embarassing in the supermarket or school playground. Once she started screaming there was no stopping her except that another bottle would quieten her for a while. Even wheeling her around in the pram didn't help. Once we went onto Wysoy this all stopped immediately, she would sit and gurgle in her bouncy chair, look around and take things in - all unheard of before, she'd even laugh and smile, so to us the Wysoy was an absolute miracle.

When I gradually introduced milk during weaning there was nothing that suggested she was having a problem with milk again. It wasn't until a few months down the line that things fell into place after a dose of Lactulose ("should not be taken if suffering from lactose intolerance"). Then it occurred to me that when she'd been feeling a bit off it and I'd let her have 2 pots of fromage frais because it was all she'd eat she had been hysterical with pain, her daily tantrums at 10am were directly related to the milk on her breakfast cereal and the night time waking at 10pm was caused by her 7pm supper of milk.

It took me many months to work it all out but when I did it all made sense. What I'm trying to say, is that the reaction doesn't always come at a time that defines the cause so it is very difficult to attribute a reaction to a particular food or episode.

I think your best way forward is to go completely milk free again for at least 2 weeks, preferably longer and then reintroduce milk, but keep a food diary every day and list his mood, behaviour, toilet activity etc to see if anything ties up. If your dietician is helpful she might be able to suggest a different way forward, but for your own peace of mind I think you need to know one way or another if milk is the root of all your problems.

As to the question of allergy/intolerance/sensitivity I'm not sure and to be quite honest I don't think the professionals are either. I see allergy as being an almost immediate reaction eg breaking out in spots, swelling, flushing, breathing difficulty etc this would be a very obvious reaction, happening with every contact with the same results. In my opinion, an intolerance is something that the body can't deal with and may cause a gradual or cumulative reaction, a more non-specific feeling of discomfort or unease - like the body can't cope with this product so it puts up a barrier - whether this is diarrhoea and the food is flushed straight out, constipation - the food is retained but not really digested in a proper manner, toxins are built up causing headaches etc all leading to our bodies not being happy in themselves. A sensitivity is something that I see as being a minor nuisance - hives, nausea, flushes, maybe you can eat the food but the reaction it gives wouldn't stop you eating it. I think I have a sensitivity to milk which causes me to come out in hives later in the evening and onions which cause griping pains the morning after, but neither of these prevent me from having a little of these products if I really want to. My daughter has an intolerance as far as I'm concerned because the smallest amount of milk will cause her immense pain a few hours later - her body just can't deal with milk, but I don't see this as an allergic reaction.

Enough waffle, I've probably confused you further now. I hope you find an answer soon - that's the hardest part.