Diagnosing Child #1

I first realized that something was wrong with my son's diet when he was about 2 weeks old and was up at night wheezing. He didn't seem to be sick, but thinking maybe a cold was coming on, I went to the store in the middle of the night to get a humidifier. It didn't help at all. His next symptom was projectile vomiting. At this point he was mostly breastfed with a little supplementing of regular milk-based formula. I read in the book What To Expect The First Year that projectile vomiting was often a sign of a milk allergy. Unfortunately I cannot remember many of the details of the situation because I was so sleep deprived, but I know that shortly after reading this particular book I changed my diet to be rid of all milk sources (but I was still able to have traces of milk just fine). My son improved dramatically. His vomiting stopped. His "sick" symptoms went away. At his 2 month well baby visit, his doctor diagnosed him with a type of milk allergy (milk protein intolerance). I supplemented with soy formula. It took me a few months to get used to eating the different diet. Once I made a spaghetti mix packet and didn't read the label carefully to see that there was dried milk or some other milk product in it. He vomited for the next 24 hours after he ate my breast milk that was contaminated with the dairy. It usually took 4 hours for the dairy to enter my breast milk supply, and then another 24 hours for it to get out. Whenever I ate something on accident that had dairy I would have to pump the next 24 hours while my son had soy formula in a bottle. His growth was minimal, but he was healthy until age six months when he started to get sick frequently.

Purpose of this blog

I created this blog to #1) track information about MSPI-friendly foods and #2) share with the online community what I have learned from raising two children with MSPI.

My boys have what I consider to be a more severe form of MSPI. They cannot tolerate any form of cow's milk or soy (including soy oil/soy lecithin), any nutrients derived from cow's milk, any traces of milk or soy, or the gums that are similar to soy (guar gum and arabic/acacia gum).

In the beginning of their diagnosis I really struggled to find foods that I could feed them, whether those foods be homemade or prepared. Because I was nursing my younger child, I also had to alter my diet so that it was free of all the foods my baby couldn't digest himself.

For this blog I plan to share our story more in-depth as well as go into detail on allergy labeling and "safe" brands.