trialed dairy - talk out this reaction with me

[menomena]

Okay. Abbreviated background:

DD1 is a new 3. We've suspected dairy allergy/intolerance since she was like 5 days old. I cut out dairy for 3m when she was a few weeks old. It didn't really seem to help, but who knows, there are lots of other allergies/intolerances we've been suspecting now too. Anyway, when she was a new 2, she had her blood tested and it came back positive for dairy, garlic, beans, turmeric, poppyseeds (via ELISA through Meridian Valley). We avoided said allergens. Things seemed to improve. We moved across state in the fall and things got worse. On Halloween last year we cut out all top 10 allergens plus some other stuff. Things got better/worse/better/worse. We did a TED for 8 days that did not help. We did the Body Ecology Diet and things got WAY better, but it was so hard to sustain with nursing a toddler (who then preferred my milk over veggies) and a baby. I was crazy hungry and eating constantly while also losing a ton of weight and fast.

ETA: in the meantime, we avoided top allergens, and do daily probiotics, digestive enzymes, vitamins, coconut oil, & (CLO when I remember). We avoid sugar, and we almost always food combine a la Body Ecology Diet. We're working on healing the gut and on keeping yeast under control.

So we just got her re-tested (ELISA through MVL again) and this time it came back negative for all allergens. VERY negative. Like zeros for many things...

So, we're currently waiting for my results (to see if maybe I'm passing histamines from my reaction to her) but meanwhile we're reintro-ing foods cautiously. Oats & eggs (well cooked) have passed. Yay. We got brave and tried dairy last night. Melted cheese on hommade GF pizza.

So, she wet the bed last night. After tossing and turning and screaming off and on all night long. And her eczema is worse today. That's a pretty clear fail, right? Two things should be noted here: 1. She is normally a terrible sleeper and is normally restless, often needing to wake to pee. She also often wakes up crying, but is generally easy to soothe. This was hysterical screaming and refusal to pee. 2. Her eczema will flare on a dime and it could be coincidental - we've been spending A LOT of time outside in a very high pollen count area and getting eaten alive by bugs, too. But it could also be the diary. AHHHHH.

But, the bed wetting and the night screaming is a pretty clear sign, right? I'm so bummed.

[nalo]

I had the same "but it could have been this, this and this..." when I trialed egg with my LO and as much as I wanted to believe it was something else I never got brave enough to trial it again so it is still out. Your situation does sound like a reaction to me but if you want to be more certain give your LO more dairy today and see what happens.

[mtn.mama]

Hmmm. Dairy is such a funny bird. We can have some kinds of dairy but not all! Like plain organic whole milk yogurt is good, any vanilla flavored yogurt is bad. Raw goat milk is good, mainstream cow cream is bad. Orange cheese is bad, raw organic cheddar is good. If you're going to trial again, maybe try one some yogurt or raw milk first?

[menomena]

Well, shortly after I posted, I decided that one way to know if it was a rxn was to give her more dairy today (like you guys said)... We had leftovers from last night. About the same amount of food as last night. (She really likes cheese. ) Within an hour, my stomach was HURTING. We were both cranky, cranky, snappy and whiny. By 2p, she had hivey welts up and down both arms and her cheeks were bright red.

So, yeah, I'd say that's a pretty strong reaction.

And like I said, *I've* been in a terrible, awful, nasty mood and I'm soooooo spacey and out of it. No more dairy for me, even if I wasn't nursing. Ugh.

[Chinese Pistache]

I'm sorry That's such a letdown.

[menomena]

Thanks. It *is* a letdown. I was so hopeful after the negatives on the blood test. So, now of course I'm freaking out and back to "it could be anything!" mindset regarding food. Hidden reactions lurk in every corner.

[mtn.mama]

Sorry mama. Sounds like she's reacting to your sensitivity then. Maybe this means she'll be able to outgrow it.

[menomena]

That's what we were hoping actually, when we trialed dairy for dinner. Lily's last nursing of the night was prior to diner (i.e. prior to either of us ingesting dairy). She had the rotten night still. It's totally possible that my reaction is making her reaction worse, though, since I didn't notice the hives and pink cheeks happened after nursing two or three times.

[kjbrown92]

Did she keep reacting? My DS reacts for 3 days after eating dairy (he's a bedwetter on dairy as well as the screaming all night long, and he's 8).

Remind me, does ELISA test IgE or IgG? Because she could have negative on IgE and still be intolerant. Have YOU been tested yet? I just got ALCAT tests for my two food-intolerant kids but I haven't gotten my nerve up yet to test myself.

And I didn't see anything about soy. Milk and soy intolerances go hand in hand for many people so is it possible that one was missed?

Believe me, I know how hard it is. DS is 8 and I keep hoping that he outgrows them, but he keeps getting them back. Now that I had him tested and he reacted to more things than I had gotten from food journaling, I'm thinking he may finally heal. At least my fingers are crossed. I feel for you.

[menomena]

Well, we had dairy on Wed night and then yesterday (Thursday morning). She had night screaming, thrashing and bed wetting Wed night. Last night (Thurs) she had night screaming and thrashing, but to a more "normal" degree. No bed wetting. Yesterday was by far the worst of it. She's already on daily Zytrec (no flames, please, I feel bad enough about that - but it's the only way to get things calmed down at this point), so I think that helped minimize the rxn.

Yes, we avoid soy (all legumes, actually, including peanuts and green peas and green beans), gluten, corn, tree nuts, all seeds & seed oils, garlic, dairy... I know I'm forgetting something.

Soy was a CONFIRMED rxn in my own body. Ow. That was painful when we trialed that. And we did tempeh (fermented soybeans) thinking it would be analogous to trialing cheese or yogurt first for dairy (with the beneficial cultures, etc).

I am waiting on my ELISA results. I should be getting them today or next week. The ELISA we got tests IgE and IgG(4). So it could still be a rxn mediated by a different IgG pathway. Or another immune-complex response. Or it could "just" be a sensitivity or intolerance. Fun, fun. As you all know.

I'm so sad that so many of us are going through this. But, it's nice to have understanding company. My family is supportive, but I know they think I'm cuckoo.

[kjbrown92]

We use Zyrtec too.

I got the ALCAT testing so I wouldn't have to go through the pain of "reintroducing" everything. My DD has been off all the offending foods for 18 months (elimination diet when she was 18 months old). Every time she's gotten something by accident or stolen something, she's reacted, so I'm hopeful that maybe she's "outgrown" some of the more obtuse foods or foods that I didn't trial originally but were eliminated with whole food families after she reacted to a lot of them within that family). The ALCAT test tests for inflammatory response. Not sure if that's the same as IgG or not.

By the way, with my 8 year old (learned it from the little one) I use Gripe Water when he's screaming and thrashing and he's asleep within 5-10 minutes. When I described it to my regular doctor, he said "sounds like growing pains". It didn't sound like growing pains to me. Motrin didn't work, but Gripe Water did, confirming my suspicions.

[menomena]

Well, sh!t. I just got *my* results back. It only came back positive for sesame (which we've been avoiding since November anyway). I have a FOR SURE allergic response to cashews - hives covering both hands within hours, rxn persists for 5-7 days even with anti-histamines, one time I was hospitalized and given IV steroids when it didn't abate; last exposure (accidental) gave me swollen lips and tingly mouth on top of other symptoms... My point is that is a pretty clear IgE rxn, no? And it didn't show up on this test. Perhaps ELISA *is* unreliable. I thought it yielded false positives though and not false negatives. I'm sad and confused.

I'm seriously considering going back on the Body Ecology Diet for me and let the kids have fruit at least. I just don't know what else to do. Now that we've got results for both DD1 and myself I'm making an appt with our ND to see talk it out with him.

I'm off to go meditate. : I need to settle down over here.