Is this indicative of an allergy/intolerance?

[Heba]

My son is intolerant to sulphites and probably gluten.  He has behavioural issues which are much ameliorated by avoiding these substances, but there are still some things going which we haven't worked out yet.

He has dark marks not under his eyes, but to the upper sides (sort of where eyeliner/kohl would go if you extended it outwards from the eye).  I have noticed that sometimes these appear darker than at other times.

Any ideas if this is indicative of anything or nothing?

Thanks!

Heba

[prescottchels]

Those dark marks are telling you something...you just get to figure out what it is. Put your mama sleuthing hat on.

If you've successfully eliminated gluten I'd go on to dairy next.  Keep a food journal and note which days the dark marks are more prominent or not.

Good luck!!

[Heba]

Thank you for the encouragement!  It's been a long upward journey thus far...need to take it a step further...have already eliminated and reintroduced dairy - doesn't seem to make a difference - so I guess we need to keep going :).

[prescottchels]

I always assume that everyone here already knows some things, but assumptions are dangerous things... have you cut out all artificial food coloring? Red, especially has a tendency to cause behavior issues. A friend of mine had a toddler/pre-school age son who they discovered was pretty sensitive to the red dye and they termed anything unnaturally red "crazy food" and he was great about saying I can' t eat that, that's crazy food!" It was so awesome to see such a little kid taking responsibility for himself and not wanting to feel that out of control-ness that he experienced when eating dyed foods.

[Heba]

Yup, we have eliminated all artificial additives and pretty much eat only home cooked food from natural ingredients.  Have done trial eliminations of salicylates and amines too, and they seem to be OK.  Had a lightbulb moment yesterday when I read about oxalates - for a long time I suspected that he was reacting to an Egyptian leaf veggie called molokhia - since it's not common in English-speaking countries, it doesn't show up on many intolerance/food chemical lists.  Well it seems it is actually high in oxalates - as are nuts (and I've been suspicious of nuts for a while - eliminated them, then cautiously re-introduced them) - and that may even explain why we saw an improvement when we took out gluten as it seems that wheat is high in oxalates.  So this is something else to try! 

Anyway, that's a bit more info than you asked for LOL.  Thank you again - I really appreciate your support.

xx