how often are you going to test for their food allergies?

blueshirt2003

My son is almost 3 1/2 and I've decided to go and get him tested again for his egg allergy. We originally found out he was allergic to them around 3 or 4 months old when we had a blood test run.

He ate a cookie with egg in it (low on the ingredient list to boot) and had an immediate hive reaction around the age of 2. 

When he was about 2 1/2 he got an actual egg out and broke it. We went to the ER and got a drinkable steroid shot. His face swelled up all where the yolk/whites touched his skin.

 

I know the odds of him NOT having it are slim but I am of course still hopeful. 

 

Anyone have their child tested and found that it disappeared? 

magdusia

i think it's important to test your child once a year (IMO) b/c knowledge is power. We have gone 3 times so far and his first test was when he was 7 months old. On the second testing we found out he outgrew sesame and that gave us a few more foods (bagels..) to offer.  

I was told that age 3 to 5 is the worst time for allergies, they tend to spike up and at 5 finally rest.  So dont be surprised if his levels go up before they start to settle down (but that is only something i heard.. not sure how true it is). 

Either way, i think you should get him tested. I would like to know if i was you. Allergies go away all the time, so it's possible (my son's sesame went away).

Ilumine

We have a honey allergy.  So far, only hives around the face.  But with each ingestion, they got worse.

See, we could not figure out what the allergy was.  HONEY?  Firs we thought it was the Peanutbutter in the PBH sandwich (which we had givne her PB before with no results, but we thought it wsa a delayed allergy).  Then we thought it was the mustard, not knowing the mustard had honey in it.  Then came the graham crackers...which she had had the Gerber cookies with no results, but we did nto know that they did not have honey in them...to finally getting into my honey and having a really bad reaction.

But this all occurred under 2.  We will do a blood test at 3 and again at 4 and again at 5.  If by then, we are still showing signs...we are done testing and will keep on.

LUCKILY, bees wax is hit and miss.  She can be near burning beeswax candles, but must be careful around certain lipstuffs.

aniceucchik

i thought about getting it done soon; his first test was at 10m old...especially since he got into some donuts the other day and ate some of the icing and didnt break out...i did my own test however by putting some cheese sauce on his cheek and sadly it seemed to be worse than it used to be..i guess that icing was dairy free? lol

Wendy1210

My LO was diagnosed at 3 mos and we will be going back around 1 yr. Even though he definatelt developed a new allergy to oats, we are still waiting to 1 yr. It is only 2 mos away so I guess we can wait. But, it seems to be once a yr.

loveemandle2

My kid's allergist suggest once a year checks..I thought that was actually pretty common, but maybe not.  Anyways, it is important to me to watch their RAST numbers.  I want to see if they are going up or down, and if any new allergies have developed, or  maybe grew out of one, and another got worse. 

 

luvmagoldn

For DS#2 who is allergic to tree nuts and kiwi - our allergist suggested testing again when he's five just to see what's up with his numbers (he was diagnosed when he was almost three).  Her view is that nut allergies tend to be life long so tracking them annually is unnecessary.

DS#3 who is allergic to milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame we are testing every year. 

g_belle

We did the scratch testing at 10 months and the blood work at 15 months.  He will go annually now (our one year is up in October so we go then). 

carlinlp

We are testing 2-3 times a year right now. We are doing gut healing so they are slowly starting to disappear. It looks like she may have healed eggs, we are doing a blood test to confirm though today before we do the food challenge. Fingers crossed!

magdusia

carlinlp:

We are testing 2-3 times a year right now. We are doing gut healing so they are slowly starting to disappear. It looks like she may have healed eggs, we are doing a blood test to confirm though today before we do the food challenge. Fingers crossed!

wow! fingers crossed. 

ZacksBride

we had a reaction to milk formula at 4 months.  from that time until 1 yr we just avoided common allergens (milk/egg/nuts). at 1 year he had RAST testing (+ to pretty much all).  pedi just tested him at around 2 basically just to see if his titers are going up or down.  since they levels are all still way above the upper limit of normal, she has rec that we get tested yearly to see how they are changing. but, we are moving across the country next month, so who knows what the next pedi will say...

blueshirt2003

carlinlp:

We are testing 2-3 times a year right now. We are doing gut healing so they are slowly starting to disappear. It looks like she may have healed eggs, we are doing a blood test to confirm though today before we do the food challenge. Fingers crossed!

I've never heard of this before. Do you mind sharing what exactly it is and your experiences with it so far? 

 

It looks like it is normal for the annual checks from what everyone has responded with. Thanks!

StarryNight39

We do a RAST every year at her well child visit. Our plan is to RAST till her numbers gets low/gone then to do a scratch test. If the skin test also is negative then we will do a food challenge.

macchiatto

Yes! Will tested positive for a peanut allergy at 15m (on both the skin and blood test; he was in the "moderate" range on the blood test). We were very careful to avoid any peanut exposure and had a follow-up a year later. The allergist did another skin test (to test for some other stuff as well) and he was negative on the skin test for peanuts. The allergist said we could either wait till 3 or go ahead and do a food challenge now for peanuts. He put a dab of PB on Will's skin, too, and Will didn't react so the allergist said normally he'd recommend waiting till 3 to re-test but he thought Will had a good chance of passing the challenge and it was up to me. I didn't want to have another year of all the peanut precautions, making sure caregivers know how to use the epipen, asking other kids in his childcare group settings to not bring in peanut products, etc., if it wasn't necessary, so we went ahead and do the food challenge ... and he passed! It was SUCH a relief!