Why is his face so red and blotchy?

[Lillypond]

DS (4yo and autistic) seems to be very sensitive towards heat. He's always sweated lots since birth but now his face keeps getting very red. The redness started a couple of years ago but it only happened during very hot wether and if he was running around alot. Now it's happending during mild weather or even when I'm cooking with all the windows open. He's been like this a couple of times when I've collected him from nursery and nobody else looked hot. He was in the garden playing yesterday and I had to bring him in as his face looked like it was ready to burst. He had been running for a few minutes but nothing that would have made him feel that hot.

Could it be linked to his ASD, perhaps sensory? Or could it be something that he's eating or drinking that's causing a reaction? Any ideas?

I know it sounds trivial but I don't want people to laugh at him about it. It does look a bit perculiar.

lillypond my sa is also ASD, right from when he was born very sensitive to yhe heat, got photos of him under a week old covered in hives and prickly heat.
I now dread the summer (when we have 1!!!) as it makes him so irratable and sunlotion just blocks his pores and makes the rashs worse.
my doctor now prescribes ds piriton for the summer, that seems to stop the itchiness and hives and prickly heat.
Would piriton help your son do you think?

sorry meant to say my ds is also ASD

My ds, also ASD, seems to be sensitive to the heat. He's often complaining how hot he is, and his face gets all blotchy. His hair can be dripping with sweat in no time at all even though his classmates look unaffacted by the hot weather. He often wakes up with wet hair too.

Lillypond,my ds (3yrs and ASD) also gets very hot - Sweaty Betty - during the summer. Another reason to remember to give him lots of drink as he has never requested spontaneously!

If you're concerned that it might be something in his diet he's reacting to, it's worth diarising his food/drink and any reaction to see if there is a link. I did this with my son and I now know that there are some things that he seemingly can't tolerate. Hope this helps

Thanks for replies

redbull, I'm not sure if piriton would help but he's got an appt with the Paed. on Monday so I'll see what she thinks. It's definetly at it's worst after he's been running around, but he's not breathless or exhausted so he shouldn't get that hot. I don't think he's ever had hives or prickly heat but he's always got a rash somewhere and insect bites on his face.

springgreens, his diet is very limited. Lots of bread, milk and cheese and erm... the occasional fruit shoot . I'm trying to limit the milk and only allowing 2 beakers a day and a small cup before nursery but he's not replacing it with anything else. If I let him he could easily go through 3-4 pints of milk a day, and has sometimes. I've been taking a water bottle out with us and offering it every few minutes but it took him 4 hours this morning to drink about 30 ml's (and it was bloody boiling earlier). What foods was your DS reacting to?

Lillypond, I really think my ds has a big prob with milk - it seemed anyway to make such a huge difference to his physical health and behaviour when I took it out of his diet. He also used to drink gallons pretty much the time I first introduced it.

Aside from this citrus fruits and berries seem to either make his guts awful or him super bouncy and unreachable, or both. I think peanut butter affects his behaviour negatively. Bananas and peppers seem to affect him as above. Also I try to avoid anything processed just because I can't be sure of what he's having that way and can't assess what's going on. That said, he eats rice cakes, TRUfree biscuits, alproprovamel pretend yogs and GF bread which I'm sure contain things that strict diet people would say were wrong. It's difficult to be really strict (I don't have time to bake) and to be honest I'm rubbish at science and label reading . I'm lucky that I can capitalise on ds liking to eat straight meat and veg most of the time and understand that it's scary messing around with a diet that is limited anyway.

Thanks SG

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I wanted to see what the Paed. thought yesterday and I've not been online much since.

DS was really hot during the appt. so the Paed. gave him a little physical exam - just heart rate, weight, height and a feel of his stomach. He's a bit overweight (height 75th centile, weight 91st) and although he poo's usually daily (sorry if TMI) the Paed. thinks he's constipated. He thinks it's most likely due to extra senstivity so all we can do is try to keep him cool and watch the weight gain as this will make it worse.

I've continued to cut down on the amount of milk he's drinking anyway and he's started eating grapes and tried a tiny bit of carrot over the weekend.

Thanks for telling me about your DS.