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My sister's son is 5 months old & seems to have some allergies to food or something. I can't offer much advice as I don't have any kids yet, so I thought I'd see if anyone has experienced anything similar here.
Basically my nephew has had many problems with breaking out in rashes, spitting up too much, crying a LOT. My sister noticed it seemed to be after she would feed him (breast milk), and the first diagnosis from the doctor was acid reflux. She told my sister that he was basically getting too much breast milk, that it was coming out too fast, and that she had to hold him a different way & pump the milk, and then give him a certain amount. That didn't help, so then the doctor was saying he's allergic to dairy, since it seems to happen more after my sister ate any dairy. Last week, she had peanuts and he had a reaction to that (throwing up, screaming, rash). He has been on non-dairy formula for a week now, and last night, she said she & her husband had pizza, and later on after she picked him up & touched him, he reacted again. So now she thinks he is reacting to just the touch of dairy. Back to the doctor they go.
Has anyone experienced this with their babies? Any advice? She's having a really hard time with this. It just seems to be one thing after another & can't really pinpoint what it is.
Usually, when babies are allergic to dairy that young, it's to a protein in dairy. They grow out of it. And I've never heard of anyone being allergic to milk in that way, so I don't think it's that.
But, I'm no doctor...
My daughter would get a rash if I breastfed her after eating dairy (and a few other things, she had quite a few allergies), she has mostly outgrown them now (3 years old). If the doctor isn't being much help maybe your sister could take your nephew to a doctor that specialises in allergies
Bear with me because I think this can really help - it did for us.
When our (now 13 month old) son was about the same age as your nephew, we went through a very similar sounding experience. Our son had eaten fine until then, but started having significantly more spit-up/throw up after breast-feeding. Dr. said thought acid reflux and we got put on a prescription for him (though I don't recall what it was). Didn't really do anything and my wife noticed it was worse/more frequent when we had dairy.
Back to the doctor and he asked us to put on hold our reservations and if we were willing to give it a try, he had a suggestion and that he had patients that this had worked for before. FWIW, our pediatrician is Welcome and they're very highly respected in our area. Anyways, he told us about a doctor who utilized unconventional techniques to treat allergies. By practice, he's a chiropractor (that works for the Cleveland Browns), but does this also. Our doctor (in a nice way and we've picked it up) refers to him as the voodoo doctor. He told us about his own skepticism and how he's done some research and seen the process himself and that for whatever reasons, it has worked for previous patients and it's worth a shot.
Essentially, what happens is the baby sits on the moms lap and the doctor has her hold vials of different potential allergens and there's a reaction where the mom (my wife in this case) can't hold her arm up when there's something he's allergic to. It sounds insane writing this and we were definitely skeptical, but hearing my wife tell it (and she's not hippy/pro-holistic medicine by any stretch) - it's exactly what happened. Anyways, he treats it by doing some form of accupressure and then you avoid the allergen for 24 hours and it's better. Again, if it hadn't worked, I'd have never believed it, but there was a huge improvement in his symptoms. She ended up doing one more treatment and we've not had any problems since.
Here's the wiki for the technique which is (understandably) dismissive.
Anyways, you have to suspend (again, an entirely understandable) disbelief and be wiling to give it a try, but I really do think it can help. Anyways, if you're open to it, what I'd suggest is to call the pediatrician I linked above and see if they can get you the name/number of the guy here (I can't remember his name). Then call him and see if he can refer you to someone in your area.
And again, re-reading this, I know I sound crazy, but it worked for us and we did it on the advice of our pediatrician so put however much into that as you want. YMMV, but if you do try it, let me know what happens.
Edit: I found the Voodoo Docs name - Dr. Greg Kempf
Here, I found what my wife posted on a different forum about it:
This afternoon I took C to see Dr. Greg Kempf at his chiropractor practice at the Old Arcade downtown. Our pediatrician (Dr. Senders) recommended Dr. Kempf so that C could be tested for food sensitivities due to his difficulties with BFing. Dr. Senders was very clear about how "out there" Dr. Kempf's work is with regard to this topic (though apparently he's a totally normal chiropractor and has many pro CLE athletes as patients).
Dr. Kempf has vials of food "energy" that he uses to test for sensitivity. For an adult or older child, the patient holds the vial in one hand while Dr. Kempf pushes down on the other outstretched arm. The patient is to try to push back so that Dr. Kempf can't push the arm down. For babies, mom (or anyone, I suppose) touches the baby while also holding the vial (I took C's shirt off and covered the vial with my hand on his stomach). The baby's energy channels through mom and mom's arm responds as to the baby's sensitivities.
When Dr. Senders presented this to us as an option, I was really intrigued. He told a few success stories, including his own daughter's. In the initial conversation with Dr. Kempf today, he was clear that you have to embrace a more Eastern style of medicine in order to get on board with this. I was ready!
We set up how I described and the first dozen or so vials had no impact-- I could push back without any problem. I was beginning to think that we were headed down another dead end. Then, we did one and my arm sagged. It wasn't super dramatic, maybe just a couple of inches, and I was able to lift it back up pretty quickly, but it was definitely different than the previous vials. We did several more and then he did the two that C responded to again (without telling me that's what he was doing). So, the two were dairy and milk protein.
Dr. Kempf then performed accupressure on me (while holding C with my hand on his bare belly) while Chad the 2 vials of dairy and milk protein energy touching him. He asked me to breathe in certain ways while he ran his hand up and down my spine. Then he used a small vibrator thing on pressure points on my hands and feet. After the accupressure, he had me hold the vials again and do the arm test. Now this is the really crazy part....... my arm did not drop or get weak. It was the same as all the no reaction vials from before. My mind was blown.
We go back for a follow-up treatment on Monday and I am to avoid dairy until then. After Monday, Cs sensitivities should be "cured" and all can resume as normal.
I fed C immediately before the appt (in the room before Dr. Kempf came in) and was instructed to not feed him for 3-4 hours. When I did feed him at 5:30 today, he was calm, relaxed and ate for 12 minutes on each side. He has never, ever done that during the day before (!!!!). When I fed him at 7:30, it was back to business as usual (screaming, thrashing, arching) for the first side and then he was fine for the second and fell asleep. He has now been sound asleep for an hour, whereas he typically would be fussing on and off for that amount of time. Here's hoping!!!
When my daughter was about that age and breastfed exclusively, she occasionally had bloody stools which scared the heck out of us. The doctor suggested I give up eating dairy for a while and I did, and it cleared up for her. I have no idea if there was any cause and effect there, but it might be something your sister could try.
My sister's son is 5 months old & seems to have some allergies to food or something. I can't offer much advice as I don't have any kids yet, so I thought I'd see if anyone has experienced anything similar here.
Basically my nephew has had many problems with breaking out in rashes, spitting up too much, crying a LOT. My sister noticed it seemed to be after she would feed him (breast milk), and the first diagnosis from the doctor was acid reflux. She told my sister that he was basically getting too much breast milk, that it was coming out too fast, and that she had to hold him a different way & pump the milk, and then give him a certain amount. That didn't help, so then the doctor was saying he's allergic to dairy, since it seems to happen more after my sister ate any dairy. Last week, she had peanuts and he had a reaction to that (throwing up, screaming, rash). He has been on non-dairy formula for a week now, and last night, she said she & her husband had pizza, and later on after she picked him up & touched him, he reacted again. So now she thinks he is reacting to just the touch of dairy. Back to the doctor they go.
Has anyone experienced this with their babies? Any advice? She's having a really hard time with this. It just seems to be one thing after another & can't really pinpoint what it is.
Yes, I've experienced somewhat similar things with my son. My advice would be 1) get your nephew to an allergist (the pediatrician may have recommendations) and 2) talk to the regular pediatrician about getting an Epi-Pen prescription.
My son also experienced reflux, rashes from breastmilk that varied depending on my diet, and contact hives when someone touched food and then touched him. For what it is worth, in his case the reflux was utterly unrelated to the allergies so far as anyone can tell. For a lot of babies (although I know not all) reflux is more of a "laundry problem" than a medical problem.
It is certainly possible for skin rashes to respond to the mother's diet. I don't know if your sister is still pumping milk, but I certainly didn't have to go off breastfeeding because of this. By cutting out some of the foods that my son was allergic to from my own diet, I was able to get his rashes to go away. However, in our case, the long term recommendation of the allergist was NOT to cut out foods from my own diet and to continue breastfeeding as long as possible to give him small amounts of exposure and minimize future allergies. This recommendation depends on how acutely the child responds to breastmilk and only came after some tests, so it is another reason to go to an allergist ASAP-what works for my son may cause problems for your nephew. Be aware that some kids are also allergic to the soy based non-dairy formulas.
As for the Epi-Pen, this gives your nephew some protection if he goes into anaphylaxis. We got an Epi-Pen when we went to the allergist about some reasonably mild skin hives that my son got from touching food. About three weeks later we had to use it (and take him to the hospital) when he had a very severe reaction to ingesting sesame. We had no idea that sesame would be a problem. The fact that your nephew responds to peanuts is worrisome as this can be a severe allergy, so it would be safer to have a way to respond to potentially worse reactions than he has had so far. Anaphylaxis can be life-threatening if not treated.
My 3 year old son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies at 6 months old. He had terrible eczema starting at around 2 months old which was not responding to any treatments, so we finally had a skin test and then RAST (blood test) done with an allergist. I tried to eliminate all of the food he was allergic to from my diet (I was breastfeeding), which was extremely difficult, and he eventually was prescribed a hypoallergenic formula when he was almost a year old. He had to continue the formula until he was almost 2 for proper nutrition.
He has an epi-pen and thankfully we have not had any anaphylactic reactions; however, he will develop a rash if he gets an allergen on his skin. We are very careful about cross-contamination, reading labels, preparing safe food, etc. It was frustrating and stressful at first, but now it is just second nature.
I would suggest that your nephew see an allergist to begin testing, and then go from there. The website that ytlh posted above has a ton of resources and I use it all the time. I also like Community | Kids With Food Allergies
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