Toddler and environmental allergies

[artsymamabritt]

Needing advice on how to deal with allergies. my ds is 23 mo. and myself have been dealing with allergies. mine got worse after birth. tried going to allergist and got tested but only thing that was positive was mold and attacks are constant inside house and out. used neti pot, singulair, homeopathic nose spray, etc. what have other people used and what has worked.

[mollyeilis]

My environmental allergies lesson when I do not eat dairy, and to some extent when I do not eat eggs. It seems that eating those things lowers my body's strength against other things, so I react more to the world around me.

I'd also explore chiropractic, and, well, if it were an adult I'd say acupuncture, but I don't know if you can do that on a little kid, so perhaps acupressure? To get the body back towards balance, so the body isn't reacting vehemently to relatively benign things.

Oh, and if you're doing homeopathy yourself, don't...take DC to a proper homeopath to find a constitutional remedy, rather than just chasing symptoms, if that's what you have been doing.

[Ayala Eilon]

Diet helped me and my son too. For us it is no dairy, wheat, corn, peanuts...
I actually stay away from all grains and beans and of course sugar and all junk. I believe they are bad fro all humans. Read Neanderthin, and The Paleo Diet. All environmental allergies are food related and also vax makes it worse.

[mamachandi]

Originally Posted by Ayala Eilon

Diet helped me and my son too. For us it is no dairy, wheat, corn, peanuts...
I actually stay away from all grains and beans and of course sugar and all junk. I believe they are bad fro all humans. Read Neanderthin, and The Paleo Diet. All environmental allergies are food related and also vax makes it worse.

if you don't eat grains and beans what do you eat besides veg and fruit?

[USAmma]

I am struggling with this as well. Allergies have been in my family for many generations. I have no known food allergies (was tested) but tested positive for almost all known environmental allergies! The most effective long-term treatment is allergy shots. They work but they are a lot of trouble, and can only start after age 4-6. But they DO work! They work with the body's immune system and do not involve chemicals or meds. There is another alternative that I'm trying right now-- sublingual immunotherapy. You can Google it. It is similar to shots but done at home under the tongue. I think I'm already seeing improvements and I'm still early into the therapy. My doctor treats children as young as 6 mos with this therapy and says it works great for most kids. My toddler rejected the drops (she has eating/mouth issues) but I'm going to try again with her later.

For now I just give her 1/2 tablet of Claritin daily and we keep the windows closed, allergy proofed our whole house (which was a big effort but we are all feeling better now), and we just pray for non-allergy season. My oldest dd also responds well to Claritin. Makes a big difference in her behavior!

There are pages on-line about how to allergy proof your house. One of the biggest things you can do is put the mattress in a zippered vinyl or allergy proof cover (they make breathable ones non vinyl but they are more costly). Same with pillows. Wash the sheets in HOT water once a week. Use free and clear degergent and no fabric softener. Same with clothes. Remove and wash curtains, dust often, vacuum often. Try to get rid of carpets in the bedroom if possible. We took it out of our whole house!

While waiting for the new immunotherapy to work fully (takes months) I am coping with Singulair, Flonase, and Claritin as needed. I have tried more natural things and they just don't work well for me. My allergies are severe and if they get bad enough I get asthma problems.

[mollyeilis]

FWIW, allergy shots NEVER worked for me. I did them for well over a year, and nothing. And all ANY allergy meds did for me was put me to sleep, even the ones that shouldn't have. Oh it was a difficult year or two, there at the end of HS.

I do have to also say that for me (and some others of my friends) allergies are NOT an "always" thing. Some years I can run into a field of scotchbroom and dance. Other years I start to sneeze just LOOKING at the stuff. Some days I can go to a park full of grass, other days I can't even go onto a lawn without wanting to die of the sneezing.

For me (and others) it's also emotionally-based. I've been known to go into a full-blown allergy attack if in a difficult argument with someone. Years that I'm a bit more mentally "sound", my allergies are nonexistent. But if I'm having issues, I'll have more sneezing attacks (and by that I mean hours and hours of nonstop sneezing).

And lastly I'll say that if you wait it out and try to not fight the allergies (let your body go with the sneezes, don't tense up, don't get mentally frustrated), and if you're around safe people (not my one friend who would bring out her arsenal of anti-allergy meds), you can get the very same antihistamine "high" *naturally* that you get with things like Sudafed and so on. Your body *can* produce them, you just have to give it a healthy, solid chance.


That last bit is harder to do with a little kid, but then again, if they don't *know* that one can achieve it with a pill, and if they experience the body working like that, perhaps they'd be easy to just wait it out.

Just my experiences and thoughts.

But really, allergy shots never ever worked for me, and they were EXPENSIVE (15/shot, 3 shots, 2 times a week and that's in mid-80s prices!!!) and not covered under insurance.

[USAmma]

Originally Posted by mollyeilis

FWIW, allergy shots NEVER worked for me. I did them for well over a year, and nothing. And all ANY allergy meds did for me was put me to sleep, even the ones that shouldn't have. Oh it was a difficult year or two, there at the end of HS.

I'm sorry they didn't work for you. They work for about 85% of people so you were one of the 15%. I was on them for years, from age 9 up to age 26 on and off. As I moved I had to start them over again with the new pollens in that area. They take about 2-3 years to fully work but I was able to get off all meds and I think that's pretty incredible considering how severe of a problem I have with allergies. When I quit, about 2 years later I got slammed with allergies again.

I'm not trying to debate allergy shots or not, but for people who have allergies, it's an immune system problem and it doesn't go away. There are years when it's better and years when it's worse depending on the pollens that are blooming and so forth. And yes, your overall health will help with how you deal with allergies. It's like having a cold year-round as far as your body's concerned and can really make you tired and depressed. Being healthy and having a good attitude can help a lot but it's not a cure. Wish it was.

Sudaphed is not an allergy med. It just dilates your system so you can breathe better. Benedryl and Claritin are two examples of antihistamines. It's more effective to prevent the inflammation in the first place rather than treat the symptoms when they get really bad to the point that you are miserable. Meds like Claritin and Singulair will prevent the inflammation. Some people are strong enough to fight this on their own and it's liveable. Others keep getting inflammation, mucous, discharge, and that leads to infections and asthma attacks. Not fun.

Even my naturopath allergy doctor says to keep taking the conventional meds until I give the immunotherapy treatment time to work. It takes 4-6 weeks to begin to see improvement and up to 6 mos to see total improvement. Allergy shots take much longer. Hopefully I will be med-free again by next year!! Yipee!