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Similac Formulas


Rowena

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Rowena Rising Star

My 2 almost 3 month old is on Similac Alimentum due to a milk allergy, but since I've got a gluten intolerance, I'm also worried it might manifest itself with him.  Its supposed to be easy on the the tummy for babies with food allergies... But I was wondering is it really without gluten?  Or ANY formula for that matter?  I mean when I read the can I noticed it said 'Casein' with some variation of saying it was made more digestible...  (How is that milk-free?)

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tarnalberry Community Regular

it's not milk free, but it may have been pre-digested so as not to trigger the response that your son would experience.  I have not seen ANY formula contain gluten (though I admit this is second hand information, hopefully moms who had to verify formula was gluten free for their little ones can help).

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greenbeanie Enthusiast

If your son is tolerating Alimentum well, that sounds like a good sign. My daughter had extensive digestive problems and moderate neurological problems starting when she was just a few weeks old and exclusively breast feeding. She still had problems even after I'd completely stopped eating dairy (though that did help a little bit). At five and a half months, an allergist and pediatric GI doctor both agreed that we should try formula, since she was obviously reacting to something in my breast milk. Her food allergy tests were repeatedly negative. We did a brief trial of Alimentum, and she couldn't tolerate that either. My understanding is that it is milk-based, though the proteins are broken down extensively to make it easier to digest. I have no idea if it contains gluten, though I'd be surprised if it does. If you call the manufacturer, they should be able to tell you.

We finally ended up putting my daughter on Neocate, which is an amino acid formula with no milk (or gluten or other proteins) at all. Her recovery was so rapid that everyone was astounded. The neurologist discharged and GI both discharged her after six months on Neocate because she was doing so well. But the problems returned gradually once she started solids...and here we are another three years later, when she's just been diagnosed with celiac. In retrospect, that pretty much explains her entire health history!

This is a long-winded way of saying that if your baby seems to be doing well on Alimentum, that's great and there's probably no need to switch formulas. But if he does start having trouble digesting it, it's good to know that there is another option that has no milk in it whatsoever. Neocate is super-expensive, though - like over $220 per month in the U.S. - so it's definitely not a formula of choice unless it's really necessary. We were lucky that our insurance treated it like a prescription and paid for most of it.

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Rowena Rising Star

Thing is, I'm not sure its helping, but we tried soy and he wouldn't even swallow that (I don't think he liked the flavor of it... not that I blame him, I don't even know how he tolerates Alimentum.  It smells like crap!)... he's got a lame *insert a stream of four letter words* pediatrician I do not trust in the slightest, but stupid insurance problems won't let me have the one I do trust with my baby!

I'm just scared to death for my little one, simply because I have so many problems, that people don't seem to know what's up with me... I don't want life to be like that for him, and I am assuming to be on the safe side that he has the same intolerances/allergies that I do.  

 

As for the Neocate, my sister-in-law's sister had a baby with wheat/gluten, soy, nuts, dairy and a few others... is the Neocate soy free?  Because they wanted to put the baby on formula but all of them have soy so the mother is continuing to bf, though a lot of the things stay in her system a while, so the improvement for the baby despite the mom keeping to a blan diet isn't drastically improving...

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cyclinglady Grand Master

I can't comment on the formula (I breast fed for over two years), but since my husband was gluten-free and I had food allergies (now celiac disease too), I followed my allergist's advice on how to introduce foods to my daughter.  No solids until she was 8 to 9 months, then veggies first month, then added fruit for another month,  then meats.  No grains of any kind until she was a year old.  No eggs, dairy or wheat until she was two years old.  Her pediatrician balked, complained, etc., but the end result was worth it.  When she was four he mentioned that she had the "thinnest chart", meaning that she was so healthy.  She never went in for illness until she started preschool (all those shared germs).  She's healthy, slender and active as teen now.  She's consuming little gluten as we are are gluten-free household.  I only buy her gluten products in packages.  She also eats gluten at her friend's homes and at restaurants.  She has not be tested for celiac disease yet. 

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    • cristiana
      Thank you for your post, @Nedast, and welcome to the forum. It is interesting to read of your experiences. Although I've not had TMJ, from time to time I have had a bit of mild pain in my jaw, sharp stabbing pains and tingling in my face which appears to have been caused by issues with my trigeminal nerve.  I read that sometimes a damaged trigeminal nerve in coeliacs can heal after adopting a gluten free diet.  I try to keep out of cold winds or wear a scarf over my face when it is cold and windy, those conditions tend to be my 'trigger' but I do think that staying clear of gluten has helped.  Also, sleeping with a rolled up towel under my neck is a tip I picked up online, again, that seems to bring benefits. Thank you again for your input - living with this sort of pain can be very hard, so it is good to be able to share advice.
    • Julie Riordan
      I am going to France in two weeks and then to Portugal in May   Thanks for your reply 
    • Nedast
      I made an account just to reply to this topic. My story resembles yours in so many ways that it is truly amazing. I also suddenly became lactose intolerant, went a little under 10 years attributing all my symtoms to different body parts, never thinking it was something systemic until much later. I had the same mental problems - anxiety, depression, fatigue, etc. In fact, the only real difference in our story is that I was never formally diagnosed. When I discovered that my myriad symtoms, that had been continuous and worsening for years, all rapidly subsided upon cessation of consuming gluten, I immediately took it upon myself to cut gluten out of my diet completely. I live in America, and had lost my health insurance within the year prior to my discovery, so I could not get tested, and I will never willingly or knowingly consume gluten again, which I would have to do in order to get tested now that I have insurance again. But that is not the point of this reply. I also had extreme TMJ pain that began within months of getting my wisdom teeth out at - you guessed it - 17 years old. I was in and out of doctors for my various symptoms for about 5 years before I gave up, but during that time I had also kept getting reffered to different kinds of doctors that had their own, different solutions to my TMJ issue, an issue which I only recently discovered was related to my other symptoms. I began with physical therapy, and the physical therapist eventually broke down at me after many months, raising her voice at me and saying that there was nothing she could do for me. After that saga, I saw a plastic surgeon at the request of my GP, who he knew personally. This palstic surgeon began using botox injections to stop my spasming jaw muscles, and he managed to get it covered by my insurace in 2011, which was harder to do back then. This helped the pain tremendously, but did not solve the underlying problem, and I had to get repeat injections every three months. After a couple of years, this began to lose effectiveness, and I needed treatments more often than my insurance would cover. The surgeon did a scan on the joint and saw slight damage to the tissues. He then got approved by insurance to do a small surgery on the massseter (jaw) muscle - making an incision, and then splicing tissue into the muscle to stop the spasming. It worked amazingly, but about three months later it had stopped working. I was on the verge of seeing the top oral surgeon in our city, but instead of operating on me, he referred me to a unique group of dentists who focus on the TMJ and its biomechanical relationship to teeth occlusion (i.e. how the teeth fit together). This is what your dentist did, and what he did to you was boderline if not outright malpractice. There is a dental field that specializes in doing this kind of dental work, and it takes many years of extra schooling (and a lot of money invested into education) to be able to modify teeth occusion in this manner. Just based on the way you describe your dentist doing this, I can tell he was not qualified to do this to you. Dentists who are qualified and engage in this practice take many measurments of your head, mouth, teeth, etc., they take laboratory molds of your teeth, and they then make a complete, life-size model of your skull and teeth to help them guide their work on you. They then have a lab construct, and give you what is called a "bite splint." It looks and feels like a retainer, but its function is entirely different. This is essentially a literal splint for the TMJ that situates on the teeth. The splint is progressively modified once or twice per week, over several months, in order to slowly move the joint to its correct position. The muscles spasm less, stress is taken off the joint, as the joint slowly moves back into its proper position. The pain reduces each month, each week, sometimes even each day you go in for a visit. The joint has to be moved in this manner with the splint BEFORE the modification to the teeth begins. They then add to your tooth structure with small bits of composite, to keep the joint in its proper place after it has been sucessfully repositioned. Subtracting from your teeth, by grinding down bits of your natural tooth structure, is done very conservatively, if they have to do it at all. This process worked for me - after six months, my face, jaw, neck all felt normal, and I had no more pain - a feeling I had not had in a long time. It also made my face look better. I had not realized the true extent that the spasming muscles and the joint derangement had effected the shape of my face. The pain began to return after a few months, but nowhere near where it had been before. This immense reduction in pain lasted for a little over two years. The treatment still ultimately failed, but it is not their fault, and it is still the treatment that has given me the most relief to this day. Later on, I even went about three years with very, very good pain reduction, before the joint severely destabilized again. This field of dentistry is the last line treatment for TMJ issues before oral surgery on the TMJ. There aren't as many denists around who practice this anymore, and the practice is currently shrinking due to dentists opting for less espensive, additional educations in things like professional whitening, which have a broader marketability. Getting this treatment is also very expensive if not covered by insurance (in America at least). My first time was covered by insurance, second time was not, though the dentist took pity on me due to the nature of my case and charged like a quarter of usual pricing. Most cases seen by these dentists are complete successes, and the patient never has to come back again. But occasionally they get a case that is not a success, and I was one of those cases. A little over a year ago, I began seeing the second dentist who keeps my TMJ stable in this manner. The first dentist retired, and then died sadly. A shame too, because he was a truly amazing, knowledgable guy who really wanted to help people. The new dentist began to get suspicious when my joint failed to stay stable after I was finished with the bite splint and his modifications, so he did another scan on me. This is ten years after the first scan (remember, I said the surgeon saw "slight" damage to the tissue on the first scan). This new scan revealed that I now no longer have cartilage in the joint, on both sides - complete degeneration of the soft tissues and some damage to the bone. The dentist sat me down and had a talk with me after these results came in, and said that when he sees damage like this in cases like mine, that the damage to the joint is most likely autoimmune, and that, in his experinece, it is usually autoimmune. He has sent patients with cases like mine to Mayo Clinic. He said he will continue to see me as long as the treatment continues to offer me relief, but also said that I will probably have to see a dentist for this type of treatment for the rest of my life. He is not currently recommending surgery due to my young age and the fact that the treatment he provides manages my symptoms pretty well. I still see this dentist today, and probably will see this kind of dental specialist for the rest of my life, since they have helped with this issue the most. I did not inform him that I am 100% sure that I have celiac disease (due to my complete symptom remission upon gluten cessation). I didn't inform him because I thought it would be inappropriate due to not having a formal diagnosis. I was disappointed, because I had believed I had caught it BEFORE it had done permanent damage to my body. I had never suspected that my TMJ issues may be related to my other symptoms, and that the damage would end up complete and permanent. Luckily, I caught it about 6 months after my other joints started hurting, and they stopped hurting right after I went gluten free, and haven't hurt since. I of course did the necessary research after the results of the second scan, and found out that the TMJ is the most commonly involved joint in autoimmune disease of the intestines, and if mutliple joints are effected, it is usually the first one effected. This makes complete sense, since the TMJ is the most closely related joint to the intestines, and literally controls the opening that allows food passage into your intestines. I am here to tell you, that if anyone says there is no potential relationship between TMJ issues and celiac disease, they are absolutely wrong. Just google TMJ and Celiac disease, and read the scientific articles you find. Research on issues regarding the TMJ is relatively sparse, but you will find the association you're looking for validated.
    • trents
      Welcome to the forum, @SuzanneL! Which tTG was that? tTG-IGA? tTG-IGG? Were there other celiac antibody tests run from that blood draw? Was total IGA measured? By some chance were you already cutting back on gluten by the time the blood draw was taken or just not eating much? For the celiac antibody tests to be accurate a person needs to be eating about 10g of gluten daily which is about 4-6 pieces of bread.
    • SuzanneL
      I've recently received a weak positive tTG, 6. For about six years, I've been sick almost everyday. I was told it was just my IBS. I have constant nausea. Sometimes after I eat, I have sharp, upper pain in my abdomen. I sometimes feel or vomit (bile) after eating. The doctor wanted me to try a stronger anti acid before doing an endoscopy. I'm just curious if these symptoms are pointing towards Celiac Disease? 
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