Hi Trista and welcome :)

I have three children, two previously with autism, all three mercury
poisoned and all three with severe food allergies. Two of them have
anaphylactic reactions to touching their food allergens. Let me
encourage you, get to your doc TODAY and get an epipen!! You need
one right now. I'm not trying to be alarmist, but you NEED an
epipen. Facial swelling is indicative of what's going on inside -
which is more swelling. If your son's windpipe, esophogas, etc
swell up, he will need that pen. Your docs have already shown they
will brush this off, so go park your butt in their office and tell
them you will not leave without an rx for an epi. LOL That sounds
so funny, but I'm not kidding. It's your child, not theirs and you
need an epi.

We don't leave our house without 4 epipens in hand. My middle child
has reactions so severe that she always needs two (and generally the
EMT's have to administer another) so we have a bag of them we carry
everywhere. :)

So many others have given you good advice, but I would also
encourage you to try to stay as "whole foods" as possible. My
children didn't start improving until I took all processed foods out
of their diet. It's a real pain at the beginning but when you see
the improvements, it's worth it.

I found testing to be less than accurate. In fact, two years ago my
middle child was tested for foods I KNOW she is allergic to, and it
all came back false negative. I have found the best way to see what
causes problems is to observe and journal. I journaled for 1 1/2
years with all three kids to figure out who was allergic to what.
Not so fun but soooo worth it when I could figure out apples caused
itching in child #2, gluten caused screaming in child #1, sugar
caused rashes in child #3 and so on.

For the itching, baking soda baths really helped my second child
with this. I give epsom salt baths regularly but the salt really
hurt her eczema so I used baking soda. Her skin healed up nicely
with this and now she gets baking soda AND espom in her baths. She
does not tolerate baking soda directly on her skin but in the bath
it's very soothing.

I hope that helps some. My time is limited right now but like
everyone else, I am happy to help you figure out what is causing
your little one such problems. But my number one concern for you
right now is that you have no epi. Please get one today!

Wyndie

--- In foodallergyautism@yahoogroups.com, "tn21284" <tn21284@...>
wrote:
>
> 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 antibiotics, 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
>