It was confirmed today by the allergist that Lily has MSPI. Milk soy protein intolerance. This was pretty much what I expected to hear. I decided about a month ago that I would feel more comfortable going to an allergist and finding out more about what's going on with our little girl. Her pediatrician is great, but his advice in this area has been rather generalized and I wanted some more specialized input. While it's good to know she doesn't have a true allergy, it still means I will continue to be dairy free and now eliminating soy. We're going to be have to be very cautious of what she eats as we start solids.
Dr. Sutton helped me come up with a plan for introducing low allergen foods to her first and we will be delaying introducing cow's milk till she has a follow-up allergy test in a year. I'm going to be starting a food diary and keeping track of what I eat and how she reacts. The nice thing is since we are breastfeeding, I can try new foods and Lily gets a diluted amount of it, so even if we see a reaction, it isn't as risky as giving it directly to her.
So, what is a food intolerance? Symptoms can vary, but Lily's are fussiness and irritability, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and congestion. The congestion and rash only happen if I have goofed up and eaten something offending multiple times in a few days, but the vomiting and diarrhea happen every time I have an oops. With a food intolerance, symptoms usually begin within a half hour of eating the food but can also appear up to 48 hours later. Dr. Sutton told us that children with an allergy will almost always develop hives in addition to the other symptoms but children with an intolerance typically do not have an immediate skin reaction. The big medical term for this is that an intolerance does not produce an IgE antibody response, whereas an allergy does. That means Lily isn't going to need to carry around an epi-pen, but she could still get very sick from eating a food she is intolerant to. Based on her history and symptoms, Dr. Sutton felt she was very sensitive and that if she had been on a milk based formula, she would likely have had much more difficulty gaining weight and may even have struggled with dehydration. Thank heavens for breastfeeding!!
We are 100% certain of the cow's milk and I'm 75% sure of the soy. The next common food intolerance is grains, so we're going to hold off on giving her rice cereal or other grains until I've given her a small challenge through my diet. My plan is to clean my diet of soy over the next 2 weeks, and then I will begin my food diary and start challenging grains and soy to determine if those really are causing issues or if it is simply the cow's milk. On a positive note, this is likely something Lily will outgrow by age 3, but for the forseeable future, we're going to be dealing with this.
Dr. Sutton helped me come up with a plan for introducing low allergen foods to her first and we will be delaying introducing cow's milk till she has a follow-up allergy test in a year. I'm going to be starting a food diary and keeping track of what I eat and how she reacts. The nice thing is since we are breastfeeding, I can try new foods and Lily gets a diluted amount of it, so even if we see a reaction, it isn't as risky as giving it directly to her.
So, what is a food intolerance? Symptoms can vary, but Lily's are fussiness and irritability, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and congestion. The congestion and rash only happen if I have goofed up and eaten something offending multiple times in a few days, but the vomiting and diarrhea happen every time I have an oops. With a food intolerance, symptoms usually begin within a half hour of eating the food but can also appear up to 48 hours later. Dr. Sutton told us that children with an allergy will almost always develop hives in addition to the other symptoms but children with an intolerance typically do not have an immediate skin reaction. The big medical term for this is that an intolerance does not produce an IgE antibody response, whereas an allergy does. That means Lily isn't going to need to carry around an epi-pen, but she could still get very sick from eating a food she is intolerant to. Based on her history and symptoms, Dr. Sutton felt she was very sensitive and that if she had been on a milk based formula, she would likely have had much more difficulty gaining weight and may even have struggled with dehydration. Thank heavens for breastfeeding!!
We are 100% certain of the cow's milk and I'm 75% sure of the soy. The next common food intolerance is grains, so we're going to hold off on giving her rice cereal or other grains until I've given her a small challenge through my diet. My plan is to clean my diet of soy over the next 2 weeks, and then I will begin my food diary and start challenging grains and soy to determine if those really are causing issues or if it is simply the cow's milk. On a positive note, this is likely something Lily will outgrow by age 3, but for the forseeable future, we're going to be dealing with this.
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