New here

[FermeGriet]

Hi,

I am from Poland, I am 23 years old and I was born with cow's milk intolerance. OK, it is nothing speacial, but normally it should be over as I was about 5 years old. Well, it didn't. I have it all the time. And the older I am the worse it is. Now I am on terrible diet. There are not too many things I can eat. But the main problem is that in Poland not too many doctors care about that matter. So my whole knowledge comes from one doctor and from articles. By the way, in Poland we call it protein diathesis. I have millions of questions to all people with this problem, about what you eat and how you live with this problem and I have no idea how to start. By the way to admins, I think your website is the best one I found for now!!!
I hope to find some help and information here.
Hugs from Poland

[Steve]

Welcome to the site.

If you have a lot of questions, then please feel free to ask them here. There are many others here who are in the same situation as yourself and will try to answer any questions you have.

Steve

[jill]

Hi FermeGriet
:rolleyes:
Don't think you are alone, there are alot of us who log onto this website that have found that doctors in the UK do not care either. They have the attitude that you just have to live with the problem and give you no or very little advice on how to deal with it. (I expect there are a few people out their who do have decent doctors - I apologise to them). Don't know what the food situation is like in Poland but I imagine you find it difficult to get dairy free items?

I have suffered for around 15 years but only discovered it is definetely dairy in the last year, and that was through my own exclusion diet. I now substitute dairy with soya products.

Hope you find an answer to all your questions

Jill

[FermeGriet]

Hi Jill,

some doctors take care of it some not. I was lucky, as I was born in Poland was quite difficult time (1980) and I was born with milk intolerance. But my parents somehow managed to feed me enough ok to not have so many complications.
Food situation in Poland is much better than in Western Europe. Now I am in the Netherlands and I have many problems with getting "normal food", I mean without milk components. But unfortunatelly here are mostly half prepared things, which always contain milk proteins.
Yes I know it is possible to substitute milk with soya products, but I also can't eat soya. OK, can you tell me about your diet?

[jill]

Hi Fermegriet.

My diet is not just based on avoiding dairy products as since April I have been dieting to loose weight. Have you heard of Weight Watchers? Basically I have turned to a more healthy type of eating which I must say has been helped by not having dairy products as these tend to be more fattening. (I have so far lost 21lb and only have 4lb more to reach my target).

I try to cook from fresh ingredients and limit my intake of processed foods. You just have to be careful and read the labels.

A typical day is usually the following:

Breakfast: Cereal with Soya Milk
Mid morning: Apple & Banana
Lunch: Sandwich (tuna salad).or Crackers & Swedish Cheese,
Provamel desert
4.30 - Cereal Bar
Tea: Meat or Fish with Potatoes/Vegetables
or Pasta type of Meal (Spaghetti Bolognese)
or Curry made with Dairy Free Sauce
or Jacket Potatoe plus filling
Later on: Some kind of treat to use my points up (Fruit & Dairy Free Ice cream, or meringue nest & Fruit Pie Filling, Biscuits, Dairy Free Chocolate)

I'm not good all the time we do visit the fish & chip shop, chinese and pizza takeaways. Sundays we tend to eat out but I usually go for the traditional roast sunday lunch. No pudding as they are all usually full of cream, custard or icecream (plus very fattening).

I feel sorry for those who can not eat soya. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't eat it. Must be so hard.

Hope this helps?
Jill

[sally]

Hello,
My son is 2 1/2 and suffers from severe ezcema. I've sought many treatments for him, none of which have worked, and am finally attempting a dairy-free diet - this was heavily discouraged by doctors and heath visitors when the ezcema first started to flare.
We are beginning in the morning and I have been advised that three weeks of dairy free will show results, one way or another.
I am dreading this - he loves his milk and it is very hard to explain to a two-year-old.
Sally

[Steve]

One web site that i would check out is http://www.foodintol.com. They have a very good symptoms matrix on there. You have to register to get the matrix, but it's completly free. They also have a lot of good information there.

[Pam]

Soya milk (or oat or rice milk) can be used in most recipes but it will taste different as a drink. Would he drink milkshakes? Provamel make some called sOYa and they come in chocolate, strawberry or banana flavour. They are available in health food shops and many supermarkets and they are actually fairly good.

It is tough on children but my daughter has been completely milk free from being 2 and she has adapted very well, though she had been on Wysoy since being a baby.

Good luck, I'm sure the difference in his skin will make it all worthwhile.

[Steph]

Glad to hear someone else has a child who is intolerant, my son picked up a milk intolerance from me however he is also intolerant to soya. Which means he is on special prescription milk and good old fashioned home cooking(that way I know what's in it). We picked this up when he was 4 months old right after he was diagnosed with Chronic infant excema. The excema hasn't totally gone, but I'm glad to say people no longer ask what's wrong with him. He's surviving very well without dairy and is totally worth the extra effort.

I'd be interedted in more info with regards the link to lactic acid in cleaning products.

Cheers
Steph

[Pam]

I can't actually find anything that tells me which cleaning products have milk in but The Vegan Shopper tells you which don't have any animal products.

Rubber gloves are generally made using casein but Sainsbury's own brand and Safeway's hypo allergenic gloves are safe.

Lots of adhesives are made from dairy products.

Casein is sometimes used in high quality food board and papers.

In general, Astonish, Ecover and Co-op all take animal free products seriously and they feature highly in the lists of free from cleaning and household products. The co-op are getting very good at labelling all their own brand products so would be worth visiting if you have a real skin problem.

[sally]

Thanks for all info. Have tried seven different types of soya and rice milk but he hates them all. Maybe he'll learn to like one when he realises there really is not going to be any dairy milk coming his way.
Nevertheless, it is the sixth day and he's doing OK. My purse isn't.
He does like soya yoghurt at least.

[Lan]

Hi Sally,

I have been intolerant to milk products for 7 years and I to hated all the soya milks at first, until I found Provamel available in Sainsb ury's and Tesco's.

Most of the milks are too sweetened and sickly I find but this one is quite nice. You could also add milkshake flavouring to the milk to take away the taste if he doesn't like the taste. The one I sometimes use is Nesquick, but please check all ingredients before buying.

Good luck.

Lan.