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Food Allergy
*LilaC*
member
Blood test was negative?!?
*LilaC*
member
in Food Allergy
My pediatrician ordered blood work for my 17 month old DS to test for his dairy and corn allergies. We are on the waiting list for the allergy clinic at Children's but he ordered this test since DS had to have a bunch of other blood work done. We found out today that the results are negative. I am 10000% sure my child has a milk protein allergy and feel very strongly that he is also allergic to corn and corn products. He had chronic congestion, rashes, vomiting, wheezing etc that got much better when I stopped eating dairy and took him off it, which was 9 months ago. In that time every single time he has accidentally eaten something with even small amounts of dairy the symptoms come back pretty much immediately. I am so confused.
Has anyone else gotten a false negative? I am not sure how common it is but I am stressing out now because if he actually isn't allergic to dairy and corn, I have no idea what is wrong with him. We're also dealing with failure to thrive and just started seeing an endocrinologist for growth hormone deficiency.
Thoughts?
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Re: Blood test was negative?!?
Could your son be allergic to the pesticides or other chemicals that are on the corn or put in the milk? have you tried 100% organic milk? or organic corn? What was he tested for? only milk/corn? could it be something else? i would either switch doctors or order them to do more tests. how about an elimination diet? it could also be the meat or other products.
I will tell you a (hopefully) short story about one of my friends.. Her 2 boys (now they are 4 and 5) both were not thriving, but the younger boy was much worse. He was even tested for autism (which was negative). They were not speaking by 3 and 4 and the mom had no idea why.. they both had mild eczema which made her think it's a dairy allergy but the doctor always dismissed the idea. She switched doctors 2 times and by the time they were 3 and 4 and finally started to do some in depth testing. resulted in a milk/soy allergy in the 3 y/o.. it was not an allergy that most of us deal with here, but this type of allergy was creating yeast in his gut so every time the 3 y/o had milk, it was like he was drinking alcohol -he was pretty much getting drunk on milk (similar affect).. The first week she took out milk from his diet he said mama. and things started to look good for the younger one. it took almost 6 months on heavy meds to get the yeast out of his gut.. but he was still not showing too much improvement -just a little. They did a bunch of tests and they finally had their answer -he had Lyme disease! It wasn't the typical bug bite that creates the ring.. it must have been given through something else. Anyways.. he is now being treated for Lyme disease and he is improving dramatically. They still don't know why the 5 y/o is not thriving but at least they are finally getting somewhere. So the point of my story is -get him tested for what ever comes to mind.
And if your gut feeling is telling you that he should not have dairy or corn -than don't feed it to him. Try eliminating most meats since they are all mainly fed corn. Or find meat products that are grass fed. Good luck and sorry for the long story. I just feel like it's so important to follow your gut feeling and if you think something is wrong -keep talking to doctors.
LISTEN to your gut! I had a pedi dismiss my concerns when my daughter was 3 months old. He told me that only 5% of kids have an actual allergy and thought it was crazy for me to want to alter my diet for her since I was breastfeeding. I KNEW he was wrong, so I altered my diet and got her in with an allergist right away. I was right, obviously!
A lot of allergists like to "double" confirm allergies with both skin and blood testing. I would definitely get skin testing done to see what those results are. What were his numbers on the bloodwork for corn and dairy?
I would also want to make an appointment with a GI doctor. I wonder if there is something going on in his GI tract (EOS possibly) causing him not to gain weight. Definitely something to look into.
Not having an answer is so awful. Definitely keep pushing the doctors and exploring other options (i.e. GI doc). GL!
He was tested for dairy corn and soy.
I am not 100% sure on the corn allergy. We came to that conclusion when he was reacting to formula (even nutramigen etc) when I tried to supplement. Soon after, we noticed that he reacted to processed food (bread, crackers etc) and the common ingredient was corn. So yes, maybe he is allergic to something else that is in all these foods.
As for the dairy allergy...he has never had any dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese) himself. He was reacting to it when I was EBF (cough, vomiting, gas) but we thought it was reflux related. The month we introduced more solid food that in retrospect contained traced of dairy and/or corn, he was 100% worse. He had rashes, vomiting, wheezing etc. Since I have kept him off those two things, he has had a few reactions but every single time I have been able to trace it back to dairy or corn. These aren't slight reactions I am talking about either...last month on vacation, I fed him freeze dried blueberries from TJ. He has had fresh blueberries and not had a reaction. With it an hour, he had a neon red rash all over his face with bug welt and smaller bumps. I looked at the package again and sure enough it said that it was produced in a factory that processed food with dairy, etc. Another time he started projectile vomiting after my MIL gave him a tiny bit of butter.
I requested a copy of his blood work results, but there are no levels, it just says negative. The blood was sent to Children's to be processed so I was shocked that there wasn't more info on there.
I just hate not knowing what is wrong with him...this is the one thing I was sure about.
With what you are writing, he should be tested for a melon allergy as well. Since he did a blood test, I'm surprised they didn't just test him for the top 8 allergies and some more common ones.
you should really change the allergist IMO. I did and it was a world of difference! i have a friend that switched her allergist 3 times before finding one she likes (and that's my allergist now).
there should definitely provide you with levels. So that alone is strange.
it sounds like his reactions aren't mild either.. you don't want them to get worse b/c with constant exposure -they tend to get worse if they get exposed to what they are allergic to. I'm sorry you're going through this. Allergies do suck big time but it's so much better knowing exactly what they are allergic to so that you can adjust your life. the constant "what if's" are scary!
My son has been severely allergic to milk his whole life. He blood tests negative for it. My allergist told me that it is because he has no antibodies to it since he gets none in his diet. He said that he doesn't consider the blood tests an absolute at all. He believes food results, diaries and observations are better predictors of what can and can't be eaten.
My son also tests negative for corn and he ate one jolly rancher the other day (he's 14) and he looked like death and still does 3 days later from it.
Trust your instincts on this one. If you KNOW he's allergic, it doesn't matter what the tests show. They are not 100 % accurate.