Hi there,
I am wondering how diligent I should be about my son's recurring eczema. He doesn't get a ton of it, but he does get it on his feet and behind his knees and one little patch sometimes on his cheek. I know its from a food or foods but I can't figure it out. We know he is allergic to peanut (we avoid tree nuts too), dairy (casein), eggs, all legumes, soy, and now I've added corn and barley on my own..as he hasn't been tested yet, but I've noticed immediate reactions (eczema) from these foods. I just can't figure out why he still gets the eczema. I mean, yesterday, he seemed to get eczema after dinner...not bad, but still he was itching and its annoying. He ate the lamb stew from the whole foods allergy cookbook (made with pacific brand chicken broth....could that be it????) and some plain, steamed broccoli which he eats all the time with no problem and some cantaloupe. Could it be cantaloupe? He doesn't eat the cantaloupe that often so maybe its that, but he has eaten the lamb stew before several times I thought with no reaction. Its exhausting playing detective all the time, I tell ya!
Anyhow, sorry so long..but how worried should I be about eczema??? And if he is getting exposed to a food that he is mildly allergic to that is just causing eczema, could the allergy get worse by me not figuring out what it is.
Thanks for any advice on this.
Elena
[This message has been edited by ebrignole (edited July 31, 2007).]
I would suggest getting him allergy tested again. He may be reacting to anything at this point(he has a pretty good list going). My son suffered from eczema real bad for about 2yrs....it turned out it was the egg in baked goods(which the allergist said was fine, just steer clear of the more *raw form* of egg. Once I cut it ALL out, his eczema is gone.
I'm not sure about melons myself...but I would just make a list of foods you are suspecting and see about retesting. I just took my kids in today, I had about 15 new foods for my youngest....sometimes we can play detective, and the results come back waaaaay different then we thought. This is the hardest part of all this(IMO) trying to figure out the culprit!
Last winter I had a huge testing done on my 4yr old(about 35 foods) and we found he was pretty highly allergic to pork and beef....I never would have guessed! He was just retested today as well, and we added tree nuts to the list(which were negative then...) so they are always growing into something new it seems. Good luck!!!
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Chanda(mother of 4)
Sidney-8 1/2(beef and chocolate, grasses, molds, weeds, guinea pig, hamster & asthma)
Jake-6 1/2(peanut, all tree nuts, seasame seeds, (avoiding all seeds&coconut)eggs, trees, grasses, weeds, molds, cats, dogs, guinea pig & eczema & asthma)
Carson-4 (milk, tree nuts(avoiding peanuts and seeds)soy, egg, beef and pork, cats, dog, guinea pig, hamster, grass, mold, dust mite and EE)
Savannah-1 1/2 (milk and egg, dog(avoiding peanuts, tree nuts, strawberries, sesame seeds, green beans, peas and corn)
Oops, did I spell eczema wrong??? Sorry.
Anyhow, thank you Chanda. I know my allergist doesn't like to test for too many things at once as he says when children are so young its only good to test for a few things at a time to get a more accurate test result. I know he wants to retest for some of the earlier diagnosed items to see if he's grown out of anything (which I'm pretty certain he has not), so I will probably only get to request a couple of things to add. After reading your post about your child now being allergic to seeds, I've always been wondering about that too. As I gave my son something cooked with dijon mustard in it and he got eczema after that.
Hmmm...and our son has a mild allergy to wheat, chicken and beef, but allergist told us to still give it to him (for the wheat he said to make sure it is refined wheat and not whole wheat), which we do. He eats pasta all the time and never seems to get eczema from that and we rotate the meats as advised to to.
Its enough to drive you crazy. I feel like I'm obsessed!!!
I think it is important to find out why the flares are happening, but it is also important to treat to heal the skin. Try to do a search for eczema and look into the wet method for treatment. It works! (email me if you can't get it)
I'm not saying that the continuing eczema is not due to food allergy--it certainly could be. But keep in mind there could be other causes aswell. When DS was little we lived in AZ, but our family was in CT, so we visited twice a year. Within 12-24 hours of getting out of AZ, his eczema would start to clear up. No change in diet in that first day, either. I'm sure it was, at least in part, environmental.
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[url="http://www.the3day.org/boston07/deedaigle"]http://www.the3day.org/boston07/deedaigle[/url]
have him tested for envriomental allergies also. he could be reacting from grass pollen or dust mites. my son gets exczma all the time. also the lotion you use could be triggering it. try a totaly mild one like avada for sensitive skin. ive just switched to this brand from eucerin and i totaly love it.
erin
I hear what you are saying, but I'm pretty sure its from food. He'll break out in a new patch within 1/2 hour after eating, sometimes immediately. We have had him tested for some environmental allergies and he is allergic to cat (which we had a cat but had to give away about 10 months ago). We also got rid of all rugs in home and now have all hardwood floors. My husband and I both have hay fever in the spring time and noticed that Luke (our son) did too (sneezing, watery eyes, etc). Our allergist gave us a prescription cream to put on flare ups but I hate putting it on him all the time. It does work though, as far as drying it up and making it not itch. We use vanicream (allergist recommended) on his skin after baths and I use California Baby bodywash in bath and just a little. I am very curious about the "wet method" that the peanut militia talked about. I will try to do a search to find it. Would I do a search in the "main discussion board"?
Thanks again for everyone's replies. Every little bit of info helps.
Elena
Elena - My son tested negative for wheat and egg allergies. But he was itchy all the time. No really bad red spots...just itchy all the time. I took him to a Naturopath who tested his IgG response to foods. I had already eliminated egg knowing that while he wasn't "allergic" to it...it gave him eczema within an hour of eating any...the doc suspected dairy and I also had come to suspect wheat. Well he tested highly reactive to wheat, dairy, egg, soy, and many other foods. He is not allergic to these...only to peanut. But they affect him by causing inflamation and eczema. He will be four this fall and this is a time that his immune system matures quite a bit so hopefully we can help it along. The pediatrician and allergist don't really accept the IgG testing...but they have ok'd what I am doing. I would think about going to a Naturopath - we had the ELISA food panel done by US BioTek. They didn't draw blood - just a finger prick - it was covered by our insurance and really the plan - which is to avoid all the reactive foods for two months while giving probiotics, supplements and fish oil is really not that far from what our pediatrician and allergist would suggest. Our naturopath will not touch the food allergies - these are sensativities.
Tomorrow will be three weeks with the new diet and three weeks without itching! I hope that his gut will heel and we can reintroduce some of these foods to him soon. I can live wheat free - no problem but the dairy/soy combo is killing me. I mean what good is a gluten free pizza crust if you can't top it with cheese???
Anyway....just sharing what I hope works for us....I get bored with all the disclaimers on this site...but here's my own....I am not giving you advice. [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/smile.gif[/img]
I just wanted to add that I wasn't really being diligent about it....we had just decided to live with it ...until he got a fever and lost his appetite....no food = no itching. Seeing him NOT itch AT ALL was a wake up call. It was clear that there was something that we were giving him that was causing the itch and I had to find out what it was. It was amazing to see him not itch at all. He was like a new kid.
Thanks Sarah. How did you even think to do this? I will look into it for sure. I would think my 21 month old son would be too young to give supplements, probiotics (not even sure what that is) and fish oil. I'm even afraid he might be allergic to fish although we don't know yet.
It sure would be nice to not hear Luke say "itch, itch" anymore.
Elena
[b]Hmmm...and our son has a mild allergy to wheat, chicken and beef, but allergist told us to still give it to him[/b]
This would be my first issue. I think I would try eliminating the foods he is allergic to...wheat, chicken and beef as well. Something is going on to give him this reaction. Be strict about it for a couple of weeks and see what happens.
HTH and hugs...
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