A few weeks ago my 19 month old dd had an allergic reaction to raw tomatoes. Her hand swelled up quite significantly and was covered in a white nettle like rash. She seemed to be reacting to the juice, as she also had swelling on her leg where the juice had dripped. It was obviously sore and very itchy. This all happened within the space of a couple of minutes. Fortunately I was at home and got piraton down her very quickly and the symptoms subsided. By that evening, she had eczema all over her body and over the next couple of days it got progressively worse - weeping behind her knees, every crease bright red, her whole torso covered. You get the picture. It's still bad after nearly 2 weeks of mild steroids morning and night as well as lots of moisturiser.
Anyway, to the point! I spoke to my GP who was unsure whether to refer her to a dermatologist or an allergy specialist. In the end he went down the dermatology route, but I'm not really convinced he is right. He said a dermatologist would be able to give dd a patch test, but having looked up what a patch test is, it seems completely inappropriate for the kind of response my dd had to tomatoes. The patches stay on for 5 days, but my dd responded within 5 seconds. I think the GP is generally very good, but he was quite open about not being sure who the best person was to see. I'm not sure he had come across a tomato allergy before.
So, does anyone have any opinions? I think the GP thought that as my dd didn't seem to have any problems breathing, it was only a skin issues. But I managed to get the piraton in pretty quickly, and I'm unsure about whether this quick response would have masked swelling in her throat.