I am beginning to suspect our four-year-old daughter may have a dairy allergy.
As a baby, she had a rashy issue from the time she was born until she was almost a year old. She had reflux issues. She was always sick and had ear infection after ear infection until we got tubes.
She has struggled with coughs and colds. To this day, if someone is sick with a cough, cold or bug and comes near her, she gets it! (Our other two seem to have much stronger immune systems and just don't react this way!)
She was finally diagnosed with asthma this year after I basically flipped out on my pediatrician and asked to see a specialist. This was following a cough that lasted almost 9 weeks and would not clear up. I feel like they treat the symptoms and just don't think it's a big deal that she is literally sick ALL the time, with either coughs, colds, fevers, vomiting... she will be fine for a week and then it starts up again. When we finally saw a specialist she confirmed she does have severe asthma and we now have an action plan. This was a huge relief. It's helped the constant coughing, but not the constant bugs.
She just had another bug hit and spent the entire day vomiting. AGAIN. I feel so bad for her. We have missed week after week of preschool this winter with bugs that knock her out for a week.
She does have allergies to dust mites, animals and weeds.
After some googling today, she matches a LOT of the symptoms of a dairy allergy kid! I read about child after child who was sick all the time, and then made a 180 after dietary adjustments. Her allergist is closed today and I'm calling Monday to see what they think about testing her for food allergies. My hunch is just dairy because she is a major dairy kid - yogurt, cheese... these are big staples for her.
If you have a child with a dairy allergy, what symptoms did your child show? Did you try an elimination diet or have them tested? How fast was the health change once you addressed their diet? I obviously don't think she's the anaphylactic variety... but I do think something is messing with her system all the time and I don't know what it could be besides food.
Any advice from allergy mamas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Keep her dairy free and see what happens. Less traumatic and much cheaper than seeing a specialist. I would give it at least a month at the minimum.
One of my kids was diagnosed w/ asthma 17 yrs ago. The very next day, I put my Lysol, Fantastik, pledge, Mop and Glo, Windex, etc... in a box and gave it away. I switched to all non-toxic cleaners--Seventh Generation---and I started using vinegar and water, too. Only soy candles, too.
The second thing I did was box up the Tide laundry detergent and switched that, too. Then, I would wash the sheets in pure detergent and rinse the sheets twice. An air purifier, too.
With dairy, we did an elimination diet. But, I rec that you see a dr if it is mentioned by the dr. Pure, organic almond milk is wonderful. My child ate loads of broccoli for the calcium (our favorite veggie). Yogurts are made with rice milk, etc... Plus, milk (In my book) should be organic.
Milk is kinda like drinking pus. You can take a look on notmilk.com for some of the most eye-opening info.
Take her off of the allergens... wheat, soy and dairy for 3 weeks...That's what I would suggest. I call these foods..."sludge." Today's soy and wheat are genetically altered. Scary !
Check w/ a nutritionist and see if a probiotic is necessary.
Go to your local library and check out the film, "King Corn."
Symptoms in my dairy intolerant kid (never officially tested, so I don't know if it's an official allergy, I just know it makes him miserable so I just say he's intolerant):
As a baby: eczema, reflux, ear infections, gassy. As a toddler/preschooler: compliants of tummy hurting after dairy.
I went dairy-free (was nursing) and symptoms improved somewhat within days, and was much better within 2 weeks. For my kid, it's not a lactose intolerance because he was just as miserable on Lactaid as he is on regular milk. He drinks rice milk instead, I use rice milk in all my cooking anywhere a recipe calls for milk. For butter, you can often substitute applesauce in recipes.
I think that it is pretty easy to try it for 2 weeks and see how she feels, regardless of whether or not she is officially diagnosed as allergic. If she is feeling better, then keep it up longer term. If not, definitely try a food diary to see if you can figure out if it is something besides dairy. The big 3 for food allergies are dairy, soy, and egg.
It could possibly be a milk allergy....or what I discovered with my daughter, she had a reaction to the synthetic chemicals in the milk. The doctor said she was lactose intolerant but in actuality, lactose was fine. We tried organic milk and all was well.
If she really does have a reaction to milk, it can be reversed by building her immune systems. My other daughter had terrible allergies and we were able to get rid of them by detoxing our home and starting an absorbable multivitamin. Removing things that aggravate the symptoms will allow the body to begin to heal. Most people think this cost but actually it can do inexpensively if you do it the right way.
Hope this helps.
M.
You can certainly try keeping her dairy free to see if that makes a difference. There are soy and coconut yogurts she can try in the meantime.
Anyway, my son is severely allergic to dairy and also has asthma. When he eats dairy - which is only ever by total accident because we do our best to avoid it 100% - he immediately gets a red rash around his mouth. He says his throat hurts within five minutes; often closer to two minutes. He vomits within 30 minutes. However, none of these symptoms persist for days the way it does with your daughter, though I suppose that could be because she's continually exposed whereas my son stops after one bite of accidental exposure.
Anyway, testing for food allergies sounds like a good idea. I'm not convinced your daughter has a dairy allergy since her illnesses seem to be caused more so by viruses or triggered by asthma. In any case, eliminating dairy and testing for allergies is a good idea. Cut ALL dairy out for two weeks. That means read every single label of packaged food for the words milk, dairy, whey, and casein. Check your bread, your crackers, any baked goods, everything you buy that isn't a "whole food" like fresh, unprocessed meat and produce. Dairy hides in a lot of foods. It is even in many soy cheeses - they take out the lactose but not the whey and casein (the milk proteins that the kids are actually allergic to). If you don't eliminate 100%, you will not be able to know for sure if that's the problem.
Finally, I'm not sure what your doc prescribed for the asthma, but my son is doing really well on a daily preventative medicine called Q-Var. He takes it twice a day through an inhaler and it helps to keep his lungs open so that when he gets sick, he is less likely to wheeze (or at least not wheeze severely) and less likely to have a persistent cough. He has an albuterol inhaler as a rescue medicine for when he does wheeze. Since your daughter is only four, she may need to use a nebulizer instead of an inhaler.
Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
My son, now 6, had all of these problems as a younger child. He had numerous food allergies, and some, but not all of his health issues resolved once we figured that out and eliminated the offensive foods. But, his overall predisposition to horrible coughs, vomiting before any virus took hold -- even a simple cold, and catching everything that anyone ever had didn't go away until we took his tonsils out. Kindergarten year he missed 16 days of school due to illness. 1 year later, now that the tonsils are out, he has missed one day of school so far due to illness. The few colds that he has caught have barely materialized, gone before they really took hold. I wasn't in favor of the surgery, but it was a game changer for him.
My best friend's son was diagnosed as in infant. The very first time he ate yogurt, he immediately started coughing and sneezing, followed by projectile vomiting. If he touches something that contains milk, and then touches his face, arms, or hands, he breaks out into hives. These are the symptoms of severe food allergies. The worst being anaphylaxis.
Since you daughter has severe asthma, it might be a good idea to have her tested just so you know. If it turns out she doesn't have allergies or sensitivities to any foods, then maybe she needs some good supplements to boost her immune system. My SIL gives her youngest a daily probiotic and that has helped her.
My daughters both have milk protein allergy. My first daughter had to be on rx formula. The symptoms were tummy issues, collic, excema rash, dry skin. She was also constipated and had reflux and sleep issues . Try cutting out all dairy and dairy protein for 2 months and see if the symptoms get better.
