Milk Challenge

[Nicola K]

My son has been confirmed allergic to milk and will be admitted to the hospital next month for a milk challenge.

I was wondering if anyone else had been through one of these and could tell me what to expect.  He is a typical 2-year old and will not eat or drink anything he does not want to - I can't imagine how on earth they will be able to get him to drink milk.

Thanks in advance

[Mom to M&M]

I'm not sure but perhaps they can try with chocolate milk or yogurt first? How has the milk allergy been confirmed? When was the last time he tried milk?

[Nicola K]

He was confirmed allergic through a skin test and also a blood test (we've seen symptoms since he was an infant)

He hasn't had milk based products in probably a year, however I can usually tell if he has eaten something that even contains traces of milk.  He had what appeared to be an anaphylactic reaction to a hot dog that was processed on machinery that also processes products containing milk - which is what prompted the Dr. to order the milk challenge.

[GraceKellysmom]

Why would the doctor order the challenge if he is still having reactions? Why would he intentionally expose him? Can't they just do a blood test to see if he's still allergic and when that comes back negative then do the challenge?

[Mom to M&M]

I agree with Stacy - if he had a serious reaction like an anaphlyactic one last time, I wouldn't want to put him through a challenge and would definitely ask for a blood test and skin prick test first.

[JennŠ]

Me too.  I don't see the logic of  challenge in a babe with such a serious reaction.

[Livvismum]

Hi there

I agree with the others. A milk challenge is usually to determine the likelihood/degree of anaphalaxis where an allergy is suspected (symptons, blood/skin tests) but the degree of the allergy is not clear. As your lo has had an anaphalaxis type reaction this seems uneccesary. What did the blood tests show in terms of severity (remembering that they are not a good indicator in children due to false readings)?

For your info, however, this is what happened at our milk challenge in our NHS hospital.
- Went in ladened with toys, and distractions and a few non allergenic snacks
- Worse part was when they fitted the cannula (so that if bad reaction could get fluids into her quickly)
- Long process, starts with a drop ont he hand, then every 45mins progressing to her cheek, chin, lip, tongue then onto drinking very small amount increasing to approx 150mls.
- She was not at all happy to drink more than 50ml in one go so we had to pretty much give up but the next day she had horrendous nappy so we realised that whilst she was not going to react severely to small amounts we weren't going to be giving her large amounts of milk as she is still very mildly allergic.
- Liv was 18months at the time

hth
Sara

[Nicola K]

Thanks for all the input.

The Dr. says that he doesn't think that it was actually an anaphylactic reaction as it was about 4 hours after he ate the hot dog.  However Max's reactions have always been quite delayed and that was part of the problem in diagnosing him.  However, I know my son well enough to know when he is having problems breathing (we'd never seen anything like this before or again for that matter).

We have had quite the run around getting him diagnosed in the first place.  It was only after lots of kicking and screaming on my part (and thanks to some good advice from you folks on the MSPI posting) that I was able to get him to an allergist in the first place. 

Once he was confirmed severely allergic to milk (and nuts) and he continued to have severe gas and vomited very frequently (turns out it was green beans that are part of the legume family like peanuts) so we were then sent to see a pediatric gastrointestinal specialist  This Dr. was an absolute idiot and had formed his opinions based on the referral letter before we even had seen him.  He decided that Max was not allergic to milk and was suffering from reflux and that we should put him on milk right away.  Thank god I didn't take his advice and we went back to see our family physician who then referred us to another paediatric specialist who is the one who has ordered the milk challenge.