How can I find out if my baby has milk allergy or intolerance? His biopsy showed that he "may" have milk allergy but it's on its way out. We just suspect it's breast milk because he had stopped breast milk and switched to Soy milk a week before the test. So basically doc can not be certain if he's allergic to milk or not. Should he get a skin test with an allergist to find out? I heard that allergy can change over time. So even if he has it now, he may not in the furture, right?

I really want to know if we can give him milk product because I'd like him to try more variety of food, like yugart, cheese, and Pediasure to increase calorie.

Is it true that allergy can cause reflux? If so, it's even more important to do the skin test to find out?

Thanks!
Shelley

Our pediatrician has told us that we should wait until Evan is at least 2 years old to do any allergy tests. When we last tried him on milk (last summer), it make his reflux many times worse. The ped. says that's not an allergy, but I disagree. We'll try Evan on a bit of milk again soon, when we don't have any plans for the following week. He's much better on soy milk. Children often outgrow their milk intollerance by age 2. Pediasure had far too much milk protein (or something!) in it, so we found other supplements for his soy, such as protein powder and Caloreen. Yogourt, cheese and cooked puddings also work well with him, because they have less lactose. There are some skin tests that you could also try at home to see if he has an allergy. Ask your child's dietician for more info. If he/she is uncertain, the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto would also have more info.

thanks Janette for your info ! It makes sense to wait on the skin test til 2. I just wish there's an easy wayt to see if he's allergic to milk. Since my baby has silent reflux, I can't tell if milk protein really makes his reflux worse. One thing is certain though, his food aversion has not improved at all for the past 5 moths, even with Prilosec and Reglan. I hope I'm not overlooking anything else that could have casue this severe of food aversion.

There is a skin test that you can do at home. I believe that you start by rubbing cooked pudding on your child's hand for 3 days, followed by 3 days of yogourt, and 3 days of raw milk. Then, I think you advance to 3 days at a time of each of those foods tried around the mouth and eventually 3 days per tsp of those foods in the mouth. If at any time there is a rash or vomitting, you discontinue immediately. When we tried last summer, Evan was fine until we got to the raw milk rubbed on the hand once a day. That really set off his reflux, so we had to discontinue the tests. I'll see if I can find the info. I was given about it.

Speaking of allergies and tests, we're back from the pediatrician. Here are a few of his answers to my many questions.

1. Evan can't possibly have a milk allergy, because he is able to eat yogourt, cheese, ice cream, and pudding. The problem is probably that, in the stomach, milk forms into larger curds before digesting than the other milk products. This means that it takes longer for the stomach to empty out the milk than it does for the other milk products. Therefore, no milk allergy test necessary. (We'll wait a bit and see about that one.) We can go ahead and try milk with him.

2. Since Evan has never had nuts, a nut allergy test wouldn't show anything. We'll have to do it the hard way: just give him the peanut butter and look for the typical allergic reactions. (I think I'll try smearing it around his mouth a bit when my husband's home and we don't need to go anywhere.)j

3. Regarding Periaction to boost Evan's appetite, leave it for now. He only heard about it for the first time at a conference last month. One person says it works; others say it doesn't. There is no scientific evidence that it works.

4. We also decided to keep Evan on his meds. for now. He's doing well, and has only been doing so well (ie, not so refluxy, and eating better) for one or two months.

5. The scope. There's no sense putting Evan through it, at least not now. He seems to be doing well, so his meds. must be working. We'll only consider it down the road if we suspect asophagitis.

Hopefully some of this information will help the rest of you out there!

Oh, and we're back down a few pounds again, but that's never a big issue with the ped., because he sees Evan's weight as being consistently in the 25th percentile. (But what about the weight being way up at the 97th???)

Thanks Janette. We're just back from GI doc yesterday. He told us to hold off any milk product for now since he's doing a little better...so don't try anything new that has milk protein. I think we'll wait til Adrian's weight gain is more stable before we experiment with possible food allergies. Then we'll consider following your thorough steps to try out allergies. thanks!

Shelley