Photo contact allergy

[FrillyMilly]

DD is 3. She has eczema and an inhaler for possible asthma (DH has both). Every summer she suffers with what appears to be an allergy. It's got worse every year. At first we (and GP) thought it was hayfever. However this year she had a really bad reaction. Her face, arms and legs where covered in hives and her face swelled. She needed steroid tablets as it wouldn't respond to anti histamines. It's happened a few times and is worse on her face but is also usually on her arms and legs. She has been for allergy testing and doesn't appear to be allergic to anything. We are waiting for patch testing although they think she may be a bit young for this.

We think it may be to suncream but there have been a few times during the, not very hot, summer where she has had sun cream on and not reacted. Yesterday she had suncream on (one she has previously had no reaction to) and has come out in the rash where the suncream was applied. The only difference was yesterday was really hot and really sunny and she was out in it for a while.

So after some googling I am wondering if it's a photo contact allergy. Does anyone have any experience of this? I've never heard of it before today. Does anyone have any recommendations of suncreams we could try? We've tried pretty much all the ones you can get in the shops.

My friends dd has this type of reaction whenever she does exercise/runs around/play sport etc. This has been diagnosed as exercise induced uriticarea. She has to take anti histamines before PE/exercise etc.
Do you think this might be similar?

sorry - Urticarea

DD has this - or should I say WOULD have if she ate foods with additives, or used the wrong sun cream, or wrong soap or bubble bath etc -

she is intolerant to Azo Dyes & Benzoate preservatives, which show up in all sorts of things from foods to suncreams & are a common culprit & won;t show up in NHS allergy testing, as its an intolerance rather than allgery

sounds like you may have already pin pointed it as suncream - DD uses Soltan Baby Hypollergenic on advise of our Chemist -

she was fine with Soltan for years, but after an illness earlier in the year, she became more sensitive & even that set her urticaria off - the Baby one doesn't - so I'd advise trying that - if not look at treats she might have in the summer that she doesn't in the winter IYSWIM - you might find your culprit there - good luck

Thanks. I have urticaria so it has crossed my mind that DD could have it. Mine is set off by skin products and DD skin does seem very sensitive. We are already using non bio powder, don't use fabric softener and only have bath products that are as sensitive as possible because of her eczema. So she may be allergic to other products but she doesn't come in to contact with them. The only thing we use that very chemically is sun cream but some days she reacts to it and some days she doesn't. That is what made me wonder about the photo contact allergy.

I had not considered that food may play a part as she didn't react to any common ones at the allergy testing. I think I will keep a diary an see when it flares up. I hadnt expected the weather to be nice for a good six months so hadn't given it a lot of thought.

This is interesting. My DS got a rash the other day after I put the Baby Soltan sun cream on him, but only on the areas where he had sun exposure. He hasn't reacted to it before like this. I didn't think/worry about it too much, just assumed it was because he has sensitive skin anyway, and the sun and sweat together had just exacerbated it. I put 1% HC on it and it went away overnight. But this has made me wonder whether he has some sort of mild photo contact allergy!