My son was sick for the whole first year of his life. When he was 13 months old he was at the sickest point of his life. I started to try to make him well by eliminating foods from his diet. I started by eliminating milk, and all milk products that were obvious. In two days he was much improved.
Milk, cheese, and butter were the first foods I eliminated. He still needed a drink so I gave him soy milk. He was doing well for a few days, then he would get sick for a few days. The cycle just kept on repeating itself. I was almost at a breaking point.
Here's an email I sent to someone who asked how I figured out my son's dairy intolerance:
I'm not a professional by any means, but in my experience with my now 11 year old this is how things were:
As a baby he was on milk based Enfamil, but never ONCE had a solid stool. I was 19 and knew no different so I never asked the Dr.
When he was 6 or 7 months old I started noticing that if I gave him a custard baby food, cottage cheese, or anything "creamy" that the next few days would be horrible diarrhea days, so I kind of just stopped giving him those things. I asked the Dr and was told "It's just his body adjusting to the food". I didn't know any different.
So at 10 or 11 months old came the small finger foods. I did notice lots of undigested food in his diapers. Mind you this is still a no solid stool time in his life. His poo was always a creamy yellow color.
At 1 the Dr. said to give him milk... and WOWZERS his body did not like that! It was soup city in his pants. So the Dr said to just give him Lactaid and "it was his body adjusting to the milk". So after 2 weeks on lactaid and one very sick baby- he was sitting in his crib one morning with this pale look on his face, an awful smell was coming from the crib. I picked him up and grey water was just coming out of his bottom. I rushed him to the Dr, they admitted him to the hospital, and I stopped giving him dairy products.
He's still not able to eat anything with any type of dairy in it. It's not a bad life, it's actually pretty healthy for him (milk isn't all we've been fed to believe it is), and we adjusted to it easily. I'm currently also dairy free while breastfeeding my 2 month old and I'm glad I know so much about it or I'd be panicking at the food labels today.
I can say that his intolerance never showed up on a skin prick test. I never had his blood tested though. It seemed to get worse as he got older, and it took me until he was about 2 to really get him 100% dairy free because the information just wasn't out there back then.
At first I didn't know that there were other names for dairy derived ingredients (ingredients are listed on a printable below) that is why I could not understand why my son was going through the well/sick cycles. Then I found another website that explained that dairy has many names, and the information was very useful, but did not completely answer all my questions. I kept digging and digging until I found out all I needed to know!
This is a collection of everything I have learned, and researched, and tried. Without any dairy in his diet, my son is doing so well. He is not sick any more. He is finally happy.
As a baby he was on milk based Enfamil, but never ONCE had a solid stool. I was 19 and knew no different so I never asked the Dr.
When he was 6 or 7 months old I started noticing that if I gave him a custard baby food, cottage cheese, or anything "creamy" that the next few days would be horrible diarrhea days, so I kind of just stopped giving him those things. I asked the Dr and was told "It's just his body adjusting to the food". I didn't know any different.
So at 10 or 11 months old came the small finger foods. I did notice lots of undigested food in his diapers. Mind you this is still a no solid stool time in his life. His poo was always a creamy yellow color.
At 1 the Dr. said to give him milk... and WOWZERS his body did not like that! It was soup city in his pants. So the Dr said to just give him Lactaid and "it was his body adjusting to the milk". So after 2 weeks on lactaid and one very sick baby- he was sitting in his crib one morning with this pale look on his face, an awful smell was coming from the crib. I picked him up and grey water was just coming out of his bottom. I rushed him to the Dr, they admitted him to the hospital, and I stopped giving him dairy products.
He's still not able to eat anything with any type of dairy in it. It's not a bad life, it's actually pretty healthy for him (milk isn't all we've been fed to believe it is), and we adjusted to it easily. I'm currently also dairy free while breastfeeding my 2 month old and I'm glad I know so much about it or I'd be panicking at the food labels today.
I can say that his intolerance never showed up on a skin prick test. I never had his blood tested though. It seemed to get worse as he got older, and it took me until he was about 2 to really get him 100% dairy free because the information just wasn't out there back then.
At first I didn't know that there were other names for dairy derived ingredients (ingredients are listed on a printable below) that is why I could not understand why my son was going through the well/sick cycles. Then I found another website that explained that dairy has many names, and the information was very useful, but did not completely answer all my questions. I kept digging and digging until I found out all I needed to know!
This is a collection of everything I have learned, and researched, and tried. Without any dairy in his diet, my son is doing so well. He is not sick any more. He is finally happy.
