Hives in a 10m old

[radiatormesh]

DS is 10m old and has been getting hives for the last month. They're the viral type (according to his pediatrician) and are mainly on his face, arms and upper chest.

He's had some blood tests done for the most common allergies which came back negative (although with a raised white blood count, suggesting an infection). He has recently had strep (for which he had antibiotics) and a few nasty colds (his older sister brings them back from preschool!), so the hives could be a reaction to these, but the doctor says they should have worked their way out of his system by now....

He only had a few over the weekend so I was hopeful they'd stopped, but he had loads last night - more than ever before - and all over him.

They don't bother him, and I have Benadryl for when they're bad, but I'm concerned that they'll suddenly get really bad or he'll have a strong allergic reaction.

He's still BF but obviously also on solids.

Does anyone have any experience or advice?

No advice sorry but can understand you being worried

I'd keep a food diary, for both of you, just to see if there is a culprit.

Thank you.

I was sure it was dairy, but the blood test ruled that out. Maybe it's something weird like the applesauce he has with it. A diary is a good idea - thanks.

My DD had hives at that age and still does very occasionally. The cause is fairly mysterious and I haven't ever found any really knowledgeable info on them...Her father has always had hives too and he's still not sure what triggers them.
The episodes I remember were after she ate some mature cheddar cheese and another time with strawberries and another with kiwi fruit. There has been other times and they've been when she's had sweets or ice cream.
I don't avoid these foods with her though as she has had them all many times since with no problems so why she gets the hives sometimes and not others I don't know-there must be another trigger involved.
It did seem to become more infrequent as she gets older though-now 3.11, and her episodes always subsided after half hour or so.
I'm not sure it's a true allergic response but more of a temporary one due to the histimine level of the food and perhaps another mystery trigger. To be safe you could omit high histimine foods for a while. You can google a list of them-some are surprising.
Hope that helps!

It does - thank you. His episodes are definitely more temporary (the half hour or so you mentioned)

Do you know if I need to avoid the foods too (am BF)?

Hi. My DD had hives regularly from around a year old. We always thought that hers were virally triggered and the paediatrician agreed, even though sometimes she would break out when there was no "obvious" virus.

We were told that she would grow out of it and she did - at about age 4, I think. She is 12 now!

All we did was use oral antihistamine (although I'm not sure it ever made a huge difference..).

Hopefully, if your DS's hives are virally triggered, he will also outgrow it.

I didn't avoid any foods re hives whilst breastfeeding. I think whatever's the trigger in foods if it is foods..will be most likely the histamine which as far as I know wouldn't go through to breast milk.

All good news: thank you. His episodes definitely seem to have calmed down over the last few days, so hopefully that'll be it for a while. We've been giving him oral anti-histamines every so often too which gets rid of it (and helps him sleep!!).

strawberries and mature cheese are caused by high histamine foods.
can be outgrown.

viral hives can hang around for a while.