introducing peanut in a sibling

I have a 16 month old daughter with pa-She was diagnosed with eczema at 2 months old and that is when my pediatrician told me to avoid peanuts because eczema and allergies are all linked together. The rationale for waiting until they are 3 is that the immune system is more mature and the theory is they will have less of a tendency to react to the foreign antigen(in this case the peanuts). Unfortunately my daughter had an anyphylatic reaction and that is when a peanut and egg allergy was confirmed. I would avoid feeding your younger child the more common allergenic food for as long as possible. Hope this helps

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I was told 4 years of age..but then had son tested at 6 months for other allergies I suspected. Turned out he was anaphylactic to peanut and shellfish. My personal though...don;t ever introduce it until youhave your second child tested first, regardless if there are no signs of allergy. Better to be safe than sorry. I did the same for my third.

Cheri--what a smart pediatrician! I have a pediatrician I really like, but he never mentioned that my son's eczema could be an indication of food allergy. I think I'm the one who told him that.

mkruby--you said you had your child tested and found out he was anaphalactic. How did you find that out from a test? For some reason, I thought in another post that you said none of your kids were anaphalactic to anything, and I was wondering how you could be sure of that. Could you explain. I would do anything if someone could just tell me that my son will never have an anaphalactic reaction, but there seems to be no guarantee, or even indication.

As for the original question, I gave my daughter peanutbutter before I found out my son was PA. She never reacted, does not have eczema, and generally doesn't seem to have allergies, but I am not allowing her any more nuts. I will get her tested some day, but I don't worry about it for now. She's 2, son is almost 5.

You must have me confused with someone else, or you read about my daughter. I have two boys who are anaphylactic. Oldest to peanut and cats, second son to shellfish and peanut, third has allergies but not life threatening at this point. All three are severely allergic to grass and at this point they do not have anaphylactic reactions to it. My second son was tested and reacted the same to his brother, and he did go into anaphylaxis. Because of the early testing we did and because the reaction was the same we played it safe..besides he can't even come in contact with it without breaking into major hives. Daughter has been tested three times for peanut..first one came back positive cat 1, second came back negative..third test came back at a cat 2. We have numerous other allergies also and the list is growing for all three of my kids and for myself. My only fear is that we will run out of foods we can actually eat. Myself...I am allergic to pork and beef, numerous vegetables and fruits, soy, peanut, peas, milk, and numerous environmental allergies. I also deal with asthma and reflux.

MKRUBY- How did you have your kids tested. My pediatrician told me that you had to be exposed to peanuts before the blood test (RAST) would come back positive. SO, how did you get them tested for peanuts without them being exposed?

Next, what is CA1. Is that a level an allergy from a blood test? My daughter was a Class 3 on the ASM reference chart. I am very confused. Lastly, since you seem to know alot, how do you test for a peanut allergy (to see if she has outgrown it) later on? I thought it wasn't safe due to the anaphyaltic shock. I look forward to hearing from you.

My kids have never had blood testing for allergies, only skin pricks and then if they came back negative, they used a needle and injected small amounts under the first layer of skin. The categories are 1-4, with 4 being anaphylactic. My daughter and second son had re-testing in the same manner. My oldest did have it re-tested years later in this fashion and ended up becoming extremely ill from it and was on every kind of drug imaginable andmissed a week of school. His asthma flared up and everything else..it was pure heck! Children can have sensitivities to food as young as 2 weeks of age I was told. Some docs won;t even test until the age of 5, but I disagree with them because of my experience with my children and myself as a youngster. My oldest is the worse with it, but when my second son grabbed a butterfinger and the oldest grabbed it away from him while it was at his mouth..they both ended up in the er with arm and facial/mouth hives. My daughter would have croup like coughs after eating a food she was allergic to and still does as though allergies grow. I got to run, going to a ball game.. but will finish later. Kim

There is a publication that I have been getting for years that I have found very informative on allergies. It is called The MA Report from Mothers of Asthmatics, Inc. This June/July 2000 issue has an article on the back page entitled, Food Bites: Babies and Food Allergies. Dr. Zieger is quoted as recommending waiting until high-risk children are at least a year old before introducing eggs and three years old before feeding them peanuts, nuts or fish. He also recommends finding good calcium substitutes for the foods you are going to avoid. Every month this publication has a column called Food Bites. You can look up the MA report on [url="http://www.aanma.org"]www.aanma.org[/url]