Quote:
Originally Posted by
etsdtm99 
i am just going to go against everyone else just becasue i just learned this last night and because you have allergies.. i have a 9 mo old, my 3rd baby to react to dairy in my diet.. yet, here at 9.5 mo (just like the otehr two) i introduced dairy (yogurt) directly to her and she has no reaction. nothing. zero.. this from a girl who projectile vomits if I eat too much dairy and has since she was 2 weeks old .. i have never cut it out totally "hardcore"because when i cut out obvious dairy but not every tiny little thing, her symptoms were gone.. the point here is that turns out, I am the one with the dairy issue and my babies are very likely responding to my allergic reaction.. the antibiodies my body produces in my milk .. and i guess i only produce enough of them to bother a baby when i eat a lot of dairy, and even with a lot of dairy, the reaction gets milder as the baby gets older/bigger - looking back, my son weighed much more than my daughters did and he only reacted to dairy in my diet until he was about 4-5 mo (18-20lbs, the same weight my almost 10 mo old is now) ..trying to reintroduce obvious dairy into my diet is now causing me to react and my DD's reaction is very mild ..
Many people--of any age--respond very differently to yogurt than to any other dairy product because of the fermentation process.
So that is great news about your daughter, but might not mean that she has no dairy sensitivity in other forms. From what I understand, in general yogurt is not a reliable test of a dairy sensitivity. Many people (including my 13 month old son, as of 6weeks ago) can eat yogurt fine but still has symptoms with other dairy--though I can now eat cheese with no adverse effect on him and it rocks 
The reaction we see in infants to dairy (as well as soy, egg, and other proteins) is not technically an allergy (meaning your body's immune system identifies it as a toxin to your system and causing symptoms like hives, rash, respiratory reaction like the stereotypical peanut allergy or bee sting) but is usually referred to as a "sensitivity," meaning your digestive system is not able to digest those proteins, causing vomiting. That can cause immune system problems, apparently, if you continue to be exposed to the irritating food because of the close link between digestive and immune systems, but it is different from an allergy. That is why avoiding caseins is important--because those are dairy proteins, albeit without the sugars. But if yogurt works okay, that is great news.
And people do not usually outgrow allergies (though it can happen) but usually outgrow digestive sensitivities. You can die from exposure to an allergy like nuts and bee stings (and you are having an immune system response, producing antibodies, etc) but people do not die from exposure to a food sensitivity (unless you throw up or have diarrhea so much you get dehydrated).
etsdtm99, I wonder if you think you had this sensitivity (or allergy? not sure on your symptoms . . . ) before or if it developed in you later?
I have spoken with several people who are saying that an adult who refrains from dairy for an extended period might lose the ability to digest it and develop a senstivity (though that might result in a different response than babies' throwing up; often adults get diarrhea instead, usually associated with lactose intolerance--the inability to digest dairy sugars, rather than dairy proteins). This causes different symptoms than an allergy, with an immune symptom response such as hives, trouble breathing, etc.
I have been aware of still avoiding large amounts of dairy myself, and am trying to pay attention to how my body reacts as I reintroduce various forms.
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