egg allergy in 10 month old baby?

[pinkpiggy]

My DD had an awful reaction today to a tiny bit of scrambled egg; her knees,hands, ears, eyes and mouth swelled up and she had hives on her legs and face.Took her to a&e and she had steroids and antihistomines.

I am now unsure what to do next! I will obviously avoid egg but as I am still bf do I also need to avoid egg? I have lots of egg in my diet and she has not had any reactions before now. I am seeing my GP next week- will they do allergy tests? Any advice gratefully received as I am a bit lost!

[pinkpiggy]

forgot to say she is 10 months

[eragon]

does she have eczema?
gain weight well?
have a good sleep pattern?

it might be worth avoiding or at least not eating in pure form for a while.

you need to go to gp and ask for a refferal to a peadiatric allergy clinic.
ring the anaphylaxis campaign or allergyuk helplines and see if they can advise you on nearest one to you. or give you further support.

dont get fobbed off by gp, if you went to the hospital it was a big deal. and at 10 months you still have new foods to try and need medical support if new allergies develop.

[pinkpiggy]

Thanks eragon. She has a small amount of eczema and is following her centile line fine, terrible sleeper though and very constipated. I suspected that a referral to an allergy clinic is required, I have so many questions! DD has had cake and things with egg in them; should I now avoid these too for now until I see an expert?

[ukey]

yes avoid giving any egg or may contain until tested, though some kids are only allergic to undercooked egg and can be fine with it in baked products.

BUT I'd advise against trying anything with egg until she has been seen.

[Maz007]

Second advice given above. I've just been through weaning / BF egg allergic DD who is now 19 months. Happy to help if I can while you wait for advice from specialist. The anaphylaxis campaign do a very helpful factsheet on egg allergy - I have a copy saved somewhere if you can't find it. It's all daunting but doable :)

[vvviola]

You've had great advice already, so I'll just share my story.

I'm breastfeeding DD2 who is 20 months and egg (& dairy) allergic. I gave up egg and dairy at the same time as she did, as we just weren't sure what was causing what symptom. I've stayed off it (and started baking a lot myself so I can still eat cake!). I figured it was only for a fairly limited time. It also means that anything on my plate is safe to share with her - DH & DD1 still eat both dairy and egg, although I don't generally have eggs in the house.

DD had regular egg once before her diagnosis with only small effects, but then her next exposure, after the skin prick test had come up positive was to a tiny crumb of cake with egg in it, and was a lot stronger. I'd certainly avoid baked egg until you get a chance to speak to her specialist (if you like to bake & want recipes just shout, I'm collecting quite a lot of lovely ones!)

I'm not in the UK, but have heard great things about the anaphylaxis campaign and allergy UK, so I'd second any advice to contact them.

[pinkpiggy]

Thanks so much for the words of advice. I have seen the GP and she is ringing me later on to let me know who I will be referred to etc. It is going to be difficult for me to give up egg as I am vegetarian and eat lots of egg and quorn which has egg in! I have been trying to wean baby onto a bottle with no luck. A big rethink of my diet is in order I think!

[piggyboo]

study here says yes you would have to give up egg as the protein does pass into bm unfortunately www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1417254/

[piggyboo]

and this one here www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1341170/

[Maz007]

See what the specialist says. Ours wasn't convinced that there was a need for me to stop having egg - I'm still BF (very part time now) at 19months. His advice was to give it up if I thought it was making her eczema worse... I gave it up to be over-cautious but have started having it again and found it's made no difference to my LO (she's not anaphylactic though which may have had a bearing on advice we got).I think it's different for different children - DS definitely sufferered from dairy in my diet. I'd be advised by specialist but you might be ok.

[TeddyCan1]

If you think that your baby is getting allergic to egg and she is breastfed, then you can avoid consuming egg at least for the time being. In my opinion, you can go for an elimination diet. You said the baby has taken very little scrambled egg. Okay, then you don't give her that. After some months you can try with the egg yolk because people generally get allergic to the protein-containing egg white. Consult an immunologist if the problem persists.

[crackedphone]

you cant give egg yolk on its own as small amount of egg white will still remain. For those very sensitive people this will cause a reaction.
Agree consult medical advice.

[rogueelement]

Hi there, sorry to hear about your DD's reaction. My DD's egg allergy came out about this age, although she had bad eczema from about 2 months. Most children do grow out of egg allergy but not all (DD hasn't) and that's a nasty reaction.

Right now I would avoid eating anything with lots of egg in it (scrambled/boiled eggs, obviously; quiche; pancakes/batter; french toast; mayonnaise; Quorn; Royal icing or meringue). Obviously DD shouldn't have anything.

In practice it's very difficult to avoid egg ingredients in small amounts, especially if you're not allergic to it yourself, but avoiding the big sources would probably eliminate most of her BF exposure.

In terms of egg allergy, raw is worse than cooked and egg in cake is often tolerated where it wouldn't be tolerated as whole egg, if you see what I mean. Egg white is indeed what contains the protein but you can't really separate the egg from the other so it's fairly meaningless.

Anaphylaxis campaign are great and they do have a helpline.

I would get yourself referred to paediatric immunology where they can do skinprick tests and give you an Epipen.

It's all a bit of a shock, take it gently and get some good advice. xx

[MayfairMummy]

Sorry to hear this has happened, PinkPiggy.

I agree with all the posters above that you should get advice from a specialist. In the interim, carry piriton which you can buy over the counter. It will say from 1 year, but you can use earlier under dr advice (such as this situation)

i will also say, though, that the advice that used to be given (ie cut out egg from the diet) is no longer 'current', and if your little one can tolerate baked egg, e.g., or can tolerate you eating egg, then it is now considered better to keep it in the diet so that your LO can develop a tolerance. Withholding it from the diet completely can make the reaction worse the next time there is an exposure. You may want to see if the specialist will organise a baked egg challenge for you (ie eating baked egg under supervision) to see if it's tolerable or not.

My DS would vomit for days (plus eczema and other reactions) when i ate even baked egg and was breastfeeding. He can now eat baked egg almost without reaction (ie egg cooked at high temperature such as oven, not just 100 degree boiling water). Though he helped me actually make a cake a couple of days ago, and reacted to the raw egg in the mix (even though so far as i know he didn't actually touch any raw egg or mix).

Best of luck

[anotherdayanothersquabble]

In the meantime, Deliciously Ella has a great vegan recipe book... to get you through the egg free days while you work out what to do next.. Good luck!!