Expert: ruth kraft - 5/11/2011

Question
New symptoms seem to keep cropping up in my exclusively breastfed baby.  The first began at 3 weeks old with her face becoming bright red, swelling around her eyes, watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, spitting-up, gagging, gas, loud bowel movements and cradle cap.  The redness then spread all over her body followed by a sunburn-like peeling.  This was replaced with sandpaper dry skin. She is now 5 months old and most of the symptoms have slowly calmed down.  She is still spitting-up, gagging, coughing, sneezing, has cradle cap, and little red bumps with dry patches on her skin.
Now for the past 3 days she has had 3 bowel movements with bloody mucous.  I am assuming runny poop is normal since she has had that since nearly birth, although some Drs seem surprised by it.
We have taken her to the Dr nearly 10x, including a few ER visits, an allergist and dermatologist.  Nearly each Dr has had a different idea of what is going on.  Eczema is the only diagnoses we haven't gotten from nearly all of them.  Which I agree can explain the dry skin, but what about all of the other symptoms?  One has suspected a dairy allergy from my diet, hence the allergist but the allergist doesn't want to test her until she is older.

Answer
I am unfortunatly not a doctor to be able to diagnose, but I would agree with the doctor that it may be a milk allergy or dairy allergy in general.  Have you tried cutting out all dairy for a couple weeks and see if that doesn't help? It could also be a wheat/gluten allergy as well. those are fairly common.

I wish I had some excellent advice to tell you what it is, but certainly start with things in your diet and try them and over a process of elimination, you might find one. It could be sensitive skin in general. I have a client who had a baby who was allergic to every kind of fabric except 100% cotton. Anything else she would get exactly what you are talking about all over her body. Still does after many years.  

It is often hard to pinpoint as it is likely something super simple that she is having a reaction to. Sometimes even the dye in diapers.

I am sorry I could not be of more help :(