Milk Allergy
This is the
topic likely to inspire heated reactions.
Like Pandora’s Box, it probably is best left
alone. But I can’t. It is a subject too
common to ignore.
I owe my
audience the wisdom of my astute mentor, Dr.
William Deamer. It stood my patients well
over 32 years of practice.
The milk
industry has developed the most whimsical of
ads: “Milk has something for everybody”.
“Everybody needs milk” But there are
potential consequences.
Milk
allergy most commonly presents as colic and
spitting up in babies. Irritability,
restlessness, excessive crying, rashes and
eczema are frequent occurrences.
Milk
allergy masquerades as recurrent infections
in toddlers. Think of milk allergy when
there is one cold after another, recurrent
ear infections, bed wetting, and difficult
behavior.
Mild
allergy expresses itself in children with
recurrent headaches, stomach aches, and leg
aches. (There is no such thing as growing
pains!)
Mild
allergy in adults may take the form of
‘migraine’ or “ulcers”.
A recurring
theme of the child with milk allergy is
their wholesale avoidance of milk except
with chocolate.
Dr. Deamer
would impress families with this ditty:
“Nature provides all females of all animal
species, breasts, to feed one’s own young.
(Only man gets mixed up and looks for milk
elsewhere.) And these same animals once
weaned from their mother’s milk, never drink
another drop of milk the rest of their
live.” “Further, man on tampering with
nature, will pay the piper.”
To test
whether milk underlies symptoms, avoid it
for 3 weeks. Should there be remarkable
improvement, “viola, you have it”. Pay
yourself $50 for servicing the cure.
Bill Ziering
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