Coping with food intolerances..

[Tezzy]

im totally at my wits end with Rhys and his food intolerances and i feel like such a bad mum.

A month ago we found out that Rhys has a milk intolerance so we have been avoiding dairy products like Milk, Cheese, Butter etc etc. But its been so difficult knowing what he can and cant eat and its been mostly trail and error.

For example last week i gave Rhys some rice pudding to see how he'd react and he projectile vomited, a few days later i put some cheese on his scrambled eggs and he was up all night with stomach cramps..

Its so difficult I dont like seeing him sick but i have to at least try him with foods to see if hes ok with them

Anyway the real reason for my rant is that yesterday i gave Rhys 5 small crackers as a snack with some ham. About an hour later he was showing all the signs of having tummy cramps and then he got a fever and things went downhill all night. The thing is i didnt even realise he couldnt eat the crackers otherwise i wouldnt have given them to him! Sure enough i looked on the packet and it said contains: Milk. Bloody wonderful.

So lastnight i was up till 4.45 with a screaming Rhys with tummy cramps and a temperature and it was all my fault

 

[Mamafy]

Its very hard I know, my 9 year old was diagnosed with egg/peanut/dust/aniaml allergies when she was just 9 months its bloomin hard work reading labels on EVERYTHING

my sympathies are with you..xx

 

[Layla]

its so hard!

Ethan had it from birth, it was worse when he could eat real food, i spent ages shopping coz i had to read all the labels, there waas 2 things he couldnt have, lactlose and something else, but i cant rmeember what it was now, managed to find him some really plain boring busciuts as snacks, it was horrible

Good news was that by 18 months he had grown out of it, hopefuly Rhys will too

x

 

[Tezzy]

Well along with all of Colins allergys too (onion, cucumber, peppers, garlic, leeks and courgette to name a few) im well and truely at my wits end to find a meal that we can all eat together so now im making 2/3 different meals every night

how did you realise your Ethan had grown out of it? did you just keep trying him with things?

 

[Layla]

yeah, the doc said he would most likely grow out of it so i just kept giving him a tiny bit of food with milk in each week (from when he was about 15 months old) untill he wasnt sick on it anymore, then i slowly weaned milk back in to his foods/diet

x

 

[bex]

I know what a nightmare food intollerances are. My son was lactose intolerant from 6 months old and also egg intolerant but has thankfully grown out of it at the age of 2 1/2. He's now 3 1/2 and can tollerate semi skimmed milk and milk products. You will need to check the labels on everything, you'll be surprised what milk is added to, chicken nugets, fish fingers etc!! I made my own nuggets and fish fingers. We found quite a lot of dairy free products (Tesco and Sainsburys are great) We used lactofree milk, I used this to make rice puddings, creamy sauces etc. Asda and tesco stock a vanilla ice cream called swedish glace which is very nice. Alpro soya do some nice yoghurts and chocolate flavoured deserts that my son still loves. Tesco also stock dairy free chocolate or you could try dark chocolate, although my son prefered the dairy free option, holland and barrett have dairy free smarties, choc footballs etc. We also started off by using expensive soya spreads but we now use vitalite margarine which is dairy free. I personally would avoid the free from products, my son hated them, i must admit they taste of cardboard!! Hope this helps a bit, shopping for the next few months will take forever but you will soon get used to what is ok and what is not. Also the dietician we saw said cheddar cheese can usually be tolerated as its very low in lactose. My son could tolerate a bit. Last thing places like mcdonalds and pubs have lists of what their foods contain you just have to ask. Good luck