clogged tear ducts/congestion in infants

I was wondering the same thing. My PA 2 year old daughter had blocked tear ducts. And my best friend's PA 2 year old son did as well.
How could they be connected?

Mine had blocked tear ducts - first dx'd @ 3 weeks of age - 13 months now and still allergic to everything....

Logan, lots of allergies (including PA and enviros), had no problems with congestion or tear ducts as an infant.

Lauren, only allergic to peanuts and shellfish, had frequent clear runny nose and a blocked tear duct as an infant.

Rebekah

My first son had blocked tear ducts. He couldn't go a nap without getting his eyelids "glued" shut. He slowly outgrew it, but thankfully, he never had a peanut allergy. Son number two never had the blocked tear ducts and he's allergic to peanuts, nuts, gluten, soy, and dairy. Go figure. Julie B.

Well, this was just a thought that I had. Thanks for your responses. I just thought our kids were the ones that suffer sinus infections, etc., and when the systems back up the stuff has to come out somehow.

I do have a question for you julieb -- what does your son eat? I suspect a wheat or gluten problem with my nine-month old and he can't tolerate or soy or milk products. So, I'm keeping him off everything so far.

Well, this was just a thought that I had. Thanks for your responses. I just thought our kids were the ones that suffer sinus infections, etc., and when the systems back up the stuff has to come out somehow.

I do have a question for you julieb -- what does your son eat? I suspect a wheat or gluten problem with my nine-month old and he can't tolerate or soy or milk products. So, I'm keeping him off everything so far.

Both of my twin boys had clogged tear ducts and congestion. My one son also had eczema and more apparent allergic symptoms but strangely it turns out that he is less allergic than my son who had less severe symptoms.

Wow! I completely forgot about that. My PA son had plugged ducts for nearly six months until someone told me to squirt breastmilk into them. They cleared up completely within four hours (of squirting the breastmilk) and he hasn't had any problems with them since.

Everyone used to think he was crying all the time. Poor kid.

Chris did not have tear duct trouble,but had croupy symptoms at around 3 weeks old. I figure because we were always eating peanut butter products. I didn't know at the time. Funny thing but after we found out he was allergic and got rid of food in the house he didn't get as ill. take care claire

Doreen, sorry it's taken awhile to reply. You asked what my son eats. Due to his allergies, my son (almost 2 yrs. old) eats pretty healthy...basically meats, potatoes, veggies, and fruits.

When he was younger, it was easier to keep him on baby food but be careful of rice cereal as some brands have soy in them. Also, he had problems with Gerber's when it had any kind of onion powder (sometimes onion powder has gluten in it to keep it free flowing). The Gerber baby hot dogs have dairy in them. And most regular hot dogs have wheat fillers. We use Louis Rich's turkey hot dogs.

I breastfed my son until he was 14 months and not interested in nursing. So for milk substitutes, he was on Pregistimil for awhile (infant formula). If you're not breastfeeding, you really need to have your peditrician offer a formula alternative...rice milk isn't nutritious enough for a nine month old. We also tried Nutramagin as a formula which is cheaper and easier to get.

When my son was about 18 months, he refused to drink the formula. Then I switched to rice milk (be careful...a lot of rice beverages have barley protein as an ingredient in fine print). He again refused to drink after awhile. So I added the strawberry Nestle Nesquick and that worked for a little bit. Now I'm down to orgage juice with calcium and 100% juices with calcium and I keep encouraging him to drink his rice milk. We use Westbrae Natural's Plain Rice Beverage. I'm going to try Vance's Darivance after he's 2 since it has honey in it.

Hope this info helps for now and for in the future. E-mail me if you have more questions or want to chat. Take care. Warmly, Julie B.

[This message has been edited by julieb (edited September 14, 2001).]

Matt (multiple food/drug/enviro/etc allergies) had what I called "goopy eyes" (strings and gobs of mucous in his eyes) ALL the time as an infant. Started around 2-2.5mo and didn't really go away completely until he was close to 2yr (amazingly...about the same time we finally identified and removed all his allergens). The first period by far was the period between about 2mo to about 9mo. The time when he first started having problems in general (weight loss, pallor, chronic diarrhea, etc) up until we took him completely off formula. Hindsight tells us that his problems *probably* started with allergens in my diet since I was still breastfeeding at the time, and then continued after he developed an allergy to one of the ingredients in the formula that I switched to. Ninety-nine percent of his problems cleared up after I eliminated the formula.

Do I now think that the "goopy eyes" were related to his allergies? You betcha!! Do I think that they were directly related to the *peanut* allergy? No. He's never eaten peanut products directly- just through my breastmilk, and the "goopy eyes" were at the worst shortly after I switched to the formula...when he was no longer getting peanut products at all.

Hmmm, my pa daughter had one blocked tear duct until it cleared on its own some time before nine months. My two year old son (no known allergies but we are keeping him off nuts, peanuts and shell fish) has not had any such problems.