Hi Trista,
Welcome to our group! Your pediatrician is partly right that it can be hard to track down allergens through formal testing, but it can certainly help narrow the causes. In addition, there is a much more accurate method called elimination and challenge, but doctors tend to think this is too difficult for parents, and so they neglect to give them the option. In my experience, most pediatricians are ignorant about allergies, they are not part of standard medical school curriculum (which is a shame since they are so common these days).
Your son's symptoms certainly sound like serious allergic reactions, and I am concerned that the pediatrician is not taking this more seriously. Facial swelling can very rapidly lead to much more serious symptoms, such as anaphylaxis, airway blockage, organ failure, and can be fatal. These reactions should be taken very seriously. Has your doctor prescribed an Epi-Pen for your son in case of anaphylaxis? You need to have one of these within 30 seconds of him at all times - 24 hours a day. His allergies are that serious. You also need to identify the triggers so you can keep him safe from them. I can't understand why the nurse-practitioner wanted to put him on antibiotics, this doesn't make any sense to me and you were wise to avoid them.
It can take some effort to identify allergens, but your doctor shouldn't use this as an excuse for not trying, especially in a child whose reactions are severe. Formal allergy tests (especially in very young children and infants) often yield false negatives, but rarely give false positives. What this means is that if the test shows your child is allergic to something, he almost certainly is, and you should eliminate that food and all foods that contain derivatives of that food from your child's diet. Many kids are also sensitive to skin contact with allergens, so for instance if my son is allergic to coconut, I would not feed him any foods that have coconut oil or coconut ingredients in it, nor would I put skin lotions on him that have coconut oil.
I took my son to dozens of pediatricians and allergists, and eventually ended up figuring out all of his allergens myself, at home, and I've succesfully treated him by myself for 5 years now. We finally did find a competent allergist (most of the allergists in our area don't even work with food allergies), but he says that I'm already doing all the right stuff, and to just keep it up. He helps us with prescriptions, letters for school, occasional testing, and basically whatever I ask him for. However, most of what I do at home is what works.
Tell me what foods your son has already tested postive for, and we will see what we can do about those, then we can develop some ideas to identify other allergens, including what's in the pototo chips. I'm sure we can help!
Suzanne
-------------- Original message from "tn21284" <tn21284@...>: --------------
Thank you for the welcome! My 5 yr. old son has mild autism and has
recently been having food allergies. We have tested for 15 foods so
far, and I'm sure we will test for more. He has been having hives
the last 6 weeks or so. About 3 weeks ago, we took him to the ER
because he woke up with a really swollen face and lips. One side of
his face drooped down and his face and lips were puffed way out.
They gave him a cortisone shot which made it go down. He has had
minor swelling around his eyes since then. He also has had joint
pain. About 5 days ago, his feet hurt so bad he couldn't walk. He
was on Zyrtec and Zantac but it didn't really help much, so we
switched to Allegra two days ago and have added Singulair, because
now he is coughing a lot and may have asthma. (I have the coughing
form of asthma and get allergy shots each week, plus my husband has
allergies, so it runs in the family). I'm still waiting for the
meds to kick
in. We have found that he is allergic to Lays Sour
Cream and Onion Potato Chips and Frito-Lay French Onion Dip, because
he had strong reactions after eating them. I don't know if it is
MSG or something else in them that is causing it. I am trying to
avoid heavily-processed food that has a lot of additives in it. It
is frustrating, because he asked me today why he is still itching,
and I don't have the answer. The pediatrician said he rarely sends
kids to an allergist because it's hard to find what the culprit is,
but there has to be something causing it. I have an appt. for my
son with my allergist, but that isn't until February because he is
so booked. We do have an appt. with a DAN doctor in December, and I
am looking forward to that. We did get him to a nurse practitioner
at an allergy practice two weeks ago who did limited testing, but I
wasn't too thrilled with that practice. They wanted to put him on
21 days of antibiot
ics, with no signs of infection. (His labs later
came out fine). I'm sure you all have been through similar
frustration. I just feel that we are going from one doctor to
another. Any tips you all have would be greatly appreciated!
Trista
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