Keagan's thread

[DevaMajka]

Time for a thread for ds1. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. He has some allergy symptoms, but I also sort of wonder if he's...um... embellishing a little bit. He's going through a little dishonest phase (grrr!!) and I wonder if he *wants* to have allergies. J (ds2) has some, and K sees me food journal, and hears "J can't have that" etc. K also has a close friend who is gluten free. I just get the feeling that he thinks it's sort of special to have allergies, kwim?

His symptoms:

DARK undereye circles- has had for years, but darker now.

red ears - I just really noticed in the last month or so, but I think they've been red for a while.

occasional minor rashes on his back/shoulder- not in the last few months

rash near his mouth- started a few months ago, about when school started. always in the same place. He told me a couple days ago that it used to itch (before reducing dairy), but he'd never said that before.

poop accidents - just in the last month or so.

He told me a couple days ago that his belly used to hurt before reducing dairy. But he'd never mentioned before that it hurt.

We've reduced dairy over the last two weeks or so (dp sucks at reading labels and remembering which kid can't have what). K had stomach flu 2 weeks, so he wasn't eating much anyway. His ears have only been red a couple times, and he hasn't had any poop accidents except a tiny one, after eating cheese earlier in the day (I wonder if having stomach flu could have cleared it up if he had encopresis, which is a common cause of poop accidents in kids his age). The rash by his mouth is still there, but he says it doesn't itch now and it used to before reducing dairy. The dark under his eyes is the same.

So..I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but any advice is welcome. I don't know how much stock to put in symptoms I can't see, kwim? But I definitely don't want to ignore real symptoms.

My next step is to get an allergy test for him- wish me luck that the wait won't be long.

[kjbrown92]

Some kids if they've had a food all along don't know that the symptoms they do have aren't normal. So for instance maybe he thought it was normal for his stomach to hurt just because it always did, and then once you took dairy out, he realized it didn't hurt anymore, and so noticed the change. So it's possible that's what is going on. I can't imagine a child wanting food allergies. Or anyone wanting them. Then again, when I was a child, I wished I had braces like all my friends!

Since any of the symptoms you mentioned could be a food allergy or a food intolerance, an allergy test may not tell you anything unfortunately. Though it may. I took my kids to allergists to rule it out (figuring I wouldn't get any useful information, so I wouldn't be disappointed).

Have you considered any crystal testing? Just wondering. Some people do it, some people don't.

More later. Got to go tuck children into bed and read with them.

[DevaMajka]

What are the chances that it's only dairy? Probably not good, that would be too easy, right? Can one food cause all those symptoms? We haven't totally taken dairy out (perhaps today it was)- could he still see an improvement?
 

When I was little, I "lied" on an eye exam because I wanted glasses  Must have made sense at the time. lol. I just have this feeling that he sees J as getting all this special attention or something.  
 

Originally Posted by kjbrown92 

Some kids if they've had a food all along don't know that the symptoms they do have aren't normal. So for instance maybe he thought it was normal for his stomach to hurt just because it always did, and then once you took dairy out, he realized it didn't hurt anymore, and so noticed the change. So it's possible that's what is going on.  

I hadn't actually thought about that- that could be it. It's really frustrating that he's in this lying phase- I'm really honest with him- the closest I've come to lying was giving him a gift with a tag from Santa. I have a feeling that it's passing

My gut is saying he has a true allergy. Dp thinks he doesn't. It would be nice if the allergy test tells us something! If not, he says he's up for an ED. It seems so much harder with him than with ds2 (18mos old), especially for school lunches.

We tried crystal testing once, and I gave up. I'll give it another shot- K is always up for stuff like that. He did have AK done a bunch of months ago- I should look at those results again.