after years of lousy dermatologists I decided to dig round the internet to find out why my skin reacted to all kinds of odd things in unpredictable ways. I found something called atopic dermatitis (bear with me - I do have a point!). Basically it seems that possibly all the odd allergies I have and that my mother has and that my son seems to have too might be linked by something called atopy, whereby there is a degree of genetic inheritance but it's not in the usual obvious ways. My mother has really bad metal allergies. I don't but I've had skin problems for years and I developed allergic rhinitis whilst living in Singapore. My son seems to have milder skin sensitivities as well. None of this seems like it's genetic but the 'atopic' aspect seems to be something to do with a person's predisposition to sensitivities, allergies, intolerances. If my son had asthma that could be another possible link apparently.

Much of the information is either far too medically complicated or else very vague, and when I threw it at yet another dermatologist I got a disinterested grunt in response. They get tetchy when you try to come up with a diagnosis they're too lazy to check into!

nothing to do with the milk I'm afraid, but the idea that your son was suffering all these sensitivities and allergies made me think it possible. I've just had another quick look and found an article which suggests a link between atopic problems and depression so maybe that could even tie in the behavioural problems. This is the link to that bit of article, but it also mentions something interesting which might fit with the milk allergies or drinking raw milk:

http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514271556/html/x217.html

you will definitely have to resign yourself to figuring it out for yourself though because doctors don't have the time (or the interest probably) and you know your son best.

one final thought - it occurs to me that by not drinking milk your son may have missed out on more omega fatty acids than we might normally think about and that may have affected/worsened his behavioural problems.

Kerri.