ds was tested yesterday, now what

Jan, hi, your sons allergies are almost identical to my sons. How high were the animal results? Both my boys are allergic to cats and dogs, and most animals with fur. We can no longer go into a home with animals, which leaves out alot of relatives homes here too.

Everytime we go in a house with dogs they both get hives and sneezing, etc. However, with cats, I have to warn you, my oldest son did have an anaphylactic reaction in a home with kittens. So it can be just as severe as peanut. I on the other hand can go in , but my eyes start watering, I sneeze, and get a runny nose.

Does your son have asthma? It seems to be worse with cats and asthma together.

Basically depending on how high the test results were and how he reacted previously you will have to make the decision.

Good luck!

My 4yr old is also allergic to cats(extremely), dogs, mold, and dust, as well as peanuts. He now takes Zyrtec and Rhinocort daily and that helps if we visit friends who have pets. I also tell them to put the animal in another room when we are there. And I limit the time we are there.

He's on Zyrtec and Rhinocort now and that has gotten rid of the itchy eyes and other symptoms he used to have. Before he was on Zyrtec, I would give him Benadryl right before we arrived anywhere there were animals. His symptoms were much worse when he was a baby, since all he did was play on the floor along with the pet dander. If he is around animals I tell him not to pet them, not to touch his face and he washes his hands before he leaves. Sometimes I even change his clothes if I see pet hair. It might sound extreme but I've seen his eyes almost swell shut.

We just visited friends out of town who have a cat, stayed for 5hrs with no problems!

Anyway, my best advice is to talk to your allergist about what to do. Good luck!

My son's tests were not very high for animals, higher for the outdoor allergies. I was wondering if he could have a reaction as severe as peanuts, thanks for warning me. It looks like we won't be visiting very many relatives.

Jan

My son is also allergic to cats - we used to have one and got rid of it right after his diagnoses. He has no outdoor, dust, pollen, etc. allergies though - just cats and peanuts.

Before we had allergy testing done, he had really bad undereye red/purple circles all the time and his eyes would run and itch him all the time -- and this was with him being on Zyrtec daily! He also had mild/moderate eczema which started when he was a baby. The eye stuff started when he was around 15 mos. old. His Primary Care doctors just assumed it was the typical outdoor/pollen/dust allergy stuff and wouldn't refer him to an allergist - they just gave him Zyrtec. After the hive outbreaks to peanut butter we got a allergist referral for testing (his appt. wasn't until he was ~ 2.5 years old). We were expecting all these environmental allergies to show up and were shocked to find out that it was just our cat.

Well, we got rid of her (my aunt took her so she's still "in the family") and you would not believe the difference that it made!!! No more eczema, no more red circles and runny eyes and no more Zytec - it was amazing. And it was pretty much instant - some will say it takes months for the remnants of the animal to get out of the house...but in my case the very next day afte she left my son woke up a different kid [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/smile.gif[/img].

As for your questions...I think the degree of the reaction when visiting others depends on the cleanliness of the home (i.e. how often they vacuum, do they let the animal on the furniture, etc.) For instance, we can go to MIL house and even with her cats outside my son's eyes will start to run/get red. But we stayed at SIL's house for two days a little bit ago and he was fine with her cats just in another room and not directly around him. SIL is just a more diligent cleaner than MIL.

My son is also completely fine around cats when it's outside (he can play with and pet them, etc.) -- I think it's just when he's indoors and the air is confined it's an issue...but that's his situation, yours may be different.

I think as far as visiting is concerned, I wouldn't do an extended stay (overnight) at a house where the owner's weren't willing to either put the animal outside or in another room/garage...but I'd be okay with a few hours. However, like in the case of my MIL, if there's remnants of that animal everywhere even that's not good enough...it's like we have to test each place out and then proceed from there with future visits.

Of course, all of this is based on my son's allegy -- in the grand scale of allergic reactions, I think we'd all agree that itchy/watery eyes are pretty mild compared to all over hives or an asthma attack. I have read however, that REPEATED exposure to an animal that you are allergic to (for instance, living with a dog/cat when you're allergic) can lead to the development of allergic asthma when the patient would normally not have developed it...for this reason alone I am so glad we decided to get rid of our cat right away.

Kristin

Kristin-that was very interesting what you pointed out about eczema and cats. It never occured to me that my son may have it because of our two cats we had. He had eczema when he was a baby and we got rid of the cats before his 2nd birthday. He did have a peanut reaction when he was 16 months old. We had a horrible doctor who never once mentioned to me he could have an allergy of any kind, ever. His face was always bright red and she never once told us to get him tested. Thank goodness we found a doctor who knows what they are doing. Of course, being a new mother for the first time, I didn't question her. Just plain stupid on my part. If I only knew then what I know now!! Thanks for the "light bulb" moment for me!

Jan

I think it is on a person by person basis, determined by prior reactions.

My dd is almost 3 and 5 out of 7 of our friends/family have dogs. She's fine at most except the 2 with labs, and I've started giving her benadryl before we go to those 2. Otherwise, she doesn't have a problem as long as she doesn't rub her face/eyes after petting them.

We just got her cap rast scores back yesterday - 2 for both cats and dogs. I think regardless of the scores, we'll continue as we were. And now she's on Zyrtec daily so that will help prevent a reaction.

We'll still visit their homes for short periods. And for my best friend's with the lab, I'll continue to request her putting it outside/in another room since that dog is younger and otherwise seemed to always be in Karissa's face.

As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that we're just learning to deal with this also since my dd was just Dxd with asthma. Therefore, this will be a good thread to watch.

Thanks!