Food intolerance/allergy???

[Holiztic]

So DS (28 months) has been the easiest kid in the world regarding food. No allergies, no intolerances, very few preference issues, never a single struggle over food. Everyone who sees him say "he's such a good eater". He's tall, big, strong, etc. No concerns over absorption, and has had abnormal poop only a few times in his life.

But, he has this rash on his chin, its been 3 weeks or so and it gets a teeny bit better and then a teeny worse, but not major changes. It has very slowly grown from just half his chin to the whole thing. It looks like little pink pimples, it is not itchy (he hasn't even noticed it) and doesn't flake or puss or anything.

I did buy some soybean mayo (we avoid soy pretty seriously but not perfectly) and he has had that (other than lecithin, its the first soy he's had in his life) several times in the last month. He's also had a soy sauce twice lately. I know soy oil and fermented soy are the LEAST likely to cause problems, but maybe just a small rash???? Side note: I ate soy heavily as a teen vegetarian and cause some minor intolerances in myself.

Alternately, I had thought it was a reaction to bee pollen but I stopped giving him the bee pollen 9 days ago and the rash isn't better.

He's had dairy and eggs regularly from 9 months with no signs of any problems. I know allergies/intolerances can come on later, but that just seems unlikely to me, all of the sudden, after 1.5 years (plus 9 months of nursing from a dairy/egg eating mom). We rarely eat nuts, but he hasn't had any at all in 1.5 weeks.

The other change I can think of is our water filter is about 2.5 months past needing replacement (something I am usually pretty good about) so even though the water smells/tastes a lot better than straight from the tap, it is still less than ideally filtered I am sure.

He has had some congestion just in the last 10 days (not the first 10 days) of the rash, but its very minor (hardly noticeable) and getting better every day (while the rash isn't). No poop issues, though he does say his tummy hurts infrequently-- but he doesn't really seem upset or in pain, he forgets about it right after he says it, and its only once a day or less, often right before pooping, so I don't know how serious that is.

His bowel movements are completely normal, which made me think its not about food. But then I have no idea what its about!

Any ideas?

Pediatrician is on vacation, back Monday. Plan to go in next week if I can't figure this out beforehand.

Thanks!!!!!!!

[tanyalynn]

I had to do a food diary to figure out the rash my son got on his face. He didn't have other symptoms with those 2 foods that caused the rash. His face rash sounds similar, but I have very little experience with rashes, so I don't have a lot of other causes that come to my mind. DS had good poop too--it's atypical, but there's really nothing that's 100% in the various ways kids can react. I'd see if you can pinpoint something with a food journal. I saw that the more frequently I fed the food, the stronger the rash looked and the more time it took to fade, basically the bucket effect (a little may not show a problem, but a little every day is worse, and a lot every day is still worse).

There can be a mismatch between whether a food causes a child problems when they're nursing vs when they eat them directly. My son reacted to cashews directly (an intolerance, strangely enough, not an IgE allergy) but not when I ate them. But some foods react both ways, it's an individual thing to figure out.