I have learned so much over the last few years that some days it is hard to think about what to share…there is so much.
For about 6 months to a year we fought horrible allergies with my son. The allergies were so bad, they were causing blisters on a nearly daily basis on the skin of my son’s diaper area. It was horrifying. Diaper changes were a nightmare. I would often cry after diaper changes. The doctors could not figure it out. Eventually we ended up at a dermatologist and urologist at the children’s hospital. The treatments would help but not eliminate the problem. It was continually changing. Yeast. Staph. Allergy. Something would help then we would stop the treatment and the problem would come back. It was miserable for him and me.
Eventually by luck we (me not the doctors that we paid the big bucks) figured out the main culprit was a neurotoxin, iodopropynyl butylcarbamate. We had not changed the baby wipes we were using but the company had added this ingredient to the baby wipes causing a very adverse reaction in my son. After it was completely eliminated from his products we have had no blisters. Yeah!!
While we were going through this above allergy issue my son was also having GI issues. All the doctors insisted he was not allergic to milk. I kept asking, are you sure? No. When I was nursing him as a young baby he would get oral thrush if I drank any milk within a few hours of him nursing. I had not nursed in quite a while so had kinda forgotten. He had been eating cheese for a long time so it did not seem like it should be the culprit.
One day I had just had enough of the GI issues and said I am just gonna stop milk again. I started giving him soy milk again. He got better for a few days then it got worse again. We gave up again as the results were not consistent. The next time he got sick the only thing he would eat was granola bars. He was not getting better like he should have been after a few days of feeling ill. I took the package and looked at the ingredients. There was no milk but there was whey. The same protein that is removed when making cheese. We have a winner! When we had stopped milk before we had not completely removed all products that had milk in them specifically, WHEY!
Whey, was the key to all successes. He is a completely different child now. After about six weeks he was nearly completely recovered and the best part he talks!! He can use better descriptive words then his older siblings after all those months of no talking [by talking I mean no attempt to communicate verbally or non-verbally].
At first I was really worried about all the favorite foods that he would miss out on because they contain dairy or that it was going to be so hard to prepare food for him, constantly making something different. It has been so easy and has benefited other family members as well. For the most part we are a dairy free family now but we still eat our favorite foods.
HOW TO SWITCH
Most of the time it is really easy. We are also soy free as it was worse for our family then milk. Most recipes we just switch milk for rice milk or almond milk. The first change was in pancakes if you have read my blogs you probably could have guessed. I simply substitute either one of the other milks for the milk that is called for in the recipe. Muffins same thing. Butter is sometimes harder because of the texture, I use oil where I can or fruit puree if oil does not work.
My husbands favorite is Alfredo. At first I thought it was no longer an option. I was so wrong! I made a cream white sauce with the rice milk and it is so much better then the Campbell’s soups we used before. Tomato soup is the one thing that we have found is so much better with milk but we did make it dairy free too…fresh from the garden!
Yogurt was another favorite of my son’s. He gets the coconut milk yogurts. They are expensive but he loves them. I am hoping to try and make them at home one of these days.
Dairy free takes a little more time but the reward is exponentially worth it!