How to find out what child is allergic to

[Nell925]

My DD (7) has had severe eczema from about 2 weeks old, she also gets hives from time to time with no obvious cause, has almost constant nasal congestion, has permanent dark circles under her eyes and today I've had to take her to the hospital as one of her eyes started to swell up so much she almost couldn't see out of it. Giving her piriton helps her a lot and I've been told by both the dermatologist and ENT consultants (who she sees regularly) that they're almost certain she has allergies but as the RAST test only showed up with an allergy to dust there's not much else they can do and I've been told to just continue as she is with the antihistamines, moisturiser and steroid creams.

Although I know how to treat the symptoms I'm really keen to get to the bottom of what's causing the allergies rather than keep putting chemicals onto her skin and in her body but there's no obvious cause of her allergy. I only wash her bedding and clothes in non-bio, I wash her bedding on a hot wash every day, she never uses soap (only prescribed creams), tried a milk and soy free diet which didn't help much and moisturise her skin several times a day so don't know what else I could try.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you find out what your child was allergic to? Any information or advice would be great. Thank you.

Yes, me! I had skin prick tests age 8 which identified a number of environmental and food allergies, then was put kn an exclusion diet age 10 which finally identified my (then) dairy allergy. After I cut dairy out of my diet my eczema finally disappeared.

Also, my ds1. Skin prick tests age 10 months at the paediatric allergy clinic after an anaphylactic reaction to dairy.

My parents started w the GP but quickly went private - 40 years ago paediatric allergy services were pretty non-existent. Ds1 was always treated on the NHS.

I wonder if the clean sheets every day is sucking all of the emollient cream off her skin. My DH’s skin suffers each time we change our sheets/his pyjamas as the clean cloth just sucks up all of the cream.

Ds had a blood test to find out what he was allergic to.

Actually he had two because what the first one discovered was that he is very allergic to "magic cream".

So after he'd had the second one without magic cream they discovered he was allergic (badly) to dust mites and probably allergic to cats.

In same boat with my dd. Unfortunately the blood tests, skin prick and allergy discs only showed an allergy to pet hair which I already knew about. Everything she reacts to (including anaphylaxis to pineapple) at home came up negative. 3 different consultants have told me we may never know. We know it's environmental but it could be absolutely anything and absolutely no way to know.

So she is on 40-50ml of cetirizine daily, mometasone ointment, protropic/synalar for her face, hydramol to try and increase the moisture and antibiotics about 4-5 times a year when her eczema becomes infected.

She is just turned 5 and we have been doing battle since she was 6 weeks old.

Have you eliminated MI? In liquid clothes detergent and soap.
What moisturiser are you using and how often?

My dd has asthma, eczema and has had lots of allergic reactions.
She's had blood tests. We know she is allergic to eggs and dust mites but she has always had reactions that we can't pin down.
Over a period of a few weeks she regularly broke out in hives at school. We don't know what caused it and it stopped as suddenly as it started.
I always have a supply of Piriton to hand.

OP has she had skin prick tests? Where's your nearest paediatric allergy clinic? I would be very surprised if there wasnt a food allergy in there somewhere.

It might not be an environmental allergen
Have you eliminated any usual culprits like gluten or dairy?

Thank you all so much for your advice.

I hadn't actually thought that it might be counterproductive washing the sheets everyday - I was just thinking about getting rid of the dust but what you say makes sense and will definitely give it a go.

I don't use any fabric conditioner on any of our clothes or towels etc but do use non-bio washing liquid (Surcare) so perhaps I might need to see if there's any other brand out there that suits her skin a bit better.

So far the creams we've tried are Cetraben, Hydromol, Aveeno and Epaderm. At the moment she using the Dermol range for washing, Oilatum shampoo, QV cream for her body and vaseline on her face. I'm also putting Elocon on her twice a week as advised by my GP to keep it under control until we can next see the dermatologist. We did try protopic but she got continuous infections so GP took her off it.

I did try a dairy and soy free diet for her for about 2 months but it didn't seem to do much good although I haven't cut anything else out of her diet. As the eczema, nasal congestion and reflux started so young and she was a bottle fed baby I thought the only allergen could be dairy or soy but I guess it could be more than one thing that's causing her allergies now as it's just getting continually worse. I'll look into that. Thank you.

I think my next step is to ask GP for a referral for a skin prick test.

Thank you all again for your advice.