Allergy clinic - what should we expect?

[MaisyMoo123]

Hi. My ds has quite severe eczema and is generally very "rashy". I have been querying possible allergies for ages but gp disregarded it until a particularly bad outbreak over the summer and what we felt was quite obvious cheek flushing after eating egg (he's been egg free ever since). After this she referred us and we have an appointment at the allergy clinic on Thursday this week. I just wondered what we should expect. The letter says to allow 1.5 hours. I'm guessing they'll do the pin-prick tests but what for? Will they do anything else? Should I be preparing ds for anything particularly nasty?

Blimey, your clinic sounds a lot better than ours - we were there for an hour but 40 minutes of that was waiting, then 15 minutes was waiting for the skin prick tests to react!

We just got asked for our son's history and then they tested 6 allergens on his arm - they will target the tests towards your circumstances so for instance we had a test for cat allergy because we have a cat, but didn't test for other animals as it's not really relevant. Then they just told us the results and said they would repeat them in 6 months...and that was it.

Thanks getagrape. Well, letter says to allow 1.5 hrs for apt - that may well include waiting time!! Useful to get a rough idea of what might happen. I'd guessed they'd do the prick test and then we'd have to wait for it to react (or not). Did your dc cope ok with it? Did it hurt? Someone mention blood tests too?

He was fine with it - it's more like a little scrape of the skin rather than sticking a needle in it!
We weren't offered any blood tests, I think because he was still only 6m so they don't want to do anything more invasive than necessary, but maybe some allergies are diagnosed more effectively through blood tests as skin prick tests can be fraught with false negatives/positives so even after that we can't be 100% sure of the results that we have.

Dd had allergy testing at 5yo. She was sent to a paediatric allergy dept at St Mary's in London, and the staff were fabulous with her (the dr less so, the nurses and people who did the actual procedures - marvellous). She had scratch tests, which turned out ti be far less bothersome than we thought they would be. Also some breathing tests, which the nurse made such fun that dd asked to do them again. The scratch test results were ambiguous, so they did blood tests as well. Unfortunately, because of all the hanging about, it was about 20minutes before closing by the time they decided to do blood tests. Not long enough for the numbing cream to work. So we were given the choice: come back in a few weeks' time, or get it over and done with now without anaesthetic. We got it over and done with. Dd was frightened, but the nurse, again, was brilliant.

I would say take calm toys, snacks and a drink. If you're going to paeds they will have bribes available. If not, have a pocketful ready. I find that pulling a lolly out of my pocket at the crucial moment works wonders.

Thanks. Really helpful and very reassuring. I'm not really sure what they're likely to test for - as it's eczema related I guess the key triggers are dairy, wheat and egg but we shall see. I'm not expecting a hugely definitive answer but we shall see!