Health effects avoiding foods?

[Comma2]

What's your opinion on the effect that avoiding entire food groups has for our dc? Obviously no dairy or wheat or nuts is vastly preferable to a shock, but how do you feel about not including them if the reaction is very mild?

DD couldn't have eggs, soy, dairy, bunch of fruits and veggies, nuts and whatnot when she was little, so I basically raised her on sugar. Doesn't make me feel great tbh...later she could have soy, but soy has a bunch of phytoestrogen- too much is not a great thing for little boys and who knows for girls.

Just wondering, in the end, whether a slight hive-reaction isn't better than no dairy or something. I'm sure if they'd test all persons on the street, a lot of them would show allergies they didn't know they had and not care about? I'm very sure if they'd test DD more, they would tell me to exclude more stuff from here diet that I didn't even notice she reacts to in some minor way.

I think you should get your GP to reffer you to a state registered dietian, to go over the diet to see if its balanced.

I would not give the allergens at all, mainly because predicting 'just' a hive reaction is pretty much impossible. lots of factors influence reaction, from moving to hives straight to anaphylaxis.

If the whole country was RAST tested for allergies, without good reason to indicate any alleriges, they wouldnt be reliable anyway.

Why not?

I think that this is a worry lots of us have. DS virtually lives on biscuits and sausages at the moment Sticking to what I know is safe can be hard sometimes, especially as he is not a big eater and can be quite fussy as well.

DS had RAST tests when he was about 13 months old, and had low positive scores for wheat and soya. He was already eating wheat with no problems, so we were told to continue giving him wheat and to avoid soya. After a few months, I introduced soya (very cautiously!) and he was absolutely fine - however, he cannot eat it too often, and always rejects foods containing soya if he is feeling at all unwell (e.g. bad cold, recent tummy bug, recent allergic reaction).

Having said that, I definitely do agree that it's best always to avoid foods that you know your DCs have even mild reactions to. Allergic reactions can be so unpredictable. I think there is also a school of thought which says that repeated exposure to foods that your child is already sensitised to might make future allergic reactions worse. Anyway, to me, it seems slightly cruel to give them foods which could make them feel poorly... also I wonder if there is really any nutritional benefit in giving them these foods (e.g. foods that a child is intolerant to tend to 'go straight through them', and perhaps not many nutrients are absorbed).

I do definitely agree about getting referred to an NHS dietitian - that way you should get some information about balancing a diet with all the restrictions you have, and hopefully also some reassurance.

I think some of us on here are in a minority. We know that our children have restricted diets so we look into everything to try to compensate in some way for whatever has been 'cut out'.
Now compare this to the diet of a parent that just feeds their kids with any old stuff - and i think ours fare favourably. I would say that my DSs eat more veg and less high fat, salt and sugar food groups, with much more baked from scratch, less processed food than the majority of their classmates.

there are two tests for IgE food allergies RAST and skin prick tests.
both of these can result in false positive and negative results.

immunoloigsts take in reaction history and atopic status of patient in consideration with comparable test results. then give their judgement of tests, and then give advice, normally which ones to avoid. Then talk meds, either emergency ones such as epi pens and anapens etc, and daily meds to control the often severe enviromental allergies, and meds for asthma. which of course is a allergic disease, and needs to be in control to avoid severe food reactions.

random non allergic people could have negative results , someone with no food allergies, but is atopic, say with ezcema may come up with a false positive result. so would be a complete waste of time!

however if you look at the uk rate of asthma, we are quite allergic anyway, and our deaths from this common allergic disease is very high, 1500 a year.

and of course it goes without saying , that other alternative forms of testing do not work for IgE allergies, and also the blood test for IgG is also poor.
hair sampling, waste of money.
home testing kits, also waste of time and money.
and other pure quack stuff such as kineseolgy. ( how do u spell that?)

Hm. Well i guess I'm mostly thinking about cases like DD here. I was told she was quite allergic to things she's always been eating and hasn't got any noticeable reaction to - no digestion problems, no skin problems (her ususal), certainly nothing respiratory- so is it worth cutting them out? I would if I'd be sure it wouldn't do more harm than not. On the other hand, my pediatrician, unlike allergist, says that real test is ingestion, not skin (which, allergist maintains, is better than blood).

Our dietician does the best she can, but then you still end up with all carbs and soy e.g.

I made broth from scratch for the kid tonight--slightly icky, but supposed to be really good for her intestines and against allergies. Ugh. Whatever. I wished there was a way to tell what's what with this allergy mess.

if you suspect outgrowning food allergies, and blood and skin prick tests are low, a hosptial food challenge would be your next step.

does your child have ige or intol or both types of allergies?

IgE for sure (intol? never heard of that?) No, not outgrowing but apparently new ones cropping up, and not low either. But she's never had trouble eating those, so I almost fell off the chair when allergist said she shouldn't have it anymore.