Would you pursue allergy testing?

[alisoncooks]

My youngest kiddo has several issues that are being treated separately, but I'm beginning to wonder if they are all allergy-related.

 

Said child had mild eczema as a baby.

 

Current issues she's being treated for:

 

Random environmental allergies (pet and seasonal - Benedryl/Claritin)

Chronic constipation (mostly manifested as UTI-type symptoms, no presence of bacteria)

Angular cheilitis - treated with steroid and anti fungal, then managed with Aquafor. I'm not entirely sold on the A.C. diagnosis (I'm thinking eczema) because it's now showing up at the corner of an earlobe (sore, chapped skin; redness & irritation; at its worst, it splits and bleeds).

 

Have you had a child with a food allergy that manifested in several ways? Did you go through the whole testing process? I plan on bringing up my question the next time we see the pediatrician; her mouth just isn't healing (or staying healed despite our best efforts at managing it) and I wonder if there's an underlying irritant in her diet...

 

I have no allergies, so I feel at a loss with the process. Pretty sure we just get a referral to an allergist and go from there?

[East Coast Sue]

Yes, my son had eczema and digestive troubles (constipation and stomach aches).  He also got sick frequently and seemed to not recover without antibiotics while my other kids just had a cold from time to time. Sure enough he was allergic to corn, oranges, hazelnuts, dairy and soy.  Once we learned about his allergies, his health definitely improved. 

[gingersmom]

Absolutely. Allergy testing is so simple and can reveal so much.

[almondbutterandjelly]

Yes!  Get allergy testing!

[SparklyUnicorn]

Absolutely. Allergy testing is so simple and can reveal so much.

 

Wellll that's not necessarily true.  Not sure how they handle food allergy testing, but environmental allergies.... A young kid might not find it simple.  They came out with this tray of about 100 syringes when they did mine.  As a kid there is NO WAY they would have pulled that off on me. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

But yeah I'd say go ahead.  Although TBH there isn't much magical in the environmental allergy dept in terms of treatment.   Food allergies might be something else altogether though.

 

 

[alisoncooks]

Wellll that's not necessarily true. Not sure how they handle food allergy testing, but environmental allergies.... A young kid might not find it simple. They came out with this tray of about 100 syringes when they did mine. As a kid there is NO WAY they would have pulled that off on me.

Yeah....I've wondered about this aspect. Scrape tests and whatnot. I don't see this being well-accepted by this particular 9yo...

[NormaElle]

With a 9 year old they should be able to do all the pokes at once with a board.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Yeah....I've wondered about this aspect. Scrape tests and whatnot. I don't see this being well-accepted by this particular 9yo...

 

There was an adult in the other room howling her head off over the ordeal.  It was not fun!

 

Not sure if they do it differently with kids or what not though.

[courtney.byrum]

They can do a blood draw for allergies. Our ped ordered that and then due to a positive to peanut and walnut referred us to an allergist to do any further testing. Since that time (they did a skin prick test) he has never had anything other than blood tests by any of the allergists he has seen.

[gingersmom]

Wellll that's not necessarily true. Not sure how they handle food allergy testing, but environmental allergies.... A young kid might not find it simple. They came out with this tray of about 100 syringes when they did mine. As a kid there is NO WAY they would have pulled that off on me.

Both my kids have been tested for food allergies and didn't think it was a big deal at all.

 

I had environmental allergy testing and it was all done on my back and not painful at all.

[prairiewindmomma]

I have put 4 of my children through allergy testing. The youngest was 18 months. Most of them had non-traditional presentation (eczema, what appeared to be reactive asthma--was actually mild anaphylaxis, etc.)

 

I would go do allergy testing in a heartbeat, given what you describe. There is no way we could've figured out some of the things my children are allergic to on our own.

[Random]

There was an adult in the other room howling her head off over the ordeal. It was not fun!

 

Not sure if they do it differently with kids or what not though.

Seriously? That's an extreme reaction to allergy testing!

 

At a pediatric allergist office, the nurses are usually amazing and can administer dozens of scratch test samples in less than a minute. It's not pleasant, but skin prick/scratch testing is not a big deal. We used topical steroids on the areas that showed reactions and took extra allergy meds after the testing to counteract the effect of having the allergens placed on the skin.

 

There are a few different types of blood tests, and different labs will process the same tests differently, giving a range of % for false positive and/or false negative results. So, just do your homework.

 

Overall, identifying allergens is almost always worth the temporary discomfort of testing. Chronic eczema and constipation are great ways to feel generally miserable.

 

Best wishes!

[prairiewindmomma]

Um, it could be that that adult was just a wimp.  One of the profound levels of screaming I have heard was one curtain over, where a middle aged man was having a simple lab draw.  I was having my labs drawn at the same time, and I could not keep a straight face.  

 

Seriously, I've had allergy testing done myself. The worst part was having to go off antihistamines for two weeks beforehand. I was so dang itchy that I wanted to claw my skin off.  Being able to get tested and go back onto meds was a happy, happy day.

[Tess in the Burbs]

trust your instinct.  My son cried a lot as a baby, had stomach issues, constant runny nose.  

When we went on vacation the runny nose disappeared.  

It was about the same time as solid foods being introduced and I noticed some foods really upset him more.  

 

It took me weeks to convince the Dr to refer me to an allergy office.  They made me feel horrible for putting my baby through a blood draw for allergies. 

 

Dr apologized to me saying he'd never seen a baby with pet allergies at such a young age.  He also apologized about the food stuff b/c he just thought I was overreacting.  My kid was allergic to milk and eggs and nursing wasn't good for him.  I had to change my diet to keep breastfeeding.  

 

I had another allergist tell me years later he didn't believe any kid had food allergies and was willing to send me to Baltimore with Dr Wood to prove it.  We left his practice, just a horrible doctor. 

 

So find one willing to listen, willing to test.  Our current one asks what all you want tested while they are doing it . You don't need symptoms, just ask and they will test it. 

 

[sbgrace]

There is a downside to food allergy tests--there is a significant rate of false positives. IIRC, the rate is 50 to 60 percent.

 

So that means she's likely to test positive for foods that she's not actually allergic to. I have a kid with no food allergies who was positive to, among other things, wheat and peanut. We did food trials, just to check, and he's not allergic to any foods. With my child who does have food allergies, we used allergy testing to verify that he was positive to foods we'd seen him react to--hives to anaphylaxis in this case. 

 

So an allergist will/should tell you to remove suspect foods entirely, then reintroduce, and see if symptoms resume. If they do, pull the food. If they don't, you likely had a false positive. If you go that route, I would pull any foods she is positive to until symptoms resolve (hopefully!), then introduce each one, one at a time, and wait to see if symptoms recur as she continues to eat. In other words, it will be a long process, but worth it if you find culprits.  

 

Finally, my food allergy kid told me he had stomach pain consistently with a certain food, one that isn't one of his allergens. His allergist, whom I trust, said this was likely intolerance instead of allergy. So you may be dealing with intolerances and not allergies. If testing doesn't reveal the culprit, it might be worth it to remove and test top potential allergens as described above, even if she isn't classically allergic.

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2018 by sbgrace

[abacus2]

I would definitely get allergy testing in this case, food and environmental. 

[Tsuga]

Yes.

[Sandwalker]

Seriously? That's an extreme reaction to allergy testing!

 

At a pediatric allergist office, the nurses are usually amazing and can administer dozens of scratch test samples in less than a minute. It's not pleasant, but skin prick/scratch testing is not a big deal. We used topical steroids on the areas that showed reactions and took extra allergy meds after the testing to counteract the effect of having the allergens placed on the skin.

 

There are a few different types of blood tests, and different labs will process the same tests differently, giving a range of % for false positive and/or false negative results. So, just do your homework.

 

Overall, identifying allergens is almost always worth the temporary discomfort of testing. Chronic eczema and constipation are great ways to feel generally miserable.

 

Best wishes!

Yes, even 20 years ago when my daughter was tested, it was just a bunch of pinpricks on her back. She didn't mind those (was 8 years old), but had a huge reaction to the fire ant test, a large hive wheal that covered 1/4 of her little back. (She had had an anaphylaxic reaction to fire ant stings, which was why we were there.)

 

They had to make up a special formula for her injections, of one part to 100,000 instead of the 1/10,000 usually used for treatment, so it took a long time to just get to baseline. We went weekly for over 2 years for allergy injections. She still carries an epipen.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Both my kids have been tested for food allergies and didn't think it was a big deal at all.

 

I had environmental allergy testing and it was all done on my back and not painful at all.

 

I didn't find it particularly painful, but at the sight of all those needles as a kid I would have absolutely freaked out. They injected me probably 30 times AFTER scraping me 30 times.  This was all done on my arms.  I was also required to hold still for 30 minutes total.  Not a problem as an adult.  As a kid...welllll...