Is the reaction proportional to the amount of the allergen? And when do you give up? and other...

[DevaMajka]

Is the reaction proportional to the amount of the allergen consumed, or is it the same reaction regardless of how much is consumed?
For example, say I suspect eggs. Say I see a certain reaction (moderate eczema) a bunch of hours after ds consumes an omelet (so he's eating an entire egg) for breakfast. When he had a muffin, with eggs in the ingredients, his reaction was the same- moderate eczema a few hours later.
Could he have the same reaction to an entire egg, as he would to a few bites of a muffin with eggs in it? Or should I look for a different trigger on that day?

Does "may contain eggs" refer to traces/cross contamination? Or could it mean that eggs are actually in one of the ingredients (ie: natural flavour).

Can he react to some things through me, and others only if he consumes it directly?
Additionally, is it possible that he does not react to my eating eggs if I eat a small amount, but he DOES react if I eat a large amount?

When do you give up on finding a food trigger for eczema? After doing ED's for months, and a couple near TED's, and not finding anything after the first few weeks (unless this egg thing pans out), I'm beginning to consider that I might be on a wild goose chase. Maybe his triggers are all environmental and contact triggers (other than the one food trigger we found early on).
I can't figure out how you all do it! I see on here people saying stuff like- "he reacts to banana, but only if he eats more than 2 in a week, and only if we skipped our supps that week." HTH do you figure that out?!? I feel sort of dumb that I can't find any pattern at all! lol
Edited by DevaMajka - 12/8/10 at 2:02pm

[tanyalynn]

re: amounts, it seems different for different kids.  DS's reactions, now, are proportionate to how much he's consumed (and for some, it's an overall bucket thing, so I think chocolate + soy would be worse than either alone) but early on, trace amounts of some things, like gluten, would cause a reaction, and even more (say eating a whole cracker) would do the same thing.  

Some of this is trial and error... well, I guess most if is.  If you haven't been able to track stuff down, I'd think either the full bucket theory (some combination of things combined with his nutritional status), and oftentimes people see that type of weird pattern with salicylates (or amines, though they're less common).  But you've already looked at those, haven't you?  Or have you--without faces this is hard.  But some patterns are harder to see than others, and a few people have had more luck working on nutritional supports than ever identifying all the food triggers.  (hugs) 

I think it gets easier when you figure out likelier reasons for the root cause(s) of why you're here.  I mean--I knew early on that I had detoxification issues, thus my kids did too.  For other folks, they've had good outcomes by focusing on digestion and leaky gut and possibly digestive enzymes and probiotics (sometimes general ones, sometimes specific strains), and that helps.  At least for me, it helps me figure out which are the things likelier to cause us problems, and then start reading more from that direction. 

I *think* "may contain eggs" means x-con from machinery or some sort of manufacturing process, but I'm not 100% sure. 

[DevaMajka]

Thanks! That helps I almost want it to be egg, just so I know something, kwim? His eczema was pretty bad when eating egg (omelets) many days in a row. It was moderate when he we gave him omelet after avoiding it for a bunch of days, then a couple days later, as his eczema was improving, he had the muffin which brought on moderate eczema.

Originally Posted by tanyalynn 

If you haven't been able to track stuff down, I'd think either the full bucket theory (some combination of things combined with his nutritional status), and oftentimes people see that type of weird pattern with salicylates (or amines, though they're less common).  But you've already looked at those, haven't you?  Or have you--without faces this is hard.  But some patterns are harder to see than others, and a few people have had more luck working on nutritional supports than ever identifying all the food triggers.  (hugs)

Yes. Well, we've looked into sals quite a bit. We were down to no/very very low sals for a while. Our typical diet is pretty high in sals. His reactions aren't any different on low sals vs our normal diet. However, amines are a possibility, though one I haven't yet looked into seriously. That could explain some reactions. Banana, chicken stock, soy sauce - not that I know he's reacted to those, obviously, but those would explain a handful of reactions (not all of them, though). That definitely gives me a direction to go next.


eta- I do think he has digestive issues (probably related to nutrition), so that could be muddying the waters, so to speak.
Edited by DevaMajka - 12/8/10 at 2:03pm