I am just wondering if anyone has experience of a problem with milk in their diet. My daughter has had a lot of problems with bad stomach pains, often keeping her awake at night and leaving her very tired, this has gone on for months and we now think it is related to milk consumption. However the GP thinks this is nonsense even though she is loads better since we switched recently to soya milk. We would like to have her tested to check if possible but he doesn't think there is a test worth doing. Has anyone been tested to check for food intolerance, was it useful? Would love to hear if anyone has experience of this.

There are blood tests that can be done for food sensitivities. But at the end of the day the best test is what you have done which is to substitute cows milk for soya milk which has helped.
When my son was a baby he was diagnosed with an actual cows milk allergy (rather than an intolerance)
This was diagnosed by a paediatrician in hospital but he never had any actual 'tests' . It was done on his history , his symptoms and the fact that as soon as dairy products were removed from his diet he blossomed and his constant diarrhoea and vomiting stopped! We had to be extremely careful with his diet for years but luckily he grew out of it (he had to have a monitored egg and milk trial to see his reaction)
We were warned though that it may well recur in his teenage years, but luckily he has been ok.
I would try eliminating dairy products for a few weeks and see if she feels better, then maybe try introducing them and see if she has a tummy ache again.
If she doesn't get better then you should ask your GP to refer her to a gastroenterologist.
Good luck!

Thankyou that is interesting. Yes I suppose the best test is to exclude milk products from her diet, but we were concerned about leaving her lacking in necessary nutrition eg calcium. Having changed to soya milk there is a big difference, not 100% but then she has still been having a little cheese. Enough of a difference to be fairly sure though, and we also have relatives who can't have milk, but yes this must be lactose intolerance not milk allergy. She has been referred to the hospital paediatrician as well but I expect we will have to wait quite a while for an appointment.

I've seen 'lactose-free' milk in the supermarket, or at least lactose-reduced. Also you could try goats milk which I seem to remember some people tolerate better than cows milk. Thomas never had a calcium supplement and he was on soya milk from the shop for a few years once he stopped having wysol on prescription.--he's got great teeth by the way!
You have to be careful to check labels as it's amazing where you find lactose (some ready salted crisps for example!) and it doesn't take much to cause a tummy ache

My dad has a wheat allergy & I always try & browse the "free" section at supermarkets & there are so many products now readily available, clearly marked of what they are free from! Sainsburys does a dairy free custard I think!!!  You just need to get into the habit of picking items up & reading through the ingredients or look for the list of what it's free from!

My son had gastroenteritous (sp!!) a few years back and we had to put him on a lactose free diet to kill the bug in his stomach. Many of the supermarkets (we use asda) have lists of lactose free products at their customer services desks. At the time we didn't realise their was lactose even in certain baked bean juices!!! You would be very surprised. But it was possible and quite easy to do and best of all it worked!!

A friend of mine cannot drink cows milk because it makes her ill, so she switched to goats milk....she's been fine ever since.

We will investigate the lactose free products, and fortunately she likes soya milk so not too difficult, but I am not sure whether you get dairy free chocolate! That could be a bit tricky.

ohh tricky

I'm lactose intolerant.  I discovered it accidentally really.  Have IBS as well and got a book about it, one of the major factors that could bring on symptoms was dairy or yeast products.  At the time, I used to have a lot of dairy food, mainly milk.  I felt sick all the time, had bad sinuses and migraines.  So I thought I'd give up the dairy and see what happened.  It took about 3 days - all symptoms gone.

I do still have dairy foods occasionally, because I find that the symptoms sort of build up so to speak.  First couple of days having dairy, sickness of a night time, after that the sinuses become blocked then leading to a full blown migraine.

I had a test done with York test.  Just out of curiosity really and to see if I really was intolerant to dairy.

It came back that I was intolerant to dairy, yeast, white fish, egg white and pineapple (of all things lol).

Dairy and yeast give build up symptoms.  So does egg white but much slower.  Haven't worked out what white fish or pineapple do to me lol.

I avoid all for the most part but there are times when pizza followed by ice cream is needed pmsl - i pay for it later lol.

I find the so good soya milk is the best - added calcium in that.  Also goats milk yoghurt doesn't affect me.

Nikki x

Hi honeybee. you can get carob choc in health food shops but never found it very satisfactory (things may have moved on a bit since then)
The chocolate thing is a bit difficult at Easter but if your daughter is lactose intolerant rather than allergic to dairy then perhaps she could have a little bit of choc for a treat as Nikki was saying in her post.
I remember making 'chocolate truffles' for Thomas--cocoa powder mixed with icing sugar and dairy free marg, made into little balls and rolled in sugar sprinkles. He thought his special chocolate was really great, bless him!

I think you're going to struggle with dairy free chocolate, however Sainsburys do Freefrom Chocolate Brownies & Chocolate Chip Cookies which have no dairy or wheat - could be a nice Easter treat!. Their website is also really useful, they have a section of their webiste dedicated to allergy & food intolerances. Hope that helps!

My sister is really Lactose Intolerant.  She couldnt have any dairy, without getting sick.  She got sick to her stomach, stomach pains, and was constantly in the washroom.

So we stopped having dairy in the house (when she was still living here).  The doctor didnt do any tests, because they said that it was so obvious that it was the dairy, so just to not have it and she would be fine.

Now, there is a new pill on the market, that my sister takes.  Its really good if you can get it overseas.  Its called Lactaid.  It breaks down the lactose, and makes it so she can have a pizza slice or something without getting sick.  Now she cant go overboard (she did, right after she saw that she could eat a pizza slice, and she went to eat the whole pizza the next time she got pizza!)  You wouldnt believe how happy she is, to have this pill.  She takes it before supper (or whenever she wants some dairy products) and waits 10 minutes, and then she can have the milk products.

I believe they can do scopes for Lactose as well.  Where they put a camera down your espohogus, and see what damage you have done to your stomach and intestines.  I know my mom had it done for both Lactose and Celiac.  It is really uncomfortable, though.  I wouldnt want to go through it as a child, or someone with a bad gag reflex.  But the diagnosis is more accurate.

it does sound like lactose intolerance but i'd be making sure that your doctors checking for everything it might be- there are so many probs you can have with your stomach- heliobacter (SP?), ibs etc... my docs wrote off the stomach problems i've been having for a couple of years now as ibs- 2 years on they've only just diagnosed crohnes disease. make sure they check her out properly!

Wow what a lot of useful information. To Jakieboy - can you tell me what the 'York test' is? I wonder if it is a blood test and if you had it done on the NHS or privately?
So far the difference in our daughter is tremendous just from switching to soya but I will make sure she is properly checked out too, it is not always very easy to work out what causes this kind of problem. Will investigate Sainsbury's products and will give the 'chocolate truffles' a try. I don't really think it will be that hard to keep her off dairy as she is so desperate to feel well again she turned down her favouite school lunch of Macaroni cheese yesterday!   

poor thing, she has my sympathy- mines made this year at uni particularly hard (great in my honours year!!), good luck to you both!

Thanks Astarte. By the way just realised you are in Dundee, so am I, it is a small world!!

oh! there seem to be a few of us actually, cheekychows from here to!

http://www.yorktest.com/html/about-us/  :)

They also test pet animals for intolerance...

Lindsay
x

Lindsay beat me to it lol - costs a fair bit, but I think it was worth it.

Nikki xx