Any advise please..

[poppycat04]

Hi, have posted on here once before and had loads of good advice. On Friday my nearly 9 mo DS has his first hospital appt. He appears to be allergic to CMP and egg. We discovered this when we started to wean him at 6mo. I'm still EBF and have removed egg and CMP from my diet and his skin and health is now the best it has been since birth.
So my question is what to expect at the first appt? What should I ask?
Thanks very much for your help.

Hi, I'm in a very similar situation to you with DS who is now 11 months. I think it depends who you are seeing at the hospital. My first appointment was with general paediatrician who wasn't very helpful at all and quite undermining of breastfeeding. I was told that they don't do allergy testing at this age and so not much to be done. Was then referred to a dietician who did give me some really helpful advice including information on non-dairy calcium rich foods. I ebf too but dietician advised use of Aptamil Pepti formula (on prescription) in food (sauces, mixed into mash etc.) to up calcium and calorie intake and perhaps help reduce frequency of bfs (DS is still a 6-8 a day boy!). I also got a good cookery book from her with ideas for egg and dairy free recipes using the formula. Her main concern was ensuring DS gets enough calories and calcium in his solids. Have also been referred to allergy specialist and waiting for appointment. I was keen to know what to do when he gets to 12 months as can't give cow's milk and not sure I want to bf until he's two. Dietician advised that so long as he's having a varied diet I can start to drop bfs and replace with calcium and vitamin enriched oatmilk at 12 months (I think DS may have other ideas though!). My experience has been that research into allergies is changing all the time and so medics are wary of giving black and White advice.
Another concern I had was whether small amounts of CMP and egg in my breastmilk would make him more or less likely to grow out of the allergies. Again no-one keen to give a definitive answer but it seems current thinking suggests small amounts might be beneficial (unless v. severe anaphylactic reaction of course). Anyway, I've rambled but I hope this helps. Good luck with your appointment, I hope it is worthwhile.

Hi, I am by no means an expert having just started down this road myself with DS, and I am sure that someone with more knowledge than me will be along to advise. What I can tell you is that it is possible to test for allergies at any age. DS was RAST tested at around 6 months, and skin prick tested last week (he is now approx eight months). Having read every single one some of the threads on here I know that others dc's have been tested even younger and had accurate results. I would want to have tests for at least the 'big eight' allergies as quite often dairy and soya can go hand in hand, for example, as well as egg and peanut. This way you are forewarned if there are other foods that you need to avoid (although of course I hope this is not the case for your little one).

You do need to be sure that the test results are explained to you in context, by someone who knows what they are talking about. Having had DS RAST tested, my GP had us avoiding wheat, when DS's score was only 0.1 over the negative score and showed no reaction at all to the skin prick tests. So I have spent the last three months avoiding wheat in my diet when I didn't need to! On the positive side, I have lost four stone since I had DS, but I would have killed for a piece of toast at times! The tests will not give you any idea of how your DS may react to anything that he is allergic to, only how likely it is that he is allergic, iyswim?

We saw Adam Fox last week, who is one of the top allergy specialists in the country. (This is not in the way of boasting, just to emphasise that I regard the info we have been given as very reliable!) His opinion is that the foods you eat while pregnant and/or breastfeeding have no bearing on your child's allergies. So while avoiding your child's allergens in your diet may save them some discomfort, actively consuming them has no bearing on whether they will eventually be outgrown.

TBH, it has only been through reading the threads on here that I had any idea of what to expect from our appt., my GP was quite happy to refer us but very little use when it came to providing any accurate information on how I should be approaching DS's allergies, weaning etc, etc.

I hope I don't come over as patronising if this is stuff that you already know, as I say we are still in the early stages of the allergy journey ourselves, but just wanted to share with you what I have learned on the way so far

Good luck!

Sorry, I am also a rambler, I can't seem to write a short post - hope you get through all that!