Allergies in the STRANGEST Places! ------- Part 1

If your child’s behavior, schoolwork, or health is erratic, allergies may be a factor. We parents need to find out whether allergies are affecting our children and to what degree.

Allergies are triggered by allergens. These allergens are natural or man-made substances and chemicals that create an “abnormal response…” according to John F. Taylor in his book, Helping Your Hyperactive Child. Pollen, dust, mold, and certain plants (from poison ivy, holly, grass and weeds, to wheat, soy, and corn) are allergens. Foods like dairy products and sugar can cause drastic mood changes and other reactions. Certain fruits and vegetables also contain substances that react in certain people. Synthetic chemicals, like the ones we use for cleaning and painting, can be culprits. Other chemicals used to make artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives are also suspect. (see Hub article: “The Case of the Tazmanian Devil: Parents Beware!”).

Most of us are sensitive or allergic to the more common allergens. We might get hay fever or an occasional skin rash. Some people have strong reactions to one or two allergens, like grass, mold, or food coloring. Others, like my granddaughter, are plagued with violent reactions to a number of food and environmental allergens. Usually they have to be treated by a doctor with allergy shots containing extracts of the allergens they are reacting to, and they may have to be on a special elimination diet to remove the foods that are involved.

If you were to visit a typical elementary school classroom, you might be surprised to discover how many children there are having allergic reactions* to---of all things---milk!

Most children ingest milk in some form at breakfast in cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, or French toast, in muffins, biscuits, straight from a glass or in a cup of hot cocoa. For lunch, they often have dairy products as well: regular or chocolate milk, cheese, cheese snacks, yogurt, or ice cream.

The most surprising symptom of a milk allergy is what Dr. Doris Rapp calls, “wiggly legs.” In her book, Is This your Child?, she says, “Some children…wiggle their legs rapidly back and forth shortly after they have eaten allergenic foods. Restless legs that don’t ache or hurt…are commonly due to a sensitivity to dairy products in particular.” Dr. Rapp adds nighttime “leg aches,” constantly clearing one’s throat, and bed-wetting as reactions to milk.

So while our children are trying to listen to their teacher or do their assignments, their legs seem to have a mind of their own. Other children have to keep repositioning themselves just to feel comfortable. These are serious distractions that could be limiting what our child is absorbing in class.

If your child is plagued with bed-wetting, you may want to consider removing all dairy products from his or her diet**. Dr. Jacqueline Krohn says that in a study of 100 children, half stopped bed-wetting when milk was removed from their diets. See her book, The Whole Way to Allergy Relief and Prevention. She states, “Cows’ milk is a common food allergen.” Besides stomach upset, it is responsible for “asthma, runny or stuffy nose, recurrent ear infections, rashes, hives, and [believe it or not] hyperactivity.”

Milk could also be affecting your child’s behavior in other ways. “Studies,” according to Krohn, “have linked delinquency and behavior disorders to high milk intake.” If your child is a milk “guzzler” and is also having behavior problems, milk could be part of the problem.

See “Allergies in the Strangest Places” Part 2 for other places where allergens could be lurking.

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* Although doctors call reactions to certain chemicals “intolerances” rather than “allergies” because the actual bodily responses are different, for the sake of simplicity in Proactive Parent articles, we will use “allergies” as a general term to cover all reactions to substances.

**Don’t forget to look for milk hiding in prepared foods under the names of whey, dry milk, casein, and caseinate.

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