Allergy testing tomorrow - any advice

[conkertree]

Ds1 is allergic to mussels, shellfish, eggs, milk/dairy products and peanuts. He was diagnosed roughly a year ago after having a series of angioedemas. He couldnt have the skin prick test at the time as we hadn't been told to stop using piriton and cetirizine for a few weeks beforehand.

Anyway, he was booked in then for a year ahead (tomorrow) and they said they would test him for other things then. We know he is definitely still allergic to mussels - he reacts if he is within a few metres of them.

Does anyone have any advice on whether we can ask for them to test for a range of things, or only things we suspect (like wool).

Someone mentioned that he may ot be allergic to some cheese - eg the milk protein is taken out or cooked or something. Does anyone have experience of this?

DD's allergy nurse has often said that if we want her to test for any other foods then we should take them along.

We saw her recently and I took along a bag of onions, leeks, garlic,ginger,mango and a few other suspect foods and she was able to test these too.

If your DS has a dairy allergy then they'll probably just test for milk.

DD hasnt had dairy since she was about 8 months old as although she doesn't have an allergy to it, it used to make her skin very very itchy. We have recenty started giving her bits of cheese and yogurt and milk. The advice about the cheese was to try her with a very mild cheese. Apparently, strong cheddar is high in histamine and can cause some people a problem so we were told to avoid this. Mild cheddar is ok though. Maybe you could take some mild cheese with you for them to test. But if your DS has a dairy allergy, then maybe just speak to the doctor you see.

Good Luck and hope the appointment goes well. Oh the other thing is to write down any questions you have. I always leave the appointments and remember on the drive home about 10 things I forgot to ask.

Take care

Thanks very much. We were told last time to bring a mussel with us, as they wereunlikely to have that, but would have most other things.

I might take coconut as well just incase. Not sure if they can test for dogs, or if that is a different thing with it not being a food.

That's interesting about the cheese - would be so great if he could have a little cheese. Would make life a lot easier for cooking. I will see if I can get a little on the way just incase they can test for that too.

Hello again.

Just wondering how it went? Was the appointment ok and did they test for dogs and the cheese?

Hi. That's kind of you to check back. He had a skin prick test for all the ones he had the blood test for last year, except mussels as he reacted to them when we had some in the car a couple of weeks ago, so the doctor didnt feel they needed to test for that.

He added in testing for tree nuts, and we asked for coconut which they did. All came back positive except coconut, so we can add tree nuts to the list, but its good to know that he can have coconut - might push the coconut milk with added calcium a bit more.

The tree nut swellings were amongst the biggest ones, so I'm glad we have been avoiding them anyway. And I'm glad we have epi-pens just incase.

We asked about cheese, and he said he was keen to do trial re-introductions of some foods in low risk children, but given the numbe of allergies, coupled with eczema and asthma, means that he is high risk, so he said to test again in a years time, and see if any reactions have gone down then.

Which foods is your dd allergic to?