Please can somebody talk me down?! Really long, sorry.

[DrivingMyselfCrazy]

Hi all

Have thought long and hard about whether to post here, and whether I will just make myself worse, but (as the name implies!) I am driving myself a little bit crazy with worry about DS and could do with a little bit of perspective from those in the know about these things.

DS is now 19 weeks, and a couple of times over the last few months has had a nettle-type rash appear, the first time across the back of his neck, then down one of his cheeks. The rash was red with white patches and flat, not raised. It disappeared completely within half an hour and he did not seem to be in any discomfort, no scratching or crying, etc. Both times it was a hot day, and I put it down to heat rash. Now that I think about it both times either DD or I had been baking and had contact with raw eggs.

At the weekend I was breaking eggs and happened to brush the back of his hand, leaving a little egg white on it (didn't realise this at the time). No reaction, until his fists went up to his face and the same rash appeared to one side of his mouth. He was rubbing his left eye with the eggy hand and it became red and sore looking - no swelling - and a patch of the rash also appeared between his eyes. He sounded a bit snotty too, but did not have a runny nose. There was no reaction at all on his hand where the egg white had touched him.

I wiped the egg away from his hand and also wiped his face. Again, the rash had gone completely within half an hour. He had a cry and went to sleep, but he was overdue a nap so I don't know if the tears were from discomfort or tiredness. (This is typical behaviour when he is resisting sleep!)

To cut a long one short, I took him to the GP on Monday, who was not overly concerned and thought it could be hayfever rather than an allergy as there was no reaction at the site where the egg had actually touched. Seems to me a little odd to develop random ten-minute bouts of hayfever that disappear as quickly as they show themselves, especially when you are indoors with the doors closed . I now have to see the nurse to assess whether or not she can do a blood test at the surgery or whether he will have to be referred to the hospital allergy specialist. This initial assessment is not until next Tuesday and if she then decides that she cannot perform the blood test it will be up to another 8 - 12 weeks before the hospital can see him, so I have to start weaning him without knowing if he will react to any of the foods I give him.

Anyway, I am aware that this is the longest post in history, but I am trying to get everything down that might be relevant. Congratulations and thankyou if you are stll with me! I am now beside myself with worry that this might just be the tip of the iceberg and scaring myself to death that he will end up with peanut allergy, and all the associated problems that brings. I can't eat all day, I have a constant butterflies in my stomach nervous feeling and cannot think about anything else. I know I have to keep my strength up as I am breastfeeding but I just can't summon up any appetite. I have lost 4 pounds this week and feel shattered .

The straw that I am clutching at is that DD eats loads of egg - fried, omelettes, egg pasta, etc and is all over him. He has never had a reaction to any of these things being smeared all over his face! This morning she had lemon curd on toast before school and was kissing him before I even realised that it contains egg but again there was no skin reaction.

I know that putting this post into context, and having read some of the threads on this board, there are far worse scenarios that I could be dealing with. (I have had to stop reading them as I think I am just seeing the worst possible outcome and losing a sense of perspective), but I feel as though I am almost in mourning for the life my son could have led without having to constanly worry for his safety before I even know what the problem is. Trouble is, I just can't see any other reason for him to have this reaction, and I just have this horrible black cloud of fear hanging over my head.

Does anyone else have similar experience of such a reaction? How on earth did you cope with the anxiety while you waited to learn the full extent of your childs allergies, and how do you cope with the day to day worry of what the consquences of your DC's allergies could be? I could really do with some sensible heads to bring me down from the ceiling please!

Thanks so much if you got this far . It has helped just getting it all off my chest.

I don't really know, but I think they said when we went for the blood tests last week that they could only look for a specific thing, in this case they would test for egg.

My experience was that for the gut allergies they did blood tests, and for skin allergies they did skin prick tests, that's likely what they would do for your son.

Neither of these were advised until they were over one year though, although I know others who had testing performed earlier. The reason for not doing it earlier is there are a lot of changes to the digestion system earlier, and any results you get are not necessarily conclusive.

I had both tests for my son {the oldest who had multiple allergies} the blood tests gave and indication of allergies generally speaking and also tested specifically for some, dairy was our main concern, it does give you an idea of 'how' allergic they are, but as I mentioned prior to a year it's not reliable / conclusive. Even at a year old, my son's test results only gave a general idea.

For the skin prick tests for the skin allergies, they literally prick a tiny amount of what ever allergy is suspected into the skin and measure how big the reaction {rash} around each thing is, they test every 6 months say and see if there is a difference. You have to do one for everything you suspect. Even for nuts say, you do each individual nut {IE peanut, cashew etc}

Both tests are invasive. The skin pricks don't really hurt, but not surprisingly they still upset them.

With my {younger} daughter, I therefore didn't even bother to do testing / put her through that {was seeing a specialist for her though}
I understand your apprehension about exposure, but actually you can find out which allergies they have just by exposure. She only had gut {not skin} allergies, so once I knew she had an allergy I just excluded all main allergens and introduced them slowly.

Get some professional advice for your peace of mind, before weaning any of the allergens. Once you have your son assessed I hope it will allay your fears.
If you feel you need to start solids before you can see someone about it {you don't need to though, fine to leave it any time up to a year old to start solids} then just start with 'safe' foods, like rice cereal, root vegetables, apples and pears, that sort of thing. It's very rare to be allergic to those. :)

Ginger you sound as though you were very cool in the face of what must have been a really worrying time for you. I am a terrible control freak and need to be presented with the facts which I can then deal with, no problem. It's the not knowing that kills me - my imagination is running wild TBH. Have had to stop opening any thread with 'anaphylaxis' in the title and remind myself that it is a relatively rare reaction.

As I said upthread, I did intend that food would be secondary to breastmilk for the first year anyway but I had an idea that delaying the introduction of solids for any length of time after six months could be just as harmful as introducing them early (not sure where I got that one from, you read a hell of a lot of stuff on here when heavily pregnant ie. stuck on the sofa/breastfeeding ie. stuck on the sofa) so it's good to hear that it's okay.

GP was really open to referral to allergy specialist etc and suggested doing the blood test at the surgery for speed of obtaining results, so am hopeful that I can get to see someone sooner rather than later.

Okay, I'm back. I think it may turn out to be worse than I'd hoped .

Have been living on mostly toast lately as I haven't had much of an appetite with fretting about DS. A couple of nights ago I ate some pasta (no egg) with creme fraiche for dinner, and DS refused to feed all evening. He would cry when I tried to feed him, and was scratching his forehead and rubbing his eyes while trying to feed (although he does rub his eyes when tired, and would usually be asleep on my lap all evening so possibly it was just tiredness). He was quite happy as soon as he was distracted. So, I started to wonder about dairy.

I had cereal this morning, and again DS did not want to feed after I had eaten it. He kept taking a mouthful and then coming off again. He was fine and fed with no discomfort within an hour of me eating, I can't remember exactly how long it was but definitely within the hour. I also noticed a red patch on the back of his neck with one raised white spot in the middle. It disappeared after about half an hour. I have noticed a couple of times in the last week one of these spots has appeared somewhere on his face. He had one on his cheek, and another on the bridge of his nose. It's always just one, and always gone within about half an hour.

This is a reaction isn't it? Trouble is, i can't remember what I have eaten on those occasions and I know that on a couple of them, the spot has appeared without him being fed beforehand. He has had loads of skin contact with milk, yoghurt, cheese, etc when DD has been all over him after eating, and never any reaction to that. Am really confused, and frightened to eat anything now, in case of further reactions. I'm not a massive eater of dairy anyway, but I'm going to have to start avoiding it now, aren't I?

We have a blood test booked at the local hospital for Thursday morning. They tried at the GP's last week, but couldn't get any blood as I think the needle was too big for his veins. Just want to get it over with, but am dreading the results .

Dammit posted under the wrong name. We were looking at possibility of seeing someone privately and didn't want to give away too much info about my location. Will have to see if I can get the other thread removed

That does sound like a dairy allergy, sorry :-(

DS is allergic to dairy, he doesn't react on skin contact anymore, but comes out in hives on ingesting dairy.

I think you need to keep a food diary by the sounds of it.

Okay, I need some more advice please ladies.

Have been avoiding dairy since my last post. Doesn't seem to have made any difference at all to DS to be honest, as he wasn't really unsettled before. If I hadn't seen the effect of the egg on his skin, I would have had no reason to suspect any problems at all. Nights are no different. He still wakes two-hourly to feed, but DD did exactly the same from about 4 months and never really slept through properly til I stopped BFing at 16 months (). He has a small patch of eczema behind one of his knees which comes and goes but the only link I can see between it being better or worse is the heat - it's always worse when we've had a warm day and he's spent time in his pram. He has been showing signs of teething in the evenings with lots of dribbling, hand-chewing etc and often refuses to feed/comes off crying. Bonjela and Calpol seem to sort him out no problem. We are still awaiting the results of his blood test so are no further forward with knowing what he is potentially allergic to.

Fast-forward to two days ago when he came out in chicken pox, and is now covered from head to toe. DD had it a fortnight ago and has obviously passed it on to him. Last night he was really reluctant to feed, and when he finally did he was fine until after when I could hear his stomach gurgling and he was arching his back in pain. Once he had produced a huge poo in the early hours he was a lot better, but is still doing small poos at regular intervals. (To be fair, he was doing the small frequent poos before last night as well, so could partly be down to the CP). Putting two and two together, we had mashed potato last night, and the last time I ate potato he was struggling a bit in the night with wind before doing a poo in the morning, which is really unusual for him. On the other hand, DD also had a dodgy bum with CP so it could be nothing.

So the questions I have are - if I'm not being overly anxious and he were to be sensitive to potato would his reaction be worse because he is ill? If his stomach is off, is he more vulnerable to becoming sensitive to something that he wasn't before? If so, what on earth do I (not) eat to try to avoid this happening?? So sorry for these long posts but at the moment MN is my best source of reliable info.

TIA

Hi,
I'm driving myself crazy too.
I can relate so much to what you've put in your posts. I've just started weaning DD and she seems to be reacting to stuffs with cows milk in and wheat, don't know about eggs because she won't touch them.
I've been reading about anaphylaxis and panicing, I know what you mean when you say 'horrible black cloud of fear'.

Her reactions have been a rash round her cheeks and mouth, seconds after eating, sometimes puffy eyes and sometimes this weird raspy breathing.

When I breastfeed her she scratches at herself, at her head and ears and sometimes her lips swell a bit. So I've cut out dairy now but she still scratches so I think I need to cut out wheat from my diet.

I'd kill for a cheese toastie and a latte right now

Sorry, no advice, but I just had to post because you seem to be saying everything I'm feeling.