Food Intolerance Questions

Calcium is fine. You want to watch for words like:

dairy
whey
lactose
casein
caseinate
milk
cheese
butter
yogurt

And a big, "by-the-way" gluten (wheat, rye, barley) grains are common allergens as well.

There are some tests that can help guide you. One is the IgE "scratch" test that can be done on your baby at an allergist's office. That is not easy - holding a usually screaming baby. But an easy one is the IgG blood test that can be done with a single finger prick: http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/ItemLCM73001/Food...

And absolutely supplements are GREAT and encouraged - just look at the ingredients and make sure they don't contain something you don't want. It is amazing the stuff that gets put in things! There is DAIRY in many allergy medications! There is dairy and sugar in a common generic form of a medication people take for an intestinal problem often caused by dairy and sugar. D'oh! What are they thinking? The name-brand which is safe then is a pain to get approved because there are generics available. Grrr!!!!

And your questions are completely understandable. Keep asking! You might be interested in this: http://itsnotmental.blogspot.com/2011/08/brain-health-cut...

Have you actually talked to your doctor about this? I would start there first before changing your diet. He would be the one to tell you where to start and all of that.

Okay I just went and looked at your questions. If this is self diagnosed please talk to your doctor first. What you described in your last post is not Eczema. I think my pediatrician called it infant psoriasis or something like that. It goes away when they are around two and there is a cream that makes it go away. Diet doesn't change a thing. Two of my children had it.

This isn't a stupid question at all! You're trying to handle your daughter's dietary intolerances through diet rather than drugs. This makes you an A+ super-mom in my book.

I agree with everything posted below, I just want to add that when I went off dairy when nursing my son, my go-to calcium source was spinach. I just cooked up chicken breast with curry paste, and ate that with baby spinach and balsamic dressing every night. I also made myself a "green smoothie" (spinach, fruit, and honey) every morning. I used citrus, but you don't have to.

Go to the National Eczema Association website:
http://www.nationaleczema.org/

Keep in mind, that per Eczema, that for each person, the "triggers" can VARY.
Was your baby, actually diagnosed with Eczema????

My Mom has that... bur for her, it is Oats/Oatmeal and citrus that triggers her outbreaks. Including, oats based beauty products or soaps.
And she has a prescription topical cream from her Doctor.
If she avoids these foods, then she is fine.

Citrus, is: oranges, lemons, lime, grapefruit....

IF you are eating balanced, you do not need a vitamin C supplement.
Do not go overboard, in supplementing baby either. You can overload a young baby's kidneys. Ask your Pediatrician, IF your baby, needs vitamins. At this stage, it is often liquid drops. And it has iron in it.
I breastfed both my kids, and they did not need vitamin supplements.
It was not until they were older, that I sometimes gave them vitamins. And they were fine.

You're not dumb! The only really dumb question is one that you have and don't ask.

Adjusting your diet is not "simple" as you say, but you are likely to be very frustrating eliminating lots of things and waiting months to see if it makes a difference. That's a long time for your child to be miserable.

I doubt that your child is reacting to the calcium, so in that sense, adding it in won't hurt her. But it won't help you - see below.

Citrus means the fruits you mention, plus pomelos and other relatives. The apples, berries, etc. you mention are not citrus just because they have vitamin C. Just guessing that citrus is a culprit is problematic though.

I understand you want to replace nutrients from foods you are eliminating, but be aware that all vitamins and minerals work in concert, and each needs the others for full absorption and interaction. Taking a calcium supplement is not going to be effective, and neither is taking Vitamin C or any other individual or small combination (2, 3, 4, 10...) supplement. Most pills are not absorbed more than 15-30% anyway, plus they contain a lot of additives and fillers which prevent absorption and which can cause other problems. For example, they are coated with wax or shellac or other items so that they pop out of the mold during manufacture - not only is that stuff no good for you, it inhibits full digestion.

Comprehensive supplementation is a complicated science, and most of us are not walking around with PhDs - yet we try to read labels on vitamins and play "kitchen chemist" ourselves, mixing and matching. But we have no idea what we are doing - we either get insufficient nutrition, or we mega-dose, and both are really bad. So we spend a huge amount on over the counter supplements, either going for the bargain brands that we find in the supermarket or box club, or we spend top dollar at the "nutrition center" or the whole food place - and it's still not absorbed, it's not comprehensive, AND we have no idea where it's manufactured! Could be in any country, perhaps with poor standards, and just distributed/marketed here.

There are other food sources for the various vitamins you are mentioning, but the problem is, none of our foods have enough of these items in them anymore, and that's why we are nutritionally deprived and our children are also paying the price for that.

It is not "natural" to be food intolerant or "allergic" - and these are very new problems which never existed when most of us were kids. So there is a great deal wrong with the way we are eating and they way we are supplementing. Supplementation is essential (the AMA said so in a landmark study 10 years ago) so that means that virtually every adult and every child is missing nutrients - which is why we have epidemic rates of nutrition-related diseases and conditions.

There are solutions to this but they do not involved cutting a lot of nutrition out of your diet. It's about ADDING the right things in the right balance to restore your body to what it should be. Doing that piecemeal with this jar of minerals and that bottle of vitamins isn't going to work (even though it makes us feel better mentally) and it's generally very expensive for little result.

Working with top food scientists over the past 5 years, I've learned a lot about this and I hate to see your child miserable and you going crazy trying to solve it yourself.

Let me know if you want more info, but I really wouldn't spend the money on single ingredients. There's no science that says that's a good idea. There are commercials, ads and products, but no science.

I think cow's milk is a great place to start, remember that means all cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, etc. And goat protien is very similar so you probably should'nt use that as a substitute. Soy is ok unless she is intolerant of soy as well, but you can try that next. Calcium is fine in a pill, just look for oyster shell with vitamin d. It has to have the d to go with it or you body can't process the calcium.

I haven't heard of citrus causing ezcema, but my mom is allergic to it, so no oranges, limes, lemons, Strawberries are bad also. I know she can eat apples, pears and blueberries and grapes. But, really she isn't supposed to have much fruit because of her allergy.

Remember it takes about 2 weeks to clear your body of any food so it maybe a while before you see an improvement in her skin. Good luck, I know this is a hard one to not eat. Both of my kiddos were intolerant of dairy so I couldn't even eat any while I was pregnant!

Granted it was 15 years ago, but when my daughter had a wicked case of eczema, her doc prescribed Acid Mantle. It's a prescription cream. Worked like a charm. Maybe ask your ped about it?

:)

Both of my kids were sensitive to cow's milk, but only the pasteurized kind. Raw milk was fine for both of them. Apparently pasteurization causes histamines to be released that a lot of people can't deal with. (Of course, raw milk is crazy expensive and you have to buy it in small quantities every few days, so I don't know that that is a reasonable solution for you.) To this day, if my 9 year old drinks too much pasteurized milk, her eczema flares up.

I would encourage you to go back to the pediatrician about the eczema. Often times, they will have you try the 1% hydrocortisone, but we have noticed that if/when the rash gets too severe before you treat it, then the 1% won't work. We have 2.5% hydrocortisone (which you need a prescription for), and that is almost guaranteed to knock out any eczema rash within 2-3 days. It's worth asking your pediatrician, because once the rash is there, even if you remove the allergen in the diet, the rash still remains for weeks sometimes. :(

To truly eliminate milk/dairy from your diet is more work than you think, so be prepared to pay A LOT of attention to what you're going to eat if you're really going to do it. According to my son's allergist, just eliminating the major sources of dairy (a glass of milk, yogurt, cheese) is not enough - you have to do a true 100% elimination to know if it's really helping or not.

Casein and whey are the two main proteins in cow's milk that cause problems in those with allergies. When you're reading labels, you'll need to focus on those (along with caseinates) when you're looking for milk. All forms of milk, including nonfat dry milk, condensed milk, milkfat, butter, cream, powdered milk, etc need to be fully avoided. Many, but not all, food labels will have an allergy statement at the end that says "contains milk" or "contains wheat, soy, eggs" etc. If it has a label like that but doesn't list milk at the end, you are safe. In most cases, food that is processed in the same facility or on shared equipment IS safe and does not need to be avoided. Milk does not carry over the same way peanut products do.

Calcium is totally safe, so you can certainly get calcium in your diet by way of a supplement or another drink fortified with calcium.

You may also want to try eliminating eggs from your diet if eliminating milk doesn't work.

I would run all of this by your daughter's doctor and see what he/she thinks.

I would avoid anything with the ingredients:

milk
cream
butter
butterfat
powdered milk
condensed milk
sweetened condensed milk
milk chocolate
whey
casein
caseinate
lactose
ice cream
dry milk
milk by-products
loaf deli meats
salami
pepperoni
roux sauces
many salad dressings, esp as they use cheeses
pudding
yogurt (because of the milk protein, although it's safe for lactose intolerance because of live active cultures that essentially digest the lactose)
milk chocolate
cheeses of all kinds
breads and other baked goods/cookies... ex. Nilla Wafers = BAD but Bimbo Breads = GOOD
nougat
margarine
inner organ meats like liver
peas
lima beans
beets
birth control pills
Viactiv calcium chews