Allergic to Cow's Milk - Please HELP!!

Oh GOSH Silk Chocolate and silk vanilla are fricken delicious!!!!! I got em for my daughter and drank em myself too

Soy mimicks estrogen in the body and can cause early puberty and other problems in children (girls AND boys)! Please try rice milk - it is yummy! Flavored varieties (vanilla or chocolate) is better than plain. (Rice Dream also makes Rice Cream. You can find it in the frozen section of the health food aisle or at a health food/whole food store.)

Almond milk is also delicious, but since it is made FROM almonds (it doesn't have almonds IN it), it might be an issue if she is allergic to tree nuts. Ask her doctor if it is okay.

I'm with you the soy milk is nasty. I too had a severe milk allergy growing up and the only one I liked was goat's milk. You can usually find it at a more speciality grocery store. 30 years ago my mom could only find it at a health food store and it was much more expensive but great so I could eat cereal and such. Just to give you some hope I have mostly grown out of my milk allergy. I can't drink a whole glass of it, nor do I want to, but I can now eat cheese and have ice cream on occassion.

did you see an allergist or just a primary care for testing? Did you have blood or skin testing? Did they test for total IgE? My daughter came back with a slew of positive food allergy tests from the blood test, but my primary care had not tested the IgE. Food tests can have false positives. When we went to the allergist, he tested my daughter's IgE which is an indicator of overall immune system reaction. if IgE is high, means food allergies were false positives. My daughter's IgE was sky high. The good news was this meant her food allergies were false positives, but she is very highly allergic to the environmental allergies such as weeds and grass. I'd take those over food allergies any day!

I can totally relate to the stressed out part. I freaked when I thought my daughter had all the food allergies. I went and bought all this gluten free, dairy free, ect. Come to find out, I was stressing for nothing. I would definitely make sure your evaluated by a trained immunologist/allergist. It's complicated stuff. Take a deep breath, and know that if your daughter does truly have these allergies, there are so many resources and many food options that you had no idea of. Whole foods is great! Good luck!

Do NOT give your child any type of soy.
Soy has natural estrogen in it. It could put your child into early puberty.
I have heard more than a few stories of this happening.
Try goats milk.
I was allergic to Cows milk as a child and had to drink goats milk my dad go it from a local farmer fresh but I'm pretty sure I saw it at a grocery store.

coconut milk, hemp milk, almond milk, rice milk, potato milk(dari-free)

I am with Nicole W. - Potato milk (Vance's dari-free) was excellent. It comes powdered so you can make a cup or a gallon, whatever you need. My son drank the chocolate at least two quarts a week and it has the same nutritional values as whole milk. Also, this time of the year, you can get Silk Nog which is yummy and guilt free since it has no eggs or dairy.

I'm allergic to milk, and the only milk i have been able to stand has been goats milk... The taste takes a little getting used to, but cut it half and half and then 3:1, etc... But it has all the healthy benefits you need! Good luck and thank goodness you found it early!

My daughter has been drinking Rice Dream rice milk from the get go because of a dairy allergy. She couldn't drink the enriched because of her corn allergy. She's since been treated for her allergies (corn, dairy, eggs, wheat, beef, nuts, many other foods, environmental, etc), mostly successfully (we're still getting treatments), but still drinks Rice Dream, but now the enriched (with vitamins and calcium). She's tried cow milk and says it's "bland"...we may eventually start slipping some cow milk into her rice milk and phase out the rice milk, but I'm honestly not that anxious to have her on cow milk anyway. Rice milk is sweeter than cow milk even without buying the vanilla or chocolate flavors (which we couldn't use either because of the corn). I've always used this brand because some other brands of rice milk have soy in them and soy scares me. Yes, Almond milk is made from nuts. We buy our rice dream at Walmart (the ones with groceries carry it...not sure about the others).The hardest thing about avoiding dairy was no cheese. Let me know if you'd like more info on the allergy treatments we've tried.

My son is also allergic to cow's milk. Some alternatives that worked for us are Lactaid or Vitamite (cow's milk with the lactic protien removed) or Rice milk. which my son likes because it has a sweet taste. We also found that he couldn't tolerate regular types of yogurt, but organic yogurt doesn't seem to bother him. Good luck, one step at a time :-)

do they know what part of the milk shes allergic to? my daughter had a reaction to milk also. her dr suggested lactaid which is lactose free milk. she drank that for about a year then we slowly started her back on regular milk and she has been fine ever since.

i am allergic to cow milk too. The taste of the red silk milk is disgusting. Try the blue, or purple. They taste much better, but be warned they taste better because they have vanilla and sugar (organic cane juice is sugar) in them. How sensitive is she? Coffee creamer has a milk protein in it also, but i dont react to it. I use powdered coffee creamer in my foods that i want to be creamier (like tomato soup). Or you can use the unflavored liquid creamer as a substitute in recipes and what not. Rice milk doesnt taste bad, but doesn't have as many vitamins and what not in it. Make sure to have her take calcium supplements too. as for icecream substitutes, tofu tuti cuties are delicious. edy's used to have an amazing one, but they d/c it. Try going to a health food store, or visit the health food section at a hy-vee, they have a pretty large selection. good luck.P.S. when you check the labels for milk products look for a capitol "D" near where it would have the U for being kosher. It will have a D if it contains dairy, but some maynot have a D even if it has dairy. so just watch out for it.

one more thing: you could try goat's milk too. Ive seen it come in those glass bottles, or in a can (by the evaporated milk) this also makes a good substitute in recipes. I made an incredible Alfredo sauce using goats milk once.

Almond milk is made from almonds, and coconuts are in the nut family too. Try the vanilla soy milk, or plain/vanilla rice milk. Or water:)

My daughter had a milk protein allergy from the time I breastfed her, and she was miserable. I had to eliminate all dairy and tried soy first, but one sip of it in my coffee turned me off to it forever! : ) I switched to WestSoy brand RICE milk, and loved it from the start. They have plain and vanilla. I like them because there are some of the same vitamins and minerals in there as milk, and they do not taste watered down like some of the other milk substitutes like Rice Dream. You can check them out here (click on either carton and you can see ingredients and nutritional content as well): http://www.westsoy.biz/products/rice_drink.php

Good luck -- I hope that you find something that works for your family quickly!

My daughter drinks rice milk. I'm not sure switching from cow's milk to rice milk will fly since they are completely different. I wouldn't even consider almond milk because of the allergy factor.

If she won't drink the milk could you just use it in food preparation and let her drink water? Both of my girls were breastfed so they never took to milk anyway. They will drink it on occasion but it is not an all day every day thing.

Like someone mentioned below I would avoid drinking soy milk because of its estrogen like properties. I was also told that goat's milk protein is very similar to the cow's milk protein so if you go that route, proceed with caution.

A nutritionist last month told me that children are not meant to drink cows milk - "cows milk was meant for baby cows. Not humans." She HIGHLY recommended COCONUT MILK. She said it is so much better for you, sweet and tasty. Give it a try. The brand she recommended - she couldn't remember the name but said it came in a red container.

Hi L.,

The Meyenburg Goat's Milk that you buy in the milk section of the grocery store tastes good.(The concentrate and the powdered does not taste good to me.) Not all goat's milk does but this tastes closer to organic whole cow's milk. Goat's milk is very nutritious as well. Soy not only doesn't taste good, it's not good for your daughter. Almond milk is an extract from almonds so if she's really allergic, then dodge the almond milk.

There are ways to get rid of allergies. I did several years back and no longer have any problems. I lived with them all my life until I educated myself. If you're interested, I'll be glad to share any information.

God bless,

M.

I second what Mj said below. I had a blood allergy test which came back that I was highly allergic to shrimp. I eat shrimp enough to know that I do not have any allergy to it at all. When I finally went to an allergist he said that the blood allergy test was a total waste of time and money!

My son had a milk/soy protein intolerance. He was on rice milk for several months. He loved it, although he had never had cows milk, so he didn't know the difference. Perhaps you could try that?

Good luck.

My almost 3 yr old son is allergic to both cow's milk and soy. We had him drinking Rice Dream (Kroger sells it in their 'organic' food section) until he started refusing it about 6 months ago.

I have another son that's 10 who had an allergy to cow's milk and soy as a baby. He drank goat milk from the age of 7 months until he stopped taking a bottle at around 12 months, then no milk at all until he was 3. At that time he was able to drink cow's milk but we had to switch again when he was 8 because he started having problems with the lactose in the milk and we switched to Lactaid.

Personally I would try the goat milk in the refrigerator section 1st if she's able to tolerate it (if she's allergic to protein she might not) and if not I'd do the Rice Dream. Try to avoid the soy if you can, my younger son's GI has told us that most children that have allergies to cow's milk also have an allergy to soy and is the one that recommended the Rice Dream to us.

Try the Silk vanilla or chocolate soy milk. Kids tend to like it better. You could also try rice milk, not as strong tasting as soy milk.

**My daughter drank soy milk until she out grew her milk allergy at 16 and had no side effects.

My son is allergic to cow's milk, but not to goat's milk...maybe try that? He also loves the taste, and goat's milk cheese (chevre or hard) is really yummy. Allergies are awful - we suffer from them, too, in our family, so I really hope you find something that works for your daughter.

I see you mentioned possibly trying Almond milk. My son prefers Almond milk over cows milk. However, BEWARE, it is made from almonds. If your daughter is allergic to nuts as well, I would avoid it.

Have you cosidered goat's milk? My neighbor has goats and sells goat's milk. I'd tried it before and didn't much care for it, but my neighbor told me that what a goat eats affects the taste of the milk. He offered me a glass of his goat's milk and I accepted. I surprised how good it was. If I didn't know, I would have thought it was cow's milk. Here's a link to find out more about goat's milk: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&db...
Good luck.

My son was allergic to dairy when I was breastfeeding him, which meant that I had to also stop eating dairy. I went to rice milk, it's certainly a different taste and requires some getting used to. After using that in cereal for a while, I'm so used to it, I can't go back to regular milk, even skim, it just tastes too heavy. When my son was weaned, we gave him rice milk also. He fought getting anything other than breastmilk, but eventually accepted the rice milk. Then, he outgrew his milk allergy (though not some of his other food allergies) and we reintroduced milk to him. The problem was, he was so used to rice milk, he wouldn't drink the regular milk (so we tried chocolate milk, and now that's all he'll drink...we didn't do too well on that one). I think it might just be a matter of time to change the tastes. I know that's not the best answer, but that really was what was required in our house. Whatever she chooses to drink, just like weaning from formula or breastmilk, she likely isn't going to be happy about it at first, but with time, she will probably get used to it. Maybe introduce in cereal, so that there is something to hide the taste a bit, then work up to drinking glasses of it.

I would try Rice Milk or call her Allergist and ask for ideas since the soy milk wasnt a big hit.

Would she be allergic to almond milk or coconut milk? You could try those.