A sensitive soul

I have written a little before about Baby E’s intolerance/allergy that we picked up on shortly after he was born. At first, we believed that he was lactose intolerant, but after we switched him to a milk protein free formula and he thrived and after we finally got an appointment with an allergy specialist, we discovered that he has a (mild) allergy to milk protein, but thankfully that he is not allergic to eggs.

As Baby E was about four and a half months old at that time, the allergy doctor ran through how best to introduce solids into his diet as it would be a slower process than normal owing to the risk of him being allergic to other foods too. Luckily, it was all plain sailing though and Baby E gobbles down any food that is given to him (and attempts to eat quite a few things that aren’t). Even foods that are often allergy red flags (strawberries and kiwi fruit, for example) have had no effect on him.

We returned to the allergy doctor last week for Baby E’s eight month follow-up. Another skin prick test revealed that he seems not longer to have a problem with milk protein, which was exactly what we had been hoping for.

So, the next stage is for us to return next week for a morning at the clinic where we give him normal formula and see if he reacts. We’ll start off by giving him 5ml of formula for newborns and wait 20 minutes. If there is no reaction, then we’ll repeat the process with 10ml and wait 20 minutes. Then we’ll try 15ml and wait, 20ml and wait, and so on.

Given that the way he reacted to normal formula before was to scream and scream and writhe and vomit and come out in raised red patches on his arms and legs, I am really hoping that he can tolerate milk protein and has outgrown this allergy (as is often the case in babies his age). I am counting down the days until we go for, what I hope will be, the final allergy test for Baby E nonetheless. I feel sure that the skin prick test result last week means that he is going to be okay. Because, really, life in Sweden is going to pretty difficult for him if he cannot eat any dairy…