Allergies?

[musicalm]

Since birth, my son has been having difficulties having a bowel movement. He cries, wants to nurse, and brings his legs up when he's trying to go. The doctor thought it was just because he was a newborn and his system wasn't mature. Around 2 months, he began getting very irritable, and developed a few small skin rashes. I thought maybe he was just a very needy baby. But just before his 4 month appointment, he had two episodes of blood in his stool. The first one was more mucuosy, and the second was spotty. The doctor ordered an X-ray, but couldn't find anything. I have an appointment to see a pediatric GI specialist on Monday.

I did some of my own research and came up with a possible milk allergy. I gave up dairy for about 3 weeks, and we had one incident of another bloody diaper, but he gets milk that I have frozen (I breastfeed), so it could be from the old milk. Anyway, I had pizza on Friday night, and on Saturday, he had another bloody bm. Any ideas about what could be causing this? Also, he does this shivering thing, like he's taking a chill, and he has trouble sleeping. I'm starting to get worried!

[mamafish9]

Sounds like a clear dairy intolerance. Some kids can't digest dairy milk proteins (which pass in breastmilk), so they end up irritating the gut, which can cause all kinds of symptoms, from poor sleep and irritability, to reflux, to rashes, to mucous/blood in poop, to constipation. Note that lots of docs don't *believe* in intolerances, only true allergies, so you may not get a lot of support (hopefully you do, but if not, trust your mama observations!).

Can you try going totally dairy free (and avoid the frozen milk if possible) - it sounds like that was getting you somewhere positive. Did he still have shivers, constipation, and/or trouble sleeping when you were off the dairy? If so, he may be reacting to things besides dairy. Dairy and soy intolerances very commonly go together, for example, but any food can cause reactions.

[baby-makes-3]

Around 6 weeks of age, DD had very frequent, explosive green mucousy poop that occasionally had blood streaks. She also had anal fissures -- all of which totally cleared up when I eliminated dairy. I actually did a complete elimination diet while I was breastfeeding and slowly added each thing until I narrowed it down to dairy.

I was truly amazed that the pediatician had not heard of this, but there was no doubt in my mind that dairy was causing it. You might want to totally eliminate dairy at least to see if that helps. If you do, be aware of all the hidden forms of dairy -- http://www.godairyfree.org/Food-to-E...ient-List.html. If some sneaks into your diet, then you won't get a true response.

[tanyalynn]

Dairy's very problematic, it sounds like completely cutting it out is a good plan. Soy is quite cross-reactive with dairy--sometimes they cause different reactions, sometimes the same. I just wouldn't substitute in lots of soy products for the dairy, and if things get better but don't completely clear up, then I'd do a soy elimination next.

Sleep could improve just with food elimination. You could also consider a couple visits to someone who does CST or chiropractic, that helped my son with his sleep (both cutting out foods and chiro visits helped, I mean).

Do you take a multivit? Check it for dairy as well, if you need a new one, Thorne Basic Nutrients are available online, they're good forms of vitamins and minerals and they're dairy/soy/gluten free.

[kjbrown92]

And remember if he's getting old milk, he'll still be having reactions. It takes at least 4 days to get out of your milk (it varies by person) and it also varies how long it stays in their system). If my DS got one dose of milk-laced breastmilk, he'd react for 3 days. So just figure all that in when doing your elimination trial to see if dairy is really the culprit.

[musicalm]

Thanks for all of your help! We saw the specialist, and he's pretty sure it's a milk allergy (mom's are so smart!). I've been dairy free for almost two weeks now. My new question is: should I be seeing mucus in his stool? I'm not sure if it's normal or not, but he seems to be feeling alot better and no blood!

[tanyalynn]

Mucous isn't normal or good, but IIRC, it's one of those things that can take a while to heal, even after triggers are gone. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but that's the best I remember.

eta: and yippee! for improvement! woo-hoo!