Allergy question (long)

stephl3055 · October 2014

Sorry, this will be long. Does anyone have experience with allergies in their LOs, specifically a strawberry or peanut allergy?

So DD has had a mild allergic reaction to something the last few days. Her face started breaking out in red bumps and her eyes and the tip of her nose were a little swollen and red. She didn't have spots anywhere else on her body. It first appeared Wednesday morning and it got better throughout the day. By that evening, her face had cleared up so we didn't think it was anything major. She has eczema and sensitive skin in general, so I thought something was just irritating it. Thursday she was fine when she woke up and all day.

Friday morning when she woke up it was worse than it was on Wednesday. The spots were more frequent and much darker red. I took her to the doctor because I was worried it was something more severe. The nurse said it looked like contact dermatitis and that it was an allergy to something. She checked all over her body, and again there were no other spots, so she didn't think it was a food allergy. She also asked if we had given her anything new and I couldn't recall anything but pumpkin, but she said that shouldn't be the issue. They gave her some benadryl. LO had no other symptoms, like vomiting or diarrhea, so I thought it might be her sheet on her bed irritating her face because she sleeps face down. So I changed her sheets when we got home and she went to sleep. Saturday and Sunday morning her face got progressively worse. I changed her sheets every day and washed them all again, making sure I really watched the amount of detergent I used even though I've used the same detergent since she was born.

On Saturday DH decided to give LO a snack and gave her some PB on toast. That's when I remembered that he had given her some for the first time on Tuesday evening. So I started getting worried that it was a peanut allergy. We took the snack away and she hasn't had PB since Saturday afternoon. Despite that, her face looked really bad Sunday morning and never got better throughout the day, like it had on Wednesday and to some extent, on Friday. Yesterday afternoon I gave her a few strawberry apple puffs, and about 5 minutes later I noticed an excessive amount of drool coming out of her mouth, like she couldn't control it. She hasn't drooled like that since 4 or 5 months old, and it dawned on me that maybe it was not a peanut allergy, but a strawberry allergy. She has never had fresh strawberries, and I believe this is the first time she's had strawberry puffs (I just opened them this week). I looked at the ingredients on the puff container and it said "strawberry powder". I searched online to see if any other kids had a reaction from puffs or a powder version of a fruit, but I can't find anything conclusive.

Her face looked a lot better this morning and I'm hoping all the spots and redness will be gone by tomorrow. We've cut both PB and strawberry puffs out of her diet, but I'm not sure which one might be the culprit. She has eaten both of them on the same day but my gut is telling me it's strawberry. Obviously I don't want to subject her to either one again to test my theory since it appears her reactions are getting more severe.

Can pediatricians do allergy testing on kids this young? Do any of you have experience with either of these allergies that might be able to give me more information?

This isn't my kid, but this is how her face looked yesterday (the worst it's looked)

mancila60 · October 2014

They can do a blood test. I would take those items out of LO's diet and let everyone know not to give them at all or anything flavored with it. We have had to do this with DS on ranch. I would also talk to your Dr about it.

Loganswife · October 2014

They can do testing on kids this young.My daughter just had it done last week, and they did both the scratch test and blood test. The only reason we had it done is because she had a bad reaction to cashews. I would talk to your pediatrician to see if they would recommend having it done at this age.