Right. And the conventional wisdom does not apply to all cases. Those 
in the "allergic 2%" - highly allergic and/or with multiple atopic 
disorders - may never outgrow theirs. Our highly atopic 21-year-old 
is still highly allergic to milk.

My mild childhood symptoms got significantly worse starting at age 17.

I have heard of a few cases where a child with a hair-trigger 
reaction to dairy completely disappeared at roughly age ten.

Pretty much everybody's mileage differs :-)

And the other things mentioned below are considerations. It may be 
that the reactivity lessens but is still there - I've heard that 
described as "sub-clinical." So the patient might not suffer 
anaphylaxis, but the presence of dairy might make hay fever or asthma 
worse; or might raise the patient closer to their threshold, so some 
lesser allergen might then push them over the edge.

I know our family (my three boys and I) are off of dairy for the rest 
of our lives - unless there's a cure.

Mark

>Not all children who are truely allergic( anaphylactic) to milk 
>outgrow a milk protein allergy.  According to our 
>allergist/pulminologist as they get older they usually "tolerate" 
>milk broken down such as "whey" in a baked good and by the time they 
>are adults will not react anaphylactically any longer to parts of 
>milk that the protein has been broken down such as "whey" . But even 
>if not anaphylactic(medical emergency) they would still be 
>considered allergic and the symptoms will/can manifest themselves 
>differently i.e. stomach upset, congestion, eczema etc.....