Allergy testing for a 6 month old? Advice please!

[ChesapeakeBorn]

I have an appointment next Tuesday to have my baby tested for food allergies.... but I am not sure if I should keep it.

I made the appointment because my son's stools were always bright green and mucousy with small amounts of blood. He is exclusively breastfed and has had no solid food yet. About a month ago, I began block feeding (in case of a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance) and also eliminated wheat and dairy in my diet. Gradually his stools became normal again. I then added wheat back into my diet as a trial and within a day and a half he was fussy and his stools were green and bloody again. I dropped the wheat once again and his stools cleared up. So it seems pretty clear that wheat could be the culprit (my daughter was diagnosed as being allergic to wheat when she was about 18 months old - she outgrew it). I am doing a dairy trial now.

So, do you think I should stick with the allergy testing? Is it accurate for a baby? What about false positives? Maybe I am just getting cold feet because I don't want to put him through it - he hasn't even been vaccinated yet! But it is warranted, right? Please help me decide what to do!

[kjbrown92]

It "sounds" more like an intolerance than an allergy, but it could be either, and with my kids, I got them allergy tested to rule it out, so that I knew which one I was dealing with. So I don't know that it's a bad thing unless you think that if it comes up negative then you can have wheat, when it was clearly a problem.

[momma_c]

my son went through a round of allergy testing at 6 months old. he did however have an anaphylactic reaction at that time so it was definatly warranted. we did not have any problems with a false positive but we had issues with false negatives. the first allergen i discovered via breastfeeding was soy and that showed up negative on his blood test and then once he was 1 and they did blood and skin testing the soy was off the charts on his skin but still negative on the blood test.
at that young of an age it is not always accurate but i can't say it would be 100% accurate at any age, ya know? also at only 6 months old i do not think they would be doing any type of skin testing probably just a blood draw, not fun for you lo for sure but if you are having problems with his stools and all i would go for it.
good luck!

[ChesapeakeBorn]

Thank you for your replies! My dairy trial yielded green, very very mucousy poo. No blood like with the wheat though. Well, not yet at least.

So I am going to keep the appointment with the allergist on Tuesday. Do I need to start eating wheat and dairy for the results to be accurate?

[momma_c]

no, you should not start eating wheat and dairy. what they will most likely do is take a blood draw and test it for allergens, as in test it against allergens. or (but I doubt it at this young of an age) they could do a skin test by either placing small dots of allergens on his back and he will wear them for 24-48 hrs and then the dr will rate the reactions or they can do a skin prick test where they prick the first layer of skin and wait about 15-20 mins for a reaction.
best of luck to you and your son!

[ASusan]

I'm in agreement with what others have said. Do you have eczema? Our RAST test at 10 mos lead us to give up wheat, eggs, and peanuts (in addition to the dairy I had given up several months before). We had a dramatic improvement in his eczema after that. It (RAST) gave us a good starting point, despite the fact that is it unreliable for infants. (can't remember if it gives false positives or false negatives. I think false positives.)