First things first, Roman is 8 months old today! Crazy!!
What I have discovered is if I want to continue nursing Roman, I would have to give up ALL FOODS that contain milk, peanuts and eggs. Do you know what that leaves? Nothing!!! Well, some things, but BARELY anything. Go to www.foodallergy.org and you can do some research yourself :). I would list all the ingredients I would need to avoid, but that would be about a page of information, which you don't really about enough to care to read... :). As much as I love the idea of giving up all dairy, eggs and peanut (pb&j...) I don't think I can. I've wrestled with myself, and God over it, and have come to the conclusion to just to put him on some formula.
Now the question is: what formula??
With there being 18 million kinds of formulas out there, I had a pretty easy way to narrow it down. It can't have milk in it, and I don't want him on soy. I've done some research on that too, and found some disturbing facts about it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjZs0DGW1Jk&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch%3Fq%3Dmercola%2Bsoy%26www_google_domain%3Dwww.google.com%26hl%3Den%26emb%3D0%26aq%3D0%26oq%3Dmercola%2B&feature=player_embedded and don't want to put it in my child. I've also considered goats milk... but it wouldn't be much different than cow's milk plus it lacks folic acid and iron. I can't remember exactly how I came across Neocate, maybe in a forum or on another website, but I decided to look into it.
Neocate is an amino acid based formula. What this means is that the protein molecules are completely broken down into their purest form, instead of being in a link or chain. As a result it is considered a hypoallergenic. What else is it contains NO MILK and is manufactured in a facility that is free of milk anything, so there is no risk of cross-contamination. Their website: http://www.neocate.com/aaa_neocate/1128-neocate-home-page.html, is quite thorough in describing in more detail why this is so effective. At this point, after a long night (i think we stayed up 'til almost 1am) of researching, I decided I was really comfortable with trying it out, so I looked up to see how much it costs. OH MY! If you were to purchase it from the website, a case of 4-14oz cans would cost you $140. Hello, Ebay! :) I found 2 cans for $40. Done! So I bought them and hopefully will get them later this week.
In the meantime, I decided to check and see if WIC would cover it. Cause if they did, we would get it at no cost to us! hot dang. I made a call, and found out that all i needed was a prescrip. from the doctor. Easy enough, right? Apparently not! I have been on the phone with McFarland Clinic the last 2 days, all day long. I wasn't sure if the prescrip. needed to be written by his pediatrician, or the allergist, so i called both. This is where my frustration kicks in big time.
For some reason or other, the allergy doctor was trying to get me to use soy (which i explained to them i didn't want to use) cause it's "cheaper", but funny, the pediatric dr advised i stay away from soy. And then they wanted me to try nutramigen (by Enfimil) or Alimentum (by Similac). Well, I was at target a little while ago and decided to look at the ingredients that are in Alimentum. Guess what I found. The 2nd ingredient is casein! This is a form of milk protein! So I asked the nurse to read me the ingredients in the Nutramigen and guess what she found. Casein. I rest my case. Not going down that road. :) The pediatric doctor the nurses spoke with told me that their problem with neocate is that it's high in calories and calcium, (for his age) to which i thought, 'well, can't I dilute it?' My mind is made up. We're using the neocate.
I'm still waiting on the doctors to fax over the prescription to the WIC department. It's frustrating to no end because I feel as though my breast milk is, in a way, poison to Roman. I know that's not realllly true, but it feels like it because it has all that he is allergic to, in it. This is why he doesn't sleep well, and grunts all the time, and is super gassy and always has a tummy ache. I don't know why the doctor doesn't feel like this is more urgent than he thinks it is, and it's quite irritating. If I can give Roman something that is safe for his allergies and relieve him of some pain, why not start NOW?!?
Anywho. I bought 1 can from the drugstore we use and plan on giving him a bottle of it today. Fingers crossed, but i have a good feeling about it. I aslo picked up his Epipen.... hope i never have to use it.
2 comments:
Wow-I’m so impressed by all of the research you have done on milk protein allergy and formulas! I’m actually a Nutrition Specialist with Nutricia, the company who manufactures Neocate and also the mom of a 1 year old baby girl who is using Neocate for severe allergic reflux due to milk allergies. Your concerns about different formulas are right on - 70% of children with a milk allergy are also allergic to soy and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against using soy to manage milk allergies. Hydrolysate formulas like Nutramigen or Alimentum are broken into smaller pieces making the formula easier to digest, but as you noticed when looking at the ingredients, they are still based on milk proteins ,which means they might not help all children with severe milk allergies.
How has Roman done so far with the Neocate sample you received from your pharmacy? If he has responded well, you should definitely let your pediatrician/allergist know that and encourage them to write you a prescription. In response to the doctors concern about calories, Neocate has 20 calories per ounce, which is standard for all infant formulas. Also, the calcium is an essential nutrient for growth, and is especially important since your son is allergic to milk.
You might also be interested in a product we recently launched called Neocate Nutra. It’s the first hypoallergenic, milk protein-free semi-solid medical food for children and infants over 6 months of age and is great for helping transition infants onto solid foods. It’s about the same consistency as yogurt and is also a good source of iron and vitamin D. If you’re interested, you can find more information on Neocate’s Web site at: http://www.neocate.com/aaa_neocate/16153-product-neocate-nutra.html. I’d also be happy to send you a sample if you would like to try it. Just email me your address at babyhealthblog@ecius.net.
One quick word of caution about ordering formula on Ebay – while you might find prices to be slightly cheaper on these sites, you have no way of verifying who is selling you the product and if it is expired. You also don’t know if the formula has been stored properly, which could cause the ingredients to be altered. The person selling the formula could have tampered with the product making it dangerous for your little one to drink.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!
Hi,
I came across your blog today and thought I would reply with a little information that might also help. I have a friend who's son is severely allergic to peanuts as well, also has a milk intolerance, and allergic to food coloring(especially-red dye). He had 17 ear infections before his first birthday :( They chose to stop vaccinating and his ear infections vanished, seemed to be caused by allergies. Not that I'm suggesting you stop, but I thought I would give you some info. on the vaccines that do contain eggs, peanut oil(soy peptone), and milk protein(lactose, bovine protein, casamino acid) since manufactures are not required to label warning possible allergies, like food labels do. It might prevent his allergies from worsening.
Some contain milk protein - Dtap, pneumococcal, meningacoccal
Eggs - flu shots, yellow fever(south america/africa vaccine) and mmr contains trace amounts
Peanut Oil - some Hib
I didn't do a thorough look but those are a few that easily caught my eye.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf
http://www.vaccinetruth.org/peanut_oil.htm
http://build7.medseek.com/websitefiles/DrGreene7433405/html/21_522.html
Anyways, I hope your little man stays well, it sounds like he may have a bumpy road ahead.
Best of luck!
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