Allergies - Schaumburg,IL

My biggest piece of advice is to get her off of formula altogether and breast feed exclusively if possible. This will most likely make all of her symptoms go away.

You can also give her digestive enzymes with probiotics. This helped my daughter who had gastric reflux. You can get them at www.homefirst.com

If you are breastfeeding dairy can definitely upset a little one's tummy. But to be honest, formula upsets little tummies much more!

Soy can also cause problems in the long run...reasearch it before you use it.

Good luck!

T.

Have you tried soy formula? I found out that my daughter was allergic to milk early on because the formula that I gave her from time to time was milk based. I stopped after trying different formulas and decided to only breastfeed until she was 1. I had her tested and sure enough, she was allergic to dairy. I did cut out dairy in my own diet, but I'm not sure if this made any difference. Good luck!

Your best bet is to breastfeed only and avoid any dairy while breastfeeding. Formula is never better than breastmilk. Good Luck! T.

1) yes
2) no
3)Breast milk can take up to 2 weeks to be clear of food proteins.
4) You can be ok w/ soy (or anything else) for a few days and then start reacting.

I'd talk to your ped and if they don't seem understanding of a possible allergy or reflux, get another one. I love mine if you need one. Also, i'd call a pediatric allergiest. We go to Children's Memorial at the Glenview location. Dr. Kim is there on Weds. 1-800-kids-doc.

It sounds like an allergy. I'd start a log of when you feed her, what she gets, when she vomit, sleeps, screams, sleep etc. It'll be helpful.

My dd vomits nonstop 2 hours after cows milk. She also had an egg allergy (outgrown). We also did reflux meds for her 1st year. Had we known about the allergy sooner, maybe some of her symptoms would have been better (i supplimented my breast milk too). We found out at 10 months.

You can also try nutramigen (sp) in the meantime. Not sure if it's soy or cows milk though.

If she's cow's milk allergic, all the other animal milks will affect her. Also, any milk product would do the same. Some kids even react to trace amounts of dairy in bm. Like if I ate a product with casein or lactose in it. www.foodallergy.org has great info and can get you a complete list of foods to avoid (all the many names of milk for example). Also www.kidswithfoodallergies.org is an amazing resource of 8,000 parents of allergic kids. I'm on there everyday and it's saved our lives.

email if you need more info. good luck!

I would highly recommend talking to your pediatrician and get her off all milk formulas. This sounds like a dairy allergy to me. She should show signs of being better on soy within a few days if not sooner I would think. She may also be allergic to soy. I'm not an expert on an infant this young but my daughter has severe dairy/egg allergy and it took a long time to figure it out. Don't wait. If you need the name of an allergist I have one in Evanston who is very good and relatively easy to get an appt. with. You need to talk to someone right away about this! I'm sure you must be going crazy.
E.
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E.

N.,
I had the same problem with my daughter. I was supplementing with breast milk (I have twins and wasn't producting enough for both) and she would scream most of the day and would never sleep until about 10pm. I repeatedly saw her doctor, who told me it was colic. It wasn't! It was reflux. It sounds to me like yours has it too. I would cut out dairy from your diet and see if that helps. Also, as much as 50% of babies that have a milk allergy also have a soy allergy, so I would switch to Alimentum or Enfamil's Nutramigen. The combination of Nutramigen and Prevacid solutabs is the only thing that has helped my daughter. We tried Nutramigen by itself, didn't work. We tried it with the max dose of Zantac, didn't work. She got a little better with both of these options, but not as good as I knew she could be. Now with Prevacid, she is like a new baby! Good luck, I know how awful it is.

N.,

It totally sounds like Reflux to me. I breastfed for 6 months but whenever I ate milk products (cheese, yogurt, etc) she would be very fussy, gassy, etc. At 4 months she was diagnosed with acid reflux. When we gave her formula we used Enfamil AR or put rice cereal in the formula to thicken it up and that helped alot. You will need to make the nipples on the bottle a little bigger so she can drink the milk. Then when we switched her to whole milk she couldn't diget so she is on soy milk. Hope this helps.

my son was allergic to milk protein in my breastmilk, so i had to cut out dairy AND soy. his doctor recommended i cut out both because there is a decent percentage of kids who are allergic to casein (the milk protein) that are ALSO allergic to soy. for a formula, she recommended Nutramagin which i think is more expensive but apparently is a broken down formula so very easily digested. i just cut out dairy/soy from my diet and he's been fines since (he never vomitted though as a symptom). the doctor said as soon as i cut out dairy/soy, i can start feeding him breastmilk as it would leave my system fairly quickly. i did have to throw out all the frozen supply i had though which was a bummer. as for when the dairy/soy leaves the baby's system, i'm not exactly sure. my doctor said to wait a couple of weeks. If you do continue to breastfeed, cutting out dairy and soy gets easier. With dairy you have to be careful of hidden labels (ingredients with lactose/lactate, caramel, whey, "natural flavors," etc.). . .

This is only in response to question 4. My 6-month-old son started out at birth drinking Similac Advance which he constantly threw up, then he was switched to Isomil Advance which he seemed to be doing fine on until he was about three weeks old and he had to be hospitalized because he almost died. We found out that he was severely allergic to cow milk and soy and he drinks a special formula named Neocate now and he is doing fine. The only symptoms I noticed was that with the Similac Advance he threw it up every time he was fed and with the Isomil Advance he had frequent bowel movements and a couple of days of the runs. I don't want to alarm you but just to make sure it isn't an allergy you should talk to the pediatrician about this problem.

Why are you supplementing with formula? I think the changes can cause some problems with their bellies. In my opinion the best solution would be to stop supplementing and just breastfeed. If you can't do that then I would try a hypoallergenic forumla like Alimentum and see if that relieves her symptoms. I would see a lactation consultant if I were you. The hospital where you delivered should have some on staff.

Dear N.,

I went through this with my son. He was fine until we introduced formula. We started with carnation and he was like the exorcist. We switched to Similac with Iron Lactose free it is in red writing. It will take about a week for the body to adjust. but she should calm down afterwards. I am sorry for what you are going through. I hated how miserable he felt. But as soon as he was on that he felt much better. I also wanted to tell you that some baby seem to get gassy when put on formula, if that seems to be the case as your dr about mylcon drops. we had to use them for about 3-4 when he first went on formula. good luck.
B.

hi im C. my neice had ason in 2005 and he had the same symptons and she changed his formula to every different kind you can think of, nothing worked this was over a period of three weeks so finally she could not take it any more everytime he ate he would vomit so she took him to the er and im not trying to scare you and this is the gods honest truth you could call my cell phone if youlike ###-###-#### he had to have surgury on his intestine because a nerve was pinching his intestine and they didnt know it hope this helps.

Well I am a mother of four and i breast fed all my kids. My forst two I tried to mix their feedings cause my ex mother-inlaw said that breast milk was not enough but it seemed to cause them to get very gassy and it made them to get colic alot but when i switched them to plain breast milk they were fine. In my opinion it's either one or the other the baby's tummy gets sick with the mix of the two but breast milk is the best for the babies

The same thing happened with my daughter...and I think with alot of babies in general. The first couple weeks are great and then my daughter was hit with major gas pains even though I was breastfeeding exclusively. Their systems are so new that trying to pass gas and bowel movements are a major ordeal. Around 6 weeks, when I started her on formula (Similac Advance), the gas seemed to get worse, and I noticed that she had some regurgitation but not vomiting. I asked my pediatrician if I should change formulas, and she said to stick with what she was on. Don't keep changing formulas as that could be hard on her digestive system nor should I change to a lactose free or low iron formula. Over time,the gas seemed to get better, but the regurgitation got worse. She would stiffen up when feeding her and sometimes cry when I put the bottle to her mouth. My daughter was diagnosed with reflux. Before the Ped put her on Zantac, she had us TRY to switch to soy formula. She projectile vomited shortly after the feeding. She was put on Zantac, and she has been relieved ever since. She's still on Similac Advance and doing great!