my son has a type of allergy called FPIES which causes delayed vomiting. His corn reaction was different though, rash on his face, neck and tummy with small amounts of derivatives, vomiting, reflux and diarrhoea with larger amounts. He was IgE negative. He reacted to cow's milk formula at 6 months, i thought he was cmpi but it was actually the maltodextrin. We went to quite extreme lengths as he was so sensitive. I wrote a post on the FPIES fb page about it. I'll paste it here, i warn you it's very long though:
Ok, i have been meaning to post this for a long time. Warning it will be very long It is a post all about Corn and what i have learned over the last 12 months.
My son is 18 months old, he was ebf from birth and had symptoms from very early on. In particular, frequent projectile 'spit up', eczema and rashes. At 6 months old we started weaning his first food was a mango baby porridge made from rice and corn! whilst i realised that he was reacting to some foods i couldn't figure out which. He developed a rash in particular on his neck and face. At 7 months we tried some hipp organic formula as i wanted to use the ready-made version on his cereal rather than expressing. His vomiting got much worse and he developed diarrhoea, I presumed he had a delayed milk allergy so we both went dairy free, unsurprisingly we saw no improvement (dairy is actually safe). All meds like infacol, calpol, even antihistamines caused his neck rash to flare horribly. At 8 months old he developed a permanently runny nose, it would stream all day long, getting worse throughout the day. I thought he might have hayfever or pet allergy but these tested negative. At 10 months at our consultants request we removed all food except 2 safes and put him on neocate and his symptoms improved 95%. He was doing great and started to gain weight. However his nose continued to stream and his neck rash still came and went along with an occasional patch or two of eczema. At 12 months old he started to gag frequently and choke on his safe foods then vomit onto his highchair, I thought he must have EoE. At 13.5 months we re-started food trials, at our consultants request we tried corn early on. I gave DS 1 corn puff and 3 hours later he was covered in a top to toe rash, not something i had seen before. I googled corn allergy and came across this list www.cornallergens.com/list/corn-allergen-list.php Wow!! it was like a lightbulb had gone on. We had failed over 20 foods between 8 and 10 months and i started to realise many were due to corn!
FAIL LIST
maple syrup -corn oil can be used as defoamer
Vanilla extract (alcohol from corn)
Hipp formula (vitamins, maltodextrin from corn)
calpol (sorbitol, xanthan gum -corn)
parapaed (sorbitol, saccharin, xanthan gum-corn)
cetirizine syrup (sorbitol,glycerol, saccharin-corn)
soya milk (maltodextrin-corn)- soya also an issue though
apple fruit pot (ascorbic acid-corn)
pear pouch (ascorbic acid-corn)
bag apples grapes (E302 calcium ascorbate-corn)
well kid syrup (ascorbic acid, xanthan gum-corn/ barley extract)
dalivit (polysorbate 80, ascorbic acid-corn)
nurofen baby (citric acid-corn)
White potatoes (sprayed with chlopropham (no bud) to stop sprouting)
Colgate kids toothpaste- xanthan gum etc
I joined the corn allergy and intolerance board on facebook and learned that many other things contained corn too, like toilet tissue, eczema creams, soaps, cleaners, wet wipes etc. If you are brave enough to venture over to the corn board be advised that a lot of them over there are ana to trace amount and even contact so there are very few products they will say are safe. Sensitivity varies vastly as does strength of reaction so what is unsafe for one person can be fine for another.
The first thing i did was try apples without the vitamin C, they were an easy pass, same for pears. I then stopped using kleenex to wipe DS still constantly runny nose and got some wetwipes called water wipes instead. I bought a bar of olive oil soap with no obvious corn ingredient to use to wash Joe's body and hair. I stopped using his emollient and hydromol bath additive. changed his toothpaste, Stopped using antibac sprays and cif to clean and bought a steam mop and started using online recipes for cleaning solutions using lemon juice/ rice vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, which actually work really well to clean surfaces. It took a couple of weeks to start work but at this point his nose stopped running! ( it took a further month or two to fully work though i presume due to residual corn around the house.) it was amazing, to think wiping his nose with tissue was actually causing the problem, crazy! We have not changed washing powder at all and still use disposable nappies when needed with no problem as it seems fortunately he has to ingest the corn to to be a problem.
DS still gets 'corned' on a regular basis. It is really obvious when it happens, he gets a red itchy patch on his neck within an hour or so, it's a bit like one of those tefal spot indicator thingies on the pans . It's usually things like balloons, chewing on card books, stickers etc that cause the problem but some foods that look like they should be safe also cause corn symptoms, the most common ingredients to do this are 'vegetable oil' and natural flavours'. Because corn can be so hidden eg used to clean processing equipment, we now do a mini trial of EVERY new product, just one or two days, but no other trials that day. to be sure it is safe.
To avoid confusion with vegetables and whether they have been sprayed with corn we grow most of our own veg now, otherwise we get it from the local farm shop and failing that we buy organic.
Since we have been 'almost' corn free his nose no longer runs (unless he gets corned), his tonsils are gradually getting smaller, his always swollen glands in his neck have come down, he no longer gags or chokes and more importantly he started passing more new foods! I feel like with his 'corn bucket' more empty his body has less to fight and is less reactive.
I realise this is reeally long but i am fairly certain that those who have the hardest time with figuring out triggers are those who's lo's are sensitive to corn. We are lucky that DS has to put the corn ingredient in or around his mouth for it to be a problem, he is however super sensitive to it. On the plus side his reactions are fairly mild and it takes a large ingestion to actually cause any vomiting or diarrhoea. Most kids do not get a tell tale rash or obvious immediate symptoms but more of a build type reaction with symptoms once their 'corn bucket' gets full. We are very lucky that it is so obvious and no other ingredients cause the same reaction in DS.
Hope that this will help some of you. If you have any questions please ask
And yes i realise i sound like a crazy woman, but corn sensitivity is crazy.