CasaBevron again - it's official, DS will be breastfed for the rest of his life :(

[CasaBevron]

Me again. For anyone who didn't manage to plough through my last thread, DS RAST-tested, allergic to egg and wheat. Also reacts to banana, apple, cashews (through breastmilk) and sweet potato (fed directly to him). Always the same reaction - one hive somewhere on his head. Have seen them on the back of his neck, cheeks or forehead. They always go away within half an hour without Piriton. He also has terrible stomach pains and green mucousy nappies whenever I eat nightshade veg. The only thing I have fed him so far without a reaction is baby rice, so I have been upping the amount I give and feeding him twice a day with it. So far I have always expressed breastmilk into it.

Yesterday DS started with a cold. He's been feeding more often so tonight, rather than express milk, which would have taken ages, I just made up the rice with cooled boiled water. The instant I put the spoon into his mouth, he made a 'what on earth is this?' face and a hive appeared on his forehead. No crying, itching etc but a definite hive. I managed to get a spoon of Piriton into him and it disappeared within ten minutes, so definitely a histamine response to something. So now he's either started to react to baby rice too, or he's allergic to water???

I just feel at the end of my tether now. I know the reactions he has are nothing like as scary as they could be, but it feels as though he's going to react to everything i put in his mouth! I daren't give him anything else to eat now. I'll try him again on baby rice with breastmilk in the morning and see what happens. At least then I can work out what might be causing it this time. I'm really worried that this is the tip of a big scary iceberg and that the reactions are only likely to get worse and more frequent.

We are seeing Adam Fox in approx 4 weeks time, so I suppose if anyone can get to the bottom of this, he can. I spoke to the specialist nurse at our local allergy unit last week, who said that in ten years of working with kids with allergies she'd never heard of anything like this . I'm not even sure why I'm posting this really, I just need to offload somewhere. I imagine that those of you whose kids have had life-threatening reactions to food will be starting to tire of me whining on about DS's. I just feel so lost with all this, I no longer trust my instinct as a mother and I can't separate out what might just be normal baby behaviour from the potential effects of what he and I are eating .

One of these days I'm going to write a short, concise post! Hope I haven't depressed you too much if you made it to the end. I'm not really expecting answers, just helps to get it off my chest.

[Lima1]

Hi, similar story here. DS1 was diagnoised at 4 months with allergies to milk,egg,peanut and wheat. He also reacted to rice, banana and carrot.
Thankfully he doesnt have life threatening reaction - just hives, eczema and gastrointestinal symptoms.
When I gave him banana and rice he broke out in hives on his head. The dietician wouldnt believe me, she said no babys are allergic to rice and that I must have given something mixed with the rice - I hadnt it was pure baby rice. She advised I give normal rice cooked and pureed - same reaction. He sucked on a rice cake for about 10 secs and hives on his face.

Thankfully he isnt allergic to soya - however (and I think this may help you) when he gets a cold he will get hives when he eats it. I can only assume when he is run down his immune system cant cope with certain foods.
At the moment is allowed foods with dried milk powder in this - to see if he can tolerate it. He is fine and occassionally I give him packet chicken soup with skimmed milk powder in it. A couple of weeks ago he had a slight head cold and after I gave him some of the soup he broke out in hives on his head.

He will also just get hives on his torso from time to time. I had myself worried sick when I saw these trying to figure out what had caused them and terrified he was now allergic to something else.
I still dont know what causes them but I have stopped worrying. I suspect he may get them when he gets too warm from running around - thats the best I have got.

I totally understand what you are going through. I used to be terrified of trying new foods and DS had a very limited diet for a long time (I dont know how mammys of children with very serious reaction cope). It does get so much better. My DS is 2 next month and I very rarely think about his allergies, I have become so used to dealing with them. The good news is his RAST and skin prick results have been getting better so it looks like he is growing out of them - yeahhhhh.

Let me know if I can be of any help in the future.

[CasaBevron]

Hi all, just realised I had let this thread die without thanking you all for your advice. My head's been up my arse a bit with all of this, and I had to step away from the computer as I was just winding myself up reading about severe reactions and other people's experiences.

Anyway, we are seeing Adam Fox next week (have started a separate thread asking about taking food for skin prick testing - any advice would be gratefully received!) which is a good job really as we have seen some more weird reactions in the past few weeks. I was advised by the nurse at our local paed allergy unit to get any of the common allergens that DS is not allergic to into him asap, so I tried him with a fromage frais. He was not impressed, and later in the day developed a hive on his head as well as an eczema-type rash on his cheeks and chin. He has since started to scratch again the way he did before we realised he was allergic, and it looks as though he is reacting to dairy in my diet. Gutted. I feel this is my fault for sensitizing him to it by giving it directly. What is odd is that he only ever scratches around his right ear, and the hives have started appearing just in that area too. The scratching is independent of the hives though, iyswim? When they appear, he does not scratch them, but scratches the area around his ear at other times .

He has had pear and carrot, which he seems fine with. I got a bit overexcited by this, and gave him a Plum pot of pumpkin, carrot and mango, which also contains quinoa. He was fine with this until the fourth time, when he again developed a hive, so I now have to work out which one of those ingredients he was reacting to [stupid].

Strangest of all is that someone who had not long put out a cigarette breathed into his face last night and he started to rub his eyes and developed two hives on his face not long after. I guess that if he reacts to nightshade foods then that is where the link comes in and he is reacting to having breathed in tobacco. This really freaks me out, as it is something totally outside of my control - how can I vet his contact with smokers/smoking without actually asking anyone we meet if they have just had a fag??! Luckily, no-one within our family or circle of friends smokes, so this cuts down the chances of smoke inhalation but I am still beginning to feel more and more out of control of the whole thing. I'm frightened of our dog, of dust, of the fact that DS is about to start crawling and DD is a really messy eater dropping crumbs everywhere at every opportunity, and so on and so on - repeat until nervous breakdown occurs!

Anyway, this is more of a brain dump than anything, but thanks again for continuing to read and advise me. I will try to update once we have been to London next week and pass on any info that others might find useful. Interestingly, I was told by our GP this week that he had been to a lecture by an immunologist recently who said that maternal consumption of a child's allergens while breastfeeding makes no difference to long term outcome, ie whether the child outgrows the allergy or not. One less thing for us to beat ourselves up about? Still doesn't help when you see your dc suffering at the time though .