Not sure what to do here, in a bit of a bind. Maybe some of you have some thoughts or ideas....bear with me, this is choppy:
DS diagnosed MPI at 17 weeks. Trialled soy, didn't get on with it too well. Went to Nutramigen at 20 weeks. Been an amazingly healthy happy boy ever since. Had some touch and go with introducing soy products (ie/ bread which in the UK contains soy flour) but by 11 months establised he is okay on soy. Have been giving him soy yogurts, puddings, etc since 11 months and he's fine.
12 months old, moved to Germany. No Nutramigen here. Other brands of hydrolysate formula though. Brought as much Nutramigen as we could skive from the chemist and through customs with us but 6 weeks on it's pretty much gone.
About 2 - 3 weeks ago DS accidentally got some butter. He was fine for 24 hours. Paed at home (UK, before we moved to Germany) told me he needed to be on a hydrosolate formula and dairy free (Nutramigen, Alimentum, etc) until 18 - 24 months, UNLESS he got some dairy by accident and was fine, in which case to slowly reintroduce dairy and see. So, after the butter incident, we started with bits of cheese, stopped reading labels in things for hidden milk (was SO difficult to do reading German food labels anyway) and he's been fine. I tried yogurt one day, just a few licks off of my spoon, and he pooped very shortly after and it was pretty much water
The yogurt was full cream yogurt (not sure the fat percentage in that or what it would compare to, but it was very heavy). So don't know if that makes a difference.
Finally got into a doctor here (took a bit to sort health insurance). Lovely paediatrician, speaks enough English to be comfortable in speaking with me, but at the same time, is definitely not bilingual. She immediately said to put him on Neocate. I was pretty shocked - I would think that we wouldn't move him to a more broken down milk at 12 months? Seems going backwards to me? I really pushed and told her I didn't want to do that, but she gave me a trial packet and said to see how it goes, come back in 2 days. Soooo, I left, sans prescription for milk. Went back two days later and told her that he refused to drink it....which was a lie, the packet is sitting on my counter
(Was that REALLY bad of me to do?)
She gave me a script for Nestle Althera, which is a brand of hydrolysate formula, same as Nutramigen is, just that Germany doesn't do Maed Johnson products, they do Nestle products. But it has lactose in it. Nutramigen is lactose free. Nestle does another formula called ALFARE which is the same again, but I believe it is lactose free. She keeps hesitating about giving me the ALFARE and I can't figure out why - but I did come home and read the Nestle website and they have heaps of info about the Althera and none about the ALFARE so I don't know if it is being discontinued or something...not sure.
Soooooooooo this is getting long, sorry. Have been slowly using the Althera the past three or four days, mixing with my last savoured tin of Nutramigen. After 3 days, I am up to 50-50 and all day DS has had waterey poops. As in, poop that is just water. I do think that it is the lactose - I know that your body can take a while to get used to lactose if you've been lactose free. But how long will it take? I only have a couple of days until the Nutramigen is gone....
SOOOOOO my choices --
Keep with the Althera and when the Nutramigen is gone, plod on and hope he builds up a lactose tolerance?
Switch to alpro soy as his milk and try to add fats some other way? I hate this idea, I just don't think of that soy milk as being "enough" for him....he loves his milk, he needs his milk as he's not a big eater and I don't know...
Start working towards cow's milk?
When the Nutramigen runs out, mix the Althera with soy milk bit by bit until he can drink the straight Althera with no problems?
Let her put him on Neocate?
Or...........??
Yes, I can go back to the doctor and speak to her. Not really sure what she will say. The hesitation in that one is that I have to walk up to the office (30 minute trek uphill) to book the appt because the receptionists don't really speak enough English to do it over the phone. And then the next day go for the appointment. So really I am just being lazy. Plus, I go back in two weeks time for another vaccination so I could just talk to her then, but by that time will be out of Nutramigen. SO maybe I only need a temporary solution?
ARGH.. I'm sorry this is long winded, I didn't expect it to be. Any ideas or thoughts or suggestions on what I should do?