Is this an allergy/intolerance? To what precisely?

[cristeen]

My 13 mo seems to react to dairy, but I'm having a really hard time pinning it down and could use some experienced input.

To begin with, he drinks a dairy based formula (Earth's Best), to which he does not seem to react.  He's been on it with some BM supplementation since 7 mos.  But when we tried switching brands, instant constipation.

I started him with (homemade) yogurt, to which he showed no reaction.

Then we moved to medium aged cheeses (like cheddar), to which he showed no reaction. 

And then I gave him raw milk one day when I left home without enough formula.  And he was up all night long with a belly-ache. 

He continues to show no reaction to cheddars and yogurt, but if I give him (homemade) ice cream or (homemade) pudding, which contain cooked but otherwise unaltered milk, his butt turned red everywhere his poop touched, like an acid burn.

Then this weekend I gave him (unaged) mozarella without even thinking about it, and my 1-2 poo/day guy went a day and a half without one with very very thick poo and straining when he finally did go. 

So obviously he's reacting to some part of the milk... if fermented and aged are okay, but unaged and unfermented aren't.  But why isn't he reacting to the formula?  Or to the BM he was on for 7 mos, when almost every single donor mom was most likely drinking/eating dairy in some form? 

[tanyalynn]

That sounds very similar to DS's reaction to dairy products.  We didn't drink milk because I don't react to it well and I figured it was likely the kids wouldn't either, but we ate cheese regularly (the well-aged ones, I've never done the softer ones).  But when he was about 13 mos? I shared a couple bites of ice cream with him and he vomited within 20 mins.  Was surprised, tried it again in another month with the same result. 

It seems like at least some dairy-based infant formulas break down the proteins enough that it doesn't cause a problem--quite a few times people have written here about switching their babies at 12 mos from formula to whole milk and all these health problems start, so it seems to be a fairly common occurrence, that cow's milk formula is tolerated when straight cow's milk is not. 

DS didn't particularly like yogurt but he seemed to tolerate it.  And he didn't have strong reactions like that while nursing, even when I was eating everything--he probably had a bit of fussiness when he was young, but even though I know I don't deal with gluten or dairy well (and maybe some of your donor moms don't have issues with dairy and leaky guts--in healthy people all this stuff should stay in the digestive tract and no particles large enough should get out and to the breastmilk for baby to react to), ... holy runon sentence, anyway, I was saying that even though I don't react to gluten or dairy well, he never had any reaction close to consuming a few bites of ice cream directly. 

eta: ha!  I didn't answer your question.  I don't know why DS reacts like this.  Our old chiro thought this was a fairly normal pattern but all I got was a vague answer that the fermentation helped break down the proteins enough that they were tolerated.