A bit of background on Finn, 14.5 mths
Early days:
He was born 1 week early although that's really debatable, I suspect more like on time
We tried BFing in hospital, and had lactation support, but he had a bad latch and was not a very patient eater, he wasn't getting enough so they supplemented
He started out on Enfamil A+ in hospital and we continued this at home
In the second week, he started showing signs of reflux/discomfort
MPI suspected, we switched to Nutramigen hypoallergenic formula
At 4 weeks we started a Zantac trial for reflux
At 8 weeks reflux was confirmed and we moved to a PPI, Prevacid fast tabs
At 5.5 mths, his silent reflux became spit up so it was recommended to try thickening with rice cereal...this would mean that an MPI would be ruled out because rice cereal has the milk proteins. He had no problems with the rice cereal and in fact ate better than he ever had...we weaned him off Nutramigen and put him on Good Start. Again no issues.
We made the switch to whole milk in the past couple of months, pretty much fully on whole milk by 13 mths. He has not shown any signs other than much more solid bowel movements - but he still goes usually after meals and doesn't seem to be bothered by them.
His nose started running at around 6 mths, we equated this with teething and in fact he now has all teeth with exception of the second molars so he was teething literally the entire time. But the nose continues to run. It's both nostrils, and mainly clear fluid. When he's got a cold he may get some yellow discharge, but mainly clear.
He started daycare at 12 mths in March and subsequently has been sick a lot:
February 12 - gastroenteritis
March 26 - gastroenteritis but also had a runny nose
April 8 - acute hives?? Paed said from tummy bug
April 13 - double ear infection detected, Cefzil prescribed, 10 day course
April 28 - pulling on ear at daycare, ear infection back (or still there), Cefprozil (better/stronger than Cefzil) prescribed, 10 day course
May 13 - had to pick up from daycare, fever, general malaise - reaction to MMR - this lasted about 4 or so days, doc detected fluid still in ears but no infection
May 20 or so - pulling ear again, spoke to doc, said if no fever not an infection - he has to ride it out, blah blah blah
May 31 - the start of whatever this is...high fever for 2 days, enlarged lymph nodes, runny nose, etc.
He has what appears to be a chronic cough, mostly at night and very mucous-y.
Medical care:
We have a very good paed and they are really hard pressed at the clinic to buy into a milk protein intolerance/allergy mainly because he has no other symptoms, correction, he has no real gastro symptoms. All of his illness and runny nose they attribute to his catching viruses, especially with the start of daycare. They consider it all very normal. They did concede it could be seasonal allergies and have provided a trial of Claritin for us. We did start the trial and he had about 2 dry nose days, but then about 2 days ago he got a high fever and started the eye watering, running nose business again and that was that.
I want my kid's nose to stop running! Is it likely that this could be a dairy intolerance and/or milk protein intolerance? Or is that one and the same? If we do a dairy-free trial should we cut out every last bit of dairy or just try stopping milk for a while i.e. switching to soy?
