Unfortunately for her, sweet little Gemma seems to have inherited her mom's extremely allergic tendencies. A few weeks ago, when we tried her on some Enfamil formula for the first time, she got very red and swollen around the mouth, and a little blotchy on the arms. We thought it could potentially be a milk allergy, but we weren't sure. And she has never reacted to any dairy or anything in my diet, so it seemed odd. Then we tried her on some soy formula. She absolutely hated the soy formula - she gagged every time we tried to feed it to her and never really got used to it. And for 7 days, she didn't have a bowel movement. We switched her back to straight breast milk in hopes that would get things moving. We tried dark Karo syrup for a few days, but that didn't work. We eventually had to give her a suppository.
Since we weren't sure what caused the allergic reaction in the Enfamil, it was suggested to us that we try Similac since the composition of the two is a bit different. We bought some of the basic Similac, but I was pretty scared to try it. I finally worked up the courage yesterday. I gave her 2 oz. Similac with 2 oz. breast milk at 8:30 am. She didn't even seem to notice the difference - she gulped it down, and I didn't see any reaction. I was feeling very encouraged. At 11:30, we tried another half-and-half bottle and she did really well again. It looked like we finally found something that would work. Then around 2 pm, I noticed her mouth was looking a little red. Then her whole face. Then her arms. By the time Cy got home from work, her entire body was red and splotchy, with some swelling.
I called our pediatrician but they were already closing for the day so they sent us to a pediatric after-hours urgent care at St. Francis. When eventually we got in to see the doctor there, she pretty much refused to believe that it was an allergic reaction because she'd never seen such a strong allergic reaction in a small baby before. We were like, Here is your first. Deal with it. She kept claiming that it was eczema, but we kept telling her that this had happened mildly before with the Enfamil and that it clearly correlated with the Similac this time. She still kept mentioning eczema, but did finally agree that poor little Gemma is one super-allergic baby. She gave us a prescription for some special cortisone cream to put on her. She also said that Gemma would probably develop an allergy to soy protein eventually too, and said that she should be on just breast milk (although she wanted me to eliminate dairy in my diet, even though Gemma has never had a problem with it), and if we really needed to supplement, we needed to try the Similac Alimentum or another comparable hypo-allergenic, protein-free formula (which is basically the most expensive formula around).
We got the cream, got her home, and let her roll around under the fan in just her diaper for awhile to help her cool down since her skin was so hot to the touch. I got a cup of cool water and sponged her off. Then we applied some of the cream. We put it on just one part of her face to make sure that it worked (and that it didn't cause her to break out even more). When it seemed to help, we applied a thin layer to some of the worst spots. Then we put her down for the night in her lightest sleepy-time outfit. We got up a couple of times to check on her and make sure she was doing all right. This morning she seems much better - her skin has cleared up a lot.
We are just going to have to be very careful with this poor little girl as she unfortunately appears to be as allergic as her mom already. The good news is that she weighed around 11 pounds 4 ounces yesterday, so she is still gaining weight despite all of her feeding issues. For now, she is back to exclusively breast milk and the latest scare has given me the motivation to suffer through at least a little more of the pumping. I may just try to hang in there until next May despite all my issues. But hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be feeling brave enough to try her on the hypo-allergenic formula. Next time I will just give her a very small sampling and then wait an entire day to make sure no reactions occur. Poor little Gemma. I really hate it for her. Being super allergic is definitely no fun.
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