Hi all,

  I am new to this group and I am hoping you can all help me out!  Well,
let's see as the title says I have so many questions I don't know where to
start :-)

First, my husband has a milk allergy -supposedly he is allergic to the milk
protein not lactose (this was diagnosed by his parents-not a
pediatrician-although his mom is a nurse and his dad is a doctor).  This
was diagnosed when he was around 7 years old.  What I would like to know is
is there some kind of allergy test-like they for other allergies to see
*what exactly* you are allergic too?

Right now, his symptoms are if he eats cheese (say like on pizza), he has
to have quite a bit, but then he gets dark circles under his eyes, stomach
upset, and has a hard time breathing.  He would never chance drinking milk
or eating ice cream.  I have picked up some toffuti desserts for him(I
think they are soy based) that don't seem to bother him...

I just really want to know if there is any way to really be sure that this
isn't just a lactose thing because if it were then he could just use things
like lactaid and Ithink things might be a lot easier on him...

He just started having really bad stomach problems (diarrea all night, gas
pains, etc) and had to go have an ultrasound-we do not know yet whether the
allergy is related..

Enough about him, now I have a 1 year old daughter.  When she was born we
told the doctor about my husband's allergy and she said to not even try a
milk-based formula and to start right away with the soy.  Now she is at the
age where she should start having milk instead of formula.  I started off
trying yogurt and pudding and cheese and she seems to have no problem with
these.  I then tried adding milk to her formula-an extra ounce every day of
milk.  The first day she did fine and the second and third were okay too,
but the 4th day, where she had 3oz or milk mixed with 4 oz of formula in
her bottle she cried for an hour and a half for no apparent reason and had
runny stools all day long... (I stopped the milk and the next day she was
fine) I called the doctor and they said maybe I just went too fast and to
try increasing only by  1/2 oz for a week and go up by 1/2 oz each week.
I'm hoping that this works, but I was wondering with her too whether there
is an easy way to figure out whether it is lactose, milk proteins, or
something else all together???  What other symptoms should I look for when
I try the milk again?  I've heard terrible sotries of kids tongues
swelling, hives, etc... and it is making me very nervous!

Any ideas, and/or suggestions would be great!

Sorry this got soo long, but thanks for reading (if you got this far :-))

-julie