DS1 just diagnosed with milk, egg, nut allergies- help please!

[erinch]

This is so important, I'm posting it separate: CALCIUM

We had our DS on liquid calcium from 18 months, and chewable calcium carbonate (16 tabs a day) as soon as he could chew them.

But when he broke a hand at age 14, dx'ed with beginning osteoporosis.

The other food items to get calcium from are ridiculous, and cannot be managed with no dairy. Work with a nutritionist as opposed to just your allergist, unless the allergist is an absolute specialist in food allergies and nutrition.

 

[A&E'sMom]

My 17 month old was diagnosed with the same allergies when he was about 7 months old (as well as having to avoid corn and any acidic fruits or veggies until at least age two). At first it seemed overwhelming, but once you get used to reading the nutritional information panels, it gets easier. And you'll find a lot of foods other than those made from scratch. Just off the top of my head, for treats, you can get soy puddings (ZenSoy is the one we buy. We used to get it at Whole Foods, but Kroger has recently added it to their health food section) and a lot of Organic baby products are allergy free. Earth's Best has two cookies that he can eat, Sesame Street Very Vanilla (they are YUMMY!) and Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin. I find them in my Kroger's health food section, in the baby aisle. He drinks and love soy milk, including the chocolate and vanilla flavored ones. His main meals are generally made from fresh, whole foods though. I keep it simple right now, because he doesn't really need anything complicated. One of his favorite meals is Tofu browned in a little olive oil and steamed peas. He loves mashed fresh sweet potato with a little cinnamon and vanilla soy milk. And he loves blueberries and spinach, and collard greens and all kinds of things that kids (including my own) spoiled by "regular" food won't touch.
It's overwhelming at first, but after awhile you just might enjoy it. He's likely to be the healthiest kid on the block!

 

[Nicoleclaw]

First of all, hugs....
My dd is allergic to egg and ds egg, peanut, almonds and hazelnuts. There is a cake called crazy cake on allrecipes.com. It is dairy and egg free. I make it all the time.
The mmr, from what I understand, it doesn't contain egg anymore, but my pediatrician still won't give it, the allergist has to. They safely gave it to ds in about 4 injections over about an hour and a half. DD had her first shot of it before we knew she was allergic (she also tolerates egg fine in baked goods and all, so she does not have a severe allergy, and I do not think my son does either). So I think it should be possible to give if you are concerned about not giving it.
I did also hear about peanut oil usually being ok for nut allergies, but I am not trying it out! lol
You have gotten some great advice, keep upthe hard work.

 

[mjantz]

erinch: I am truly in awe that your son made it to adulthood. You obviously did a very good job of not only protecting him but teaching him how to protect himself which is IMO more important in many ways.

 

[momma_mouse]

This is so important, I'm posting it separate: CALCIUM

We had our DS on liquid calcium from 18 months, and chewable calcium carbonate (16 tabs a day) as soon as he could chew them.

But when he broke a hand at age 14, dx'ed with beginning osteoporosis.

The other food items to get calcium from are ridiculous, and cannot be managed with no dairy. Work with a nutritionist as opposed to just your allergist, unless the allergist is an absolute specialist in food allergies and nutrition.

I've been worried about my DD's calcium intake as well. She is getting at least 10-12 ounces of EleCare daily. I also bought Minute Maide Kids apple juice that has added vitamins and calcium. She gets about 6 ounces of it a day. I also have some yogrut ordered from out health food store. It is coconut milk yogurt made by So Delicious. It has an ingredient in it that helps you absorb calcium easier. Hopefully between all of those she will get enough.

 

[left210]

Just wanted to check back in and let you know that DS is drinking his rice milk with the olive oil. It looks yucky and greasy but he takes it. I am also going to check out the calcium supplements as recommended. Also, I made a simple pasta dish that he loved. The sauce was Ragu Tomato & Basil and it did not have milk in it. I add other things to flavor it like my normal spaghetti sauce and he enjoyed it with the whole family.

 

[left210]

This is so important, I'm posting it separate: CALCIUM

We had our DS on liquid calcium from 18 months, and chewable calcium carbonate (16 tabs a day) as soon as he could chew them.

But when he broke a hand at age 14, dx'ed with beginning osteoporosis.

The other food items to get calcium from are ridiculous, and cannot be managed with no dairy. Work with a nutritionist as opposed to just your allergist, unless the allergist is an absolute specialist in food allergies and nutrition.

Ok I went to Target Pharmacy today and they do not have liquid calcium and told me I would have to get it from a compounding pharmacy. Where did you get your liquid calcium?

 

[erinch]

Ok I went to Target Pharmacy today and they do not have liquid calcium and told me I would have to get it from a compounding pharmacy. Where did you get your liquid calcium?

We got it at GNC, and then were able to get a prescription version which insurance covered. Again, this was 18 years ago, so much has changed since then. Thankfully, there are now so many products that contain calcium from bread to juices, that just didn't exist. If you google liquid calcium for babies, a LOT of products will come up -- if your allergist is really good at food allergies she/he might be able to help. Otherwise ,a nutrionist is probably safest. I wouldn't order anything off the internet as so many supplements are not regulated.

 

[MomTo4+more]

For a cake, you can use a boxed cake mix (make sure that it is dairy free), and replace ALL of the ingredients with one can of soda (clear soda for white cakes, and darker soda for chocolate cakes). This is a SUPER easy way to make a cake (this works best with cupcakes b/c they have a smaller surface area to rise in).

Thank you for sharing this!! I just finished baking 147 cupcakes this way for our churches Day Camp. We are accomodating multiple food allergies. Your hint made it a lot easier for me. My dinih.g room table is covered with cupcakes. Now all that is left to do is decorate them all to look like lions.

 

[left210]

Well DS has had a reaction to either vanilla or cinnamon. He had vanilla rice milk and cinnamon applesauce and had his normal flare of eczema and diarrhea. Now I just have to figure out which one caused it. I am going to wait until his eczema clears and try one at a time to see what is causing it. I have a friend who said cinnamon is a known irritant to eczema which I did not know. Anyone else ever have problems with vanilla or cinammon.

 

[erinch]

Has your allergist run iGe antibody screens to give you some idea of what sort of scope of reactivity your DS has? (And will your insurance cover it?)

Both vanilla and cinnamon are available in screens, but neither of them is included in the "most common foods" panel.

Our DS's immune system was so non-functional, and his overall allergic response was so high that they were unable to do scratch-testing on him. Had to abort twice and give epinephrine. When iGe testing came along when he was about 3, it was a godsend, particularly with the food substances which were level 4s (the highest level).

A couple of drawbacks is that he came back with a high number of false positives, and we had to try some of the 1s and 2 with epipens and benedryl close at hand (in the doctor's office, and we ended up having to do some blind challenge tests in order to avoid any placebo effects) to see which he was truly allergic to and which he wasn't. He came back with positives for soy and gluten, but these turned out to be false positives.

The other problem with iGe testing is that if there has been no exposure to that food group, then it may show negative, but that's just because no antibodies were formed. My DS's reactions were so extreme that we had to be very careful with spices and other new ingredients, and only do something new about every 3 weeks.

We got through all of this because our allergist is absolutely fabulous. He's young, bright, listens and respects, and is willing to take time to sort through the ambiguity. And--he was our 5th allergist. 3 of the previous ones were connected with children's hospitals, and they simply did not have time to deal with our DS's complexities. The one we ended up with had trained at Children's and Johns Hopkins, and then went into private practice, but keeps his hand in at the hospital.

If you haven't joined the Food Allergy Network, do so, as they can be a tremendous source of support.

I learned, during those terrible first years with our DS, to not let him have anything that we didn't already know was safe in the month leading up to our so precious vacations so there weren't any slips or screw-ups.

 

[ekatiel]

Thank you for sharing this!! I just finished baking 147 cupcakes this way for our churches Day Camp. We are accomodating multiple food allergies. Your hint made it a lot easier for me. My dinih.g room table is covered with cupcakes. Now all that is left to do is decorate them all to look like lions.

I'm glad the soda trick worked for you-- How much soda did it take to make 147 cupcakes??!! It is actually an old weight-watchers trick-- WW tells you to use diet soda in place of the oil, water, and eggs in a cake mix.

Well DS has had a reaction to either vanilla or cinnamon. He had vanilla rice milk and cinnamon applesauce and had his normal flare of eczema and diarrhea. Now I just have to figure out which one caused it. I am going to wait until his eczema clears and try one at a time to see what is causing it. I have a friend who said cinnamon is a known irritant to eczema which I did not know. Anyone else ever have problems with vanilla or cinammon.

My money's on the cinammon. It can irritate eczema, so it could just be a local skin irritation rather than a full-blown allergy. My DS used to get a rash from cinammon too, but he was never "officially" allergic. The diarrhea is concerning, though, so you might want to pull cinammon until you can get to the allergist for testing. When DS was younger, I used to keep a list on the fridge of items that it looked like he had a reaction to (and pull those foods from his diet). When my list got long enough to where I couldn't stand avoiding all those foods anymore, we would go into the allergist for testing. I hope you get it figured out-- Katie

 

[left210]

No we have not had a RAST test done; however, we did have a RAST test first with our older son and it was a nightmare. We had so many false positives with that one and he was so restricted and then come to find out when we had the prick test we found out most of them were false positives.
DS1 was only tested for the infant panel since he is only one so it only included the most common things. We will have him tested for vanilla and cinnamon when we return to the allergist but right now I am going to eliminate them until his eczema clears from this and then reintroduce them to see which one is causing the reaction. Thanks and I will check out the Food Allergy Network.

 

[disneyandme]

My DD5 is allergic to more foods than not. Feeding ehr has always been a challenge-- I second the poter who said corn is one of the hardest to avoid. We have just found a bread my DD5 can eat. It's the "new" Arnols 100% soft naturals line. We use the Whole wheat one. I just checked my bag and it's nut, egg, and dairy free. We just added wheat and egg this past 6 months. Check into it for a bread. I toast it with Pear butter (basically pureed pears) and make a little sandwich out of it. I think it would be too soft for a 1 yr old, but toasted would work. I don't know anything about the other flavors- white and honey wheat I think- but they have a decent website and even a local locater for where the breads are delivered.

 

[monorailsilver]

When people tell you about their lactose intolerant grandson Jeremy, don't wast the energy trying to argue.

I did have to LOL at this statement just because I have heard it many times over the past 5½ years. Countless people have told me that they get the runs if they have too much milk. Um..OK great, my kids throat swells, he gets frothy, he throws up & cries & thankfully Benadryl helps him right now.

Also how scary for your son with the cookie he ate. Thank goodness he was close to the ER.

 

[momma_mouse]

I don't want to take over this thread, but there seems to be a lot of people with multiple food allergy experiences on here. Through a RAST test as well as an elimination diet, we've just foudn out the past couple of days that DD2 is allergic to milk, soy and gluten. Does anyone have any product recomendations? I can get about anything ordered through our local health food stores, unless of course it is cheaper on line. Her allergist has wrote us a script for Elecare. Our insurance won't cover it but thank goodness we just barely meet the WIC guidelines so I called today and got an appoitment. They will cover it but it has to be approved through the state. They are going to get the ball rolling and get that started before our appoitment next week. Anyway, I would appreciate any tips anyone wants to share. We've been gluten free since December so that is not new to us, but adding these new allergies makes it harder as it seems everything has soy and/or milk in it.

 

[ursafetyfirst]

No nut, egg, fish. I found out at 13 mo. that he goes into anaphylaxis when he eats this stuff. The worst is the peanut, b/c it's in everything. A great cookbook is "The Kid-Friendly Allergy Cookbook" by leslie hammond. I cook in bulk and freeze for a quick meal or snack. It's wheat, dairy, egg, nut free, and low-sugar. My little bubble boy had really bad eczema too. Dr. prescribed hydrocortisone, and I ONLY use CeraVe wash, lotion, and cream on him. You would never know he has it now. Safeway noodles at Dominick's have no egg, or nut or dairy contact. I swear by them. I also use Safeway's corn oil, vegetable oil, and canola oil. Again they list the top 8 allergens, even if there's a chance they may contain one of them. O..O..O...Sunbutter....nut, egg, dairy free...made with sunflower seeds instead of peanuts, tastes better than peanut butter. Kids love it.... same nutritionally as peanut butter with 1/3 less saturated fat and twice the fiber. Caution: it is made on machinery shared with soybeans. U can get it at Jewel. Seriously, you and your kids will love it! Kraft, General Mills, and Safeway all have contain, or may contain labels. Check them every time though b/c they may add an allergen or come in contact with it once in a while, but they WILL list it if they do. They have ALL reassured me, and after a year of calling again anyway, that the top 8 allergens are always listed. I'm extremely careful and I still trust these labels. In time you will too. Telma is the only brand of boullion cube I've found that lists top 8 allergens and may contain traces of labels....also at Dominick's. Oh and for baking, cooking "The Spice Hunter" (u can google it) is the ONLY line of spices that doesn't come in any contact with peanut....they have serious cleaning of machinery for all the other 7 most common allergies but absolutely no peanut in facility. This after learning my pepper was made on peanut machinery. WHO KNEW? Argo baking powder and Argo cornstarch also safe. Arm and Hammer baking powder safe. Made on it's own line. Oh and Bertolli olive oil is the only one i've found that has no contact with nut or egg. It's made on it's own line. I also have lists that I sometimes use when I google nut, egg free foods. They give me lists I can click on and then I just add them to my favorites. And lastly, Cetaphil lotion, commonly prescribed for eczema...has macademia nut oil in it.

 

[left210]

No nut, egg, fish. I found out at 13 mo. that he goes into anaphylaxis when he eats this stuff. The worst is the peanut, b/c it's in everything. A great cookbook is "The Kid-Friendly Allergy Cookbook" by leslie hammond. I cook in bulk and freeze for a quick meal or snack. It's wheat, dairy, egg, nut free, and low-sugar. My little bubble boy had really bad eczema too. Dr. prescribed hydrocortisone, and I ONLY use CeraVe wash, lotion, and cream on him. You would never know he has it now. Safeway noodles at Dominick's have no egg, or nut or dairy contact. I swear by them. I also use Safeway's corn oil, vegetable oil, and canola oil. Again they list the top 8 allergens, even if there's a chance they may contain one of them. O..O..O...Sunbutter....nut, egg, dairy free...made with sunflower seeds instead of peanuts, tastes better than peanut butter. Kids love it.... same nutritionally as peanut butter with 1/3 less saturated fat and twice the fiber. Caution: it is made on machinery shared with soybeans. U can get it at Jewel. Seriously, you and your kids will love it! Kraft, General Mills, and Safeway all have contain, or may contain labels. Check them every time though b/c they may add an allergen or come in contact with it once in a while, but they WILL list it if they do. They have ALL reassured me, and after a year of calling again anyway, that the top 8 allergens are always listed. I'm extremely careful and I still trust these labels. In time you will too. Telma is the only brand of boullion cube I've found that lists top 8 allergens and may contain traces of labels....also at Dominick's. Oh and for baking, cooking "The Spice Hunter" (u can google it) is the ONLY line of spices that doesn't come in any contact with peanut....they have serious cleaning of machinery for all the other 7 most common allergies but absolutely no peanut in facility. This after learning my pepper was made on peanut machinery. WHO KNEW? Argo baking powder and Argo cornstarch also safe. Arm and Hammer baking powder safe. Made on it's own line. Oh and Bertolli olive oil is the only one i've found that has no contact with nut or egg. It's made on it's own line. I also have lists that I sometimes use when I google nut, egg free foods. They give me lists I can click on and then I just add them to my favorites. And lastly, Cetaphil lotion, commonly prescribed for eczema...has macademia nut oil in it.

Thank you so much for the info and you have solved a mystery for us. Derm always recommended Cetaphil and it made DS eczema so much worse. That explains it - nut oil. The only thing that worked for us too was Cerave. I am going to have to check by olive oil. We put EVOO in his rice milk to add some good fats. Pepper - who would have thought you would need to check that. It amazes me what is in some foods that you would never expect.