Allergy Advice

[liamsdaddy]

My little boy (2.75 yrs) has recently been having several occurrences when his left eye (and only hi left eye) swells up in the morning. Our GP gave us antihistamines to treat and suggested that it was a general allergy.

We have been monitoring for a while because it seemed that it would happen randomly.

We believe that it may be something in his food that could be triggering the reaction. The prime suspects right now look to be the Heinz Tomato Ketchup and KP Sauce (he only occasionally asks for a dab on his plate). I would suspect from the list of ingredients that it would either be the spirit vinegar or the spices (paprika perhaps?) that could be responsible. There is also onion/garlic ? but he has been exposed to those a number of times with no reaction.

Does anyone have a child with a similar reaction?
Is it feasible that the morning after eating something could cause the left eye to swell up (no reaction on his right eye, or any other part of his body)?
What would you test next to confirm or deny the reaction?

As swelling occurs before eating in the morning (?), i would first suspect environmental allergies , such as dustmite.

The other foods irritating, like tomato sauce, are quite acidic foods , and tomatos do contain histamine, so a sensitive child would react to that.
for instance my multiple allergic child cant eat some foods high in histamine without reacting.raw tomatos are part of that group for him.
my son also has a very high level of environmental alleriges, and does wake up in the morning with swollen lips and eyes, dust mite, tree pollen, hay fever are all causes of this for him.

I would do some simple dustmite lowering stuff in his room and your house, and when the swelling happens, make a note of the date, as this might point to other envionmental allergies, which cross react with the foods your child is eating.

does your child have ezcema ? asthma? dust mite is a major irritant for the those conditions.

He does get a little ezcema occasionally. But it not that noticeable (we generally only notice it when bathing him) and is treated with a little skin moisturiser.

The one problem I have with dust mites is that wouldn't they be present all the time? Or you would see some correlation with the day that his bedding gets washed on? He actually had a minor flare up when we where staying with his grandparents last weekend and that was a clean room/clean bed.

Do you see this random triggering with dust mites? I'm not saying that it won't be dust mites, just that I don't understand why it wouldn't happen every week if that was the case.

By the way, the time it happened at his grandparents just happened to be the day after he had snaffled one of my salt and vinegar crisps!

We are having a few issues with the antihistamine given to us. That seems to have the side effect of making him pee less, which I think is uncomfortable for him. Plus he seems to have a sore tummy when he is on it too.

I agree could be dustmites. Maybe try antiallergic covers -not expensive and don't hurt anyway. It could also be a contact allergy, like nickel. If I have prolonged contact, that makes my right eye swell and get itchy. Does he come in contact with jewelry or some metal toys maybe?

Try giving him some ketchup in the mornign (I know I know). It's weird that hte reaction always happens over night. If it only happens after hours, it's most likely dust mites.

salt and vinegar crisps are high in salt and do cause a bit of swelling with senstive skin.

with regards the dustmites, u can only kill them in sheets by boil washing them. so a normal clean sheet and bedding isnt going to make a difference, in fact you would see a flare up if the room had a old mattress or pillow.

what antihistamine is he on? there are side effects with piriton, for instance, but dont something related to peeing less. i would get that checked out with a doc, and give more water in case of brewing infection.

I have a friend who has a dust allergy & it would be worse the morning after she had hoovered & dusted her bedroom as dust disturbed. Causes itch swollen eyes.

@eragon - that's precisely why I'm unsure about dust mites. All our washing is done at 40 and his room isn't hoovered every day. So therefore shouldn't he be getting a reaction to dust mites every day since they are always there?

We actually took him back to the GP this morning as we have run out of the medicine she had prescribed (allerief/chlorphenamine maleate). To try prevent the urinary retention (which is listed as a side effect for all antihistamines see bnf.org/bnf) he is now on a back ground dose of loratadine with a referral to the local paediatrician team.

Based on the information we provided her with the occurrences, the GP seems to suspect it's more likely to be diet then environment too.

There are a couple of metal toy cars in his room - but he plays with those every day.

I think I'll track on our allergy occurrence chart when we hoover his room - just in case we are moving the dust around when we do it. Washing his bedding happens on a schedule (mostly) but hoovering is a bit more random.

does he have ezcema?
if you stand him in any room with a normal vacum cleaner (non hepra filter!) and he starts to scratch his exposed skin, that could be a indication!

my highly dustmite allergic son doenst get the swellings every day, just odd days when his bod just tips over iyswim.

my son had headaches , tiredness and eat less while he was on piriton, when younger, and he had a nasty problem with liquid claritin, defo allergic to it, and another liquid one i cant remember that was very odd on his brain.

now of course on more suitable daily antihistamine , which he HAS to take every day, or the swellings return. skin is constantly irritated by dustmites in form of very dry skin and ezcema.

does your boy snore? because he shouldnt , get doc to check nose if he does snore.

My little boy occasionally gets patches of dry skin, usually on his feet, legs and upper arms that need treating with a moisturiser. The patches are usually not any different colour from the rest of his skin, the only way I usually detect them is by touch or after a bath when they seem to be a little darker in colour.

I've not known him to start scratching himself - but then I don't know anyone with a non-HEPA vacuum cleaner. We haven't had any full blown rashes or sores that he has started itching.

We have had instances of with certain bath soaps that he will start scratching himself when he was in the bath - but we got rid of those when we spotted the connection and haven't had it since.

From doing a bit of research the medicines he is currently on are effectively piriton and claritin - just we are on generic non-branded versions.

Nope, he doesn't snore - but I'll might get the paed to check his nose when we get referred in any case. I deny of course that I snore too