3yo OIT success w/ dairy… but how to explain the nuance of still being allergic while having more food freedom?
Our 3.5yo daughter is about to complete OIT for a severe dairy allergy (4++ on skin prick test for 3 years in a row so we have an EpiPen at all times). My question is - how do we explain the nuance of this next stage? She’s still allergic (though protected if she continues her maintenance dose of 4oz of cow milk each day) and she will only be able to eat small additional doses of dairy. She’s learned to ask “is this dairy free?” and we’ve trained all the adults in her life to understand too. I don’t think we can hide the fact that she’s eating dairy now, so I’m thinking of saying “your body is has grown and now you can handle a little bit of dairy. You’ve been taking ‘OIT medicine’ (that’s what we’ve been calling milk) for this whole year and guess what? There was a little bit of milk in that that helped your body get used to safely eating dairy. We still need to ask ‘is this dairy free?’ but sometimes mom and dad will let you eat a little bit of cheese or ice cream etc”.
Some more details — Soon, our allergist says she can “free eat” within 12g of milk protein per day. So she’ll have 4g every morning with her maintenance dose of 4oz of cow milk, and then she can have an additional 8g of milk protein spread throughout the day. For reference, one individual snack cheese square or stick is 5g, and one yogurt pouch is 5g of milk protein so it’s not actually a lot of dairy.
Thanks for any tips/advice! I just want to avoid saying to her “you’re not allergic anymore, yay” and then months or years later having to back track and say “oh wait, you’re actually still allergic”
Posted Mar 1, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC