living with kids with allergies group

[sun]

Creams never worked for us either.

Also when it comes to testing, our doc mentioned that it is 2 different things to be allergic to something on a skin prick test and be allergic to it digestively. You can ofcourse be allergic to both, but not everyone is. This makes sense in that one of the other mums in my play group's LO has a dairy allergy and it doesn't show up on the prick test? He has some pretty shocking symptoms if he ingests it though (projectile vomiting ) Anyone else heard of this?

Also AC Alex's eczema is really similar to how Buns was. His got much better with a dairy-free diet though. I almost feel like his skin is really really sensitive to lots of different things, so he does get it on his cheeks on and off, but it hasn't been angry and all over since he quit dairy.

mumof4 - I think people just know lactose intolerance as being the dairy issue, they don't realize that lactose isn't the only offender in dairy! Weird that your HV didn't know though!

 

[Arcanegirl]

Sun, thats interesting as Alexs allergies dont seem to be digestive related, hes never had any bowel/sick problems. Its purely just his skin, blood tests were all negative and its just the skin prick ones he gets results from.

We are also dairy free and have been since the summer, theres just something still there that hes reacting to.

 

[NatalieW]

ladies.

My daughter is dairy/lactose intolerant.

Isobel is 22months. From birth she was breastfed, she struggled so badily with wind/colic/really bad sleeper. Her weight was always flucutating up and down but around her 75th percentile. When she was 8 months old she was having settling in sessions with her nursery, she developed eczema around the base of her neck. Took her to doctors, they said it was common in babies to eczema skin. Was given steriods and Oilatum for the bath. She got better from using the steroids but it would flare up again.

Nursery flagged up to me that her nappies weren't right, for a normal baby on 3 solid meals a day. Very loose nappies, nothing formed as it should. Took back to GP with concerns and he swapped her milk to Infasoy. In 12 hrs, she was a happier baby, in 24hrs her bottom was normal. She was sleeping a heck of alot better. Her skin got better.

At her year check the HV suggested that I get a dietian referral to talk food. So we got that just after she was a year old. Dietician asked if it was the dairy intolerance or a lactose intolerance - which we don't know, the GP never sent off a stool sample to find out!

So we are working on a full diary intolerance. We have to regularly test her on dairy, 90% of children grow out of it by the time they're 3. I say intolerance because she doesn't have the allergic reaction symptoms. Just her bottom issue.

We have another problem recently that she has had loose nappies again for nearly 2 weeks. Awaiting test results today for bacteria. If that comes back negative not sure what the next step is back at the GPs...

 

[Arcanegirl]

Natalie

Alex isnt interested in toast for breakfast anymore, this seems to have stopped since we had to change breads for something non dairy and soya.
Any ideas what we could give him? Preferably not too difficult to make as OH does breakfast

 

[Mumof42009]

What I found really helps with Adi skin is aveeno cream and in the bath I use oilatum, it's expensive but worth it.
Adi has just started to eat cereal, he will have oats and I add fruit to them.
Did anybody see bbc news this morning? watch the video so scary how bad allergy's can be.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12531603

 

[NatalieW]

Aveeno always works well on Isobel. Recently switched to Weleda baby products and I like them, except the expense!

AG - Try this https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/doris_grant_loaf_16985 It is easy to make - honest!

Thats an interesting article from BBC. I didn't hold out much hope when going to dietician.

 

[Arcanegirl]

Thats helpful to read as we had seen those tests that use hair etc and wondered whether they were worth trying, at least weve not wasted any money trying it!

Weve tried Aveeno but didnt find it held the moisture in Alexs face for long enough.

 

[buttonnose82]

ooooo can i join!

Little Man is almost 5 months and has suffered badly from eczema since birth, we have tried alot of creams and nothing is working, steroids take the redness out but he is still left awfully dry & itchy and within 2 days of stopping steroids he is red raw again

we find Aveeno doesn't work for him, we are currently trying pure coconut oil, but not really long enough in too comment on if it is working or not

I was talking too the health visitor this morning and she has suggested going dairy free for a couple week (Little Man is breast fed) too see if that helps as he also suffers from alot of tummy cramp, she thinks the bad eczema & tummy cramps could be due to being dairy sensitive

 

[Arcanegirl]

Buttonnose
thats the problem weve been having and still continuing to fight with on Alex, the steroid creams. He looks great after a round of them but quickly flares up again within a day or two.

Ive been trying today some oats and water in a sock and dabbing on his face to try and relive the itching. Itching and scratching is still a big thing hes suffering with and obviously not helping his sore face

 

[buttonnose82]

yeah little man scratched his head to bits and often ends up covered in blood it's heartbreaking

 

[Arcanegirl]

yep been there
you say youve tried Aveeno, you might find you have the same problem we do. You need a greasy type of cream to hold the moisture in when theyre really dry. We didnt find Aveeno to help because its too watery.
We use Oilatum instead.

When trying creams keep in mind, Ointment has the least water content, creams are in the middle and lotions have alot of water.
The higher the water content, the least greasy it is.

 

[Mumof42009]

Have you tried the aveeno oats based cream that's the one I use?

Buttonnose- I breast fed ds and had to cut all dairy out my diet, It's hard at first and didn't work for us.

Natalie w- That looks lovely might get baking.

Was anybody told to keep a food dairy?
Has any of your lo's lost weight? xx

 

[buttonnose82]

The health visitor said too try oilatum bath (we currently use diprobath but it is no good)

I think your right about the aveeno, what doesn't help is Little Man is also hyper sensitive to water, I can't use plain water on his skin because it goes so red & dry, instead I have too use a mixture of camomile tea & almond oil as a wipe solution. We found water based creams like E45 just made his skin a whole heap worse!

 

[buttonnose82]

Have you tried the aveeno oats based cream that's the one I use?

Buttonnose- I breast fed ds and had to cut all dairy out my diet, It's hard at first and didn't work for us.

Natalie w- That looks lovely might get baking.

Was anybody told to keep a food dairy?
Has any of your lo's lost weight? xx

The aveeno we use had little pieces of oats in (not sure what 'kind' it is, we just get it from the dr)

As for losing weight, Little Man was chugging along nicely above the 50th line but the past 2 months he has dropped too the 25th, but the health visitor isn't worried and neither am I too be honest, he seems happy enough

 

[Arcanegirl]

We use hydromol in the bath, though tempted to use oats now. His skin comes out nice and white (apart from the red sores) afterwards.

Weve not yet kept a food diary, any reactions weve noticed by what we see and remember it.
And havent had any weight loss issues thankfully, though Alex has always been smaller than average.

 

[sun]

:wave: Hi Buttonnose and Natalie!!

As far as non-prescription creams go, we didn't have much success with Aveeno either as it seems to disappear too fast. We actually use Gaia skin-soothing lotion - it is a diaper cream they sell for babies whose bums are overly reactive, but I find it really works well on his face. Their regular moisturizer isn't thick/greasy enough. I think it's an Australian brand, but it's what works best for us. I put it on thick too. That and I only bathe LO 3x/week as dry skin really makes everything worse and it's so so dry here now!

Buttonnose - I also cut all dairy out of our diet as I was BF (still am!). So everything we eat in my house is dairy free. It took two weeks for all of his issues to resolve. xx

Mumof4 - Once we were off dairy, Bun gained 3lbs in less than a month! So he went from the 10-20% at birth to 0.4% to the 50% after we quit dairy. He stayed there pretty much, but is losing a little weight now. I think it's due to him being much more active and less interested in stopping play to eat though So I'm not worried about it.

AG - Your poor little guy with the scratching!!
Bun only really itches his shoulders/chest and where the neck of his shirts are. Not his face luckily as I can't keep that covered up to avoid him scratching it.

 

[Arcanegirl]

I found Aveeno great for myself though

Do you guys get told not to bath everyday incase of drying them out?
We got told the opposite from the dermatology nurses and im inclined to agree as we still follow their rules.
Baths are fine every night as long as theyre not too hot, have some bath oil in and to only keep them in for 10 minutes.

 

[buttonnose82]

interesting!

Little Man LOVES his bath but we cut it down too eery other night as thats what we were advised

you you think bathing with a little olive oil in the water might help? or is that a stupid idea?

 

[sun]

It was suggested to us by the pediatrician that we keep his skin dry as possible as dampness will cause the eczema to flare. But I think that Bun has 2 issues - he has really reactive skin which is exacerbated by being dry. The other was the dairy that we have resolved. We found his eczema almost impossible to deal with when he was on dairy - no creams apart from a script steriod cream would touch it and it would just spread everywhere - start to get better in one place and get angry/red/bumpy/oozy in another. Sometimes keeping it wet seemed to make it worse, other times it would go away partially almost overnight and we would be trying to figure out what we'd done to help. This got sooo much better off dairy! His skin issues now I think has more to do with high reactivity/sensitivity because I can predict and help his skin issues and they don't get as dramatic as they did. Sometimes in the swimming pool you can really see it on his torso. xx

 

[Arcanegirl]

Im not sure if olive oil would work as it would just sit in blobs in the bath.
Have you got any porridge oats? Put some in a sock and stick in the bath when running. Wash down with the sock and squeeze the juices out over their body.