> On Mon, 3 Apr 2000 20:08:40 EDT E Coloura <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> > My son too has cow's and soy milk protein. We're on Neocate for now.
> But, the
> > day he turns a year is less than two months away. Then we'll do a
> challenge.
> > I dread the day.
>
> Challenge of what??  Why do doctors think this is some
> magical day when
> they hit 1 year??
>
> The advice I'd been given was to challenge after 6 months or more of
> strict avoidance and no reactions - but mine didn't have a
> positive skin
> test either.  The only way to tell if there was a change was to do a
> challenge.  We usually had some minor infraction along the
> way that told
> me she was still intolerant of the foods we knew about.  Most of the
> stuff we determined the intolerance through the breastmilk, and the
> allergist recommended we just avoid until she was at least 2
> in order to
> let her bowel heal, then try again.  Plus she developed nasal
> allergies
> which made it impossible to tell a challenge reaction from an
> environmental coincidence.  At age 3 she's finally becoming less
> sensitive.

My allergies started at 10 weeks, when although I was being breastfed,
the nanny decided to give me and the other girl she looked after (two
weeks older and severe asthmatic - although they didn't know that then)
ice cream (it was a hot summers day).  Took a few weeks of us both
reacting before our mothers (both school teachers who shared a nanny)
sussed out what was going on - as far as they knew all we were getting
was expressed breast milk in bottles.  No disrespect to the nanny
though, she was a very sweet old lady who had never heard of milk
allergies - this was the days when all kids got a half pint of milk at
school a day and food allergies were virtually unheard of.

When our siblings were planned, my mother happened to be at a child
health conference where an American (even then they must have led the
world in having and studying allergies!) professor specialising in
allergies was speaking on allergies.  So she asked them what she should
do during her next pregnancy and after.  His advice was to not only
exclude dairy products during her pregnancy but that my mother should
have no dairy products herself whilst breastfeeding and slowly introduce
them to the child after 3.  No "challenges", just a couple of
spoonfulls, gradually increased.  Don't know whether this was overkill
but my brother can drink milk by teh glassful with no ill effects
whatsoever.  Maybe he was never going to be allergic, but I intend
following the same regime.

Wasn't easy either in those less enlightened days, when everything was
"fortified" with extra milk!

My specialist and I talked this over (with a view to my future kids) and
he said (IIRC) something about challenges (normal portions of an
allergic food) being fine for adults but not for children and especially
not pre-schoolers.  He basically said my Mum had done the right thing
with my brother and quite likely those big portions of ice cream at 10
weeks triggered my problems.

Anyway, that was blethering a bit, but its what happened with me.

My kids will never be "challenged", I'll try them on a little mouthful
now and then and see what happens, if nothing happens, it'll be slowly
increased til either something does or they are eating normally.

Megan