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Yes, coconut is related to treenuts. Sorry to hear your son is reacting to coconut oil. How difficult! It's everywhere...
My son is allergic to all treenuts, plus coconut. His SPT for coconut was very large, class 4. The allergic said DS's SPT was "impressive," given that the coconut solution they put on his skin had very little protein, mostly fat and sugar. That said, I'm not sure about any reactions he has had to coconut, since the only times we know he reacted was to a coconut chutney, which I later discovered also had ground cashews. So, while we have avoided giving DS coconut outright, we haven't been anywhere near as diligent as we have with the other TN.
In any case, the allergist said that DS is probably only allergic to coconut because he is so allergic to the other tree nuts. They recently discovered that the proteins in coconut are very similar to the proteins in some treenuts. This is why they started calling it a treenut in the US. The body reacts to the coconut protein, as if it were almond (or other TN) protein. I guess this is what they mean by cross-reactivity.
BTW, the allerist also told us that coconut would probably be the first nut that he would outgrow.
Don't know whether this helps, but I thought I'd share our experience, since, like your son, DS is also allergic to both TN and coconut.
Good luck.
Shannon
ds. tna, coconut, age 4
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