Allergic reaction - how soon does it happen?

[thomasina1]

My 18 month DD woke up today with a couple of small patches of hives. Steadily got bigger and more appeared - there are now quite a few large patches plus smaller spots all over her body - so I saw a doctor this afternoon who diagnosed urtica and prescribed piriton. She also has a slight fever.

The problem is that I am at a loss as to what could have caused it. She has never shown any signs of allergies before, and we have no history of allergies in either side of the family. She's been eating all the usual culprits for ages now (strawberries, eggs, wheat, peanuts) and I can't think of anything we have done differently recently re washing powder etc. We were out in the garden yesterday but then that's not new either.

Can anyone tell me how long it can take for a reaction to occur? It's weird as the rash has got worse throughout the day today, despite not being in contact with/eating anything unusual.

Sorry for the ramble and thanks!

It varies from child to child and from allergen to allergen. I think its unusual to have a reaction after about 6 hours from exposure though. Hopefully it was just something in the garden and you wont see it again. Probably best to carry a bottle of piriton in your handbag though so if it happens again you can catch the reaction early. Hope she's better by morning.

Thanks jollyma, that was what I thought, which is reassuring in a way as at least it narrows it down a bit. The redness did seem to have gone down a bit this evening so I'm hoping she'll wake up much better. She did still have a bit of a high temperature though, despite calpol - is this normal? Also, i'm wondering whether to send her to nursery tomorrow, assuming the redness has lessened and the temperature has gone down. What do you think though?

Hi thomasina, i only just saw your last post. Did you send her to nursery? How is she today? I don't know about the temperature, my son has had a temperature when he reacted quite badly to suncream but that could have been sun related. I've never noticed a temperature with a food reaction.

You said that she has a temperature, could the reaction be as the result of a virus?

Ds1 frightened the life out of the other week by getting hives all over his face (he is allergic to peanuts and celery) during dinner - I assumed a new allergy or contamination. The next night at 5.30pm same thing happened, only I was a bit behind and tea wasn't ready yet. Turns out it was a reaction to a virus (we think the slapped cheek he had a couple of weeks ago). Since then we've had it a couple of times, always at 5.30pm and I've relaxed a bit as no oral symptoms are present, as they are during a food reaction.