Cows Protein Sensitivity

Hi K.,

Try Goat milk. I was raised on this and as an adult, I discovered to my horror that I had cow milk allergies. Since then I have converted to Goat Cheese and milk and I really like it. I am also giving it to my sons. They are still adjusting to the goat milk, but I simply put it in any foods I am baking and cereal, oatmeal, etc. They cannot tell.
Hope this helps.

Rice and Almond milk are good substitues to Dairy and soy - Just curious is he allergic to soy as well? If he just has a cow's protein sensitivity soy should be just fine...

You can always try to eat more whole, unprocessed foods - that way you don't have to worry about additives at all. Here's a great link to common foods that contain NO dairy or animal ingredients that you wouldn't think were! http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/

I know it's hard to always read label but keep in mind that as of the first of the year food manufacturers are required to clearly mark if their food contains any allergens. So if it contains dairy for example - contains:milk should be CLEARY marked on the label...

Good luck - I hope this helps!
A.

My son is allergic to dairy and egg white/yolk. I heard it's not a good thing to give boys soy since its essentially a woman hormone and can effect their growth in height and "other places". I cut out all the above for 10 months now. If you literally just eat food in their natural form the only real issue you have is checking bread labels (no whey or casiene) and butter: use Earth balance (its vegan, margerine has egg in it but likely ok for you). Its processed food thats the issue when your really break it down. You won't eat any chocolate or candy!! Just use rice milk in receipes. You can sub applesauce for egg, but again, not your issue. Milk and soy alone wouldn't be such a battle, you'll get used to it. If he was allergic to wheat, then you have a battle on your hands! could be worse!

Hi K.,

My daughter was just diagnosed with the same thing. She's 6 months old and breastfed, so I have had to cut dairy from my diet. I have yet to meet with the nutritionist, but my pediatrician has been helping me with the diet part. My pediatrician's son also had the same allergy and she too had to cut out dairy from her diet, so she is knowledgeable on the subject. I'll share a little of what she told me and it may help you too. She explained that to start with, I did not need to cut out all dairy, just the most obvious sources of dairy such as milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, ice cream, etc. I did not need to cut out bread because the milk in it is de-natured and will not harm the baby. She also said that hard cheese is generally okay, but I had to watch the baby to make sure she did not react to it. As for soy, not all babies who have a milk protein allergy are allergic to soy. There is cross-reactivity but some babies do fine with soy. My doctor encouraged me to try soy and see how my baby reacts. My baby was having bloody stools but now with this diet, her stools are normal.

Having said all this, I would say that you may have already established that your baby's allergy is severe enough that you need to cut out all sources of dairy plus soy, and if so, I apologize for the long note :) Also, since I'm not a doctor, I may be giving you advice that's wrong for your child, so pls take my advice with a grain of salt. Good luck and let's both hope our kids grow out of this!!

My son developed this at 3 weeks old and I stayed on the same diet until he weaned at about 6 months old. After that, he was on Soy formula. He hated the Nutramigen and Alimentum formulas so I instead changed my diet. The one thing that I wouldn't have survived without was Rice Dream rice milk. I missed eating cereal and that was something I could use on it:) Plus it really tasted like vanilla skim milk. Aside from that I really just had to read the labels for milk, soy, whey, etc. One good thing is that my pregnancy weight came off fast since I couldn't eat any chocolate:) Good luck!

Hi K..

My daughter is highly allergic to dairy and I had no idea how many forms dairy came in. Check out http://foodallergy.org (The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network). They have products you can order cheaply like ingredient cheat cards and magnets to make sure you are checking for the right ingredients. I believe they also have cookbooks. I'm sure you'll find lots of helpful information on that site. Plus, you can also sign up for food allergy alert emails that are sent out whenever a manufacturer releases a product in error with undeclared allergens.

Good luck.

-Jen

Sorry to hear about this. My son is almost 4 and he is allergic to many foods including milk, soy, beef...just to name a few. To cut down on my shopping time (I know how long it takes to shop when reading labels) I do alot of shopping on peapod, if you click on the item, a window pops up showing nutritional info as well as ingredients. I still check the labels when the food arrives. The prices aren't bad and after my first time navigating the web site it started taking me only 15-20 minutes to place my order. I hope that this helps! I also highly recommed checking out foodallergy.org.

I had to remove all soy and dairy (and wheat) from my diet last year due to a diagnonsis of celiac disease. My diet has changed dramatically...but I feel wonderful. I do a lot of my shopping at Whole Foods, but Jewel, Trader Joe's, and Dominick's all carry rice milk and alternatives to dairy. Rice milk is really tasty and if you like skim milk, you will probably like rice milk. The goal of this email is not a plug for Whole Food's , but Whole Food's 365 brand is actually the lowest price rice milk I have found. The staff at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's have been extremely helpful to me and may be able to give you some tips as well. Also, if you google no milk, dairy free diet, etc, you will find there is lots of information available on the internet. Good luck!

First, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. I went through the same thing with my first and it was tough. He did outgrow it by about 3 or 3 1/2 months, so it's not neccessarily a forever thing. I didn't have the same problem with soy that you're experiencing but not being a fan of soy products, I really didn't look to those as a substitute anyway. If things are cooked with dairy it might not be a problem as the cooking breaks down the proteins, so you might just be limited for a short time to the milk you drink and cheeses. More than anything else, I just want to offer a friendly supportive voice...there isn't a magic answer to make it easier. I do remember reading "Operating Instructions" while I was going through this and she was referring to her similar experience with her son. At one point she just couldn't take it anymore and shared a journal entry that essentially said "forget it, tough luck kid, I'm going to eat what I want..." and ate several mini snickers bars. The next journal entry, at 4am said "that was stupid, but they sure tasted good!" I got a good hearty laugh that I wasn't alone either in my frustration or my desire to do it anyway sometimes! As he gets older, start trying little by little to see if he's developed more tolerance and you may find it won't take too long to get back to a normal diet.

Good luck!