Anybody have diagnosed food allergies with no real symptoms???

[tylerdylan]

Our quest for my DS's failure to thrive continues....
Our pediatrician has him on a dairy free diet currently believing that he may still be allergic to dairy. He was allergic to dairy (and soy) as an infant (from birth). He had eczema and gastric reflux as his obvious signs. When the dairy and soy were removed from my diet (around 4 months age) his eczema cleared, his reflux pain stopped and he stopped spitting up the huge puddles of milk. Around 9 months I fed him soy yogurt and he all 3 symptoms returned. 2 weeks later I fed him real yogurt and again all the symptoms returned. 2 months later at 11 months age I tested him again and discovered he was no longer reacting to the dairy or soy. His skin tests at that age also were negative. So he started eating dairy and soy again with no obvious problems. BUT his failure to thrive (started at 8 months age) worsened and he fell off the charts for weight and height. 2 years later we are still searching for a cause. His only symptoms are failure to thrive and maybe a little irritability (seems worse than in most kids his age, but maybe it is just his personality) otherwise he is happy and developmentally doing well. I think this possible dairy allergy sounds ridiculous!! His eczema is gone right now (flaired up in the hot weather and haven't seen any in a few months), he NEVER has diarrhea, he isn't gassy...nothing - he just can't seem to gain weight or grow properly. Any thoughts??

[jayell79]

First of all, I'm so sorry you and your family has to go thru this. I don't have a any children yet, but I can tell you I've dealt with food allergies all my life. I wish I was diagnosed much earlier in life. Doctors thought either me or my mother were crazy and it was "all in our heads." I'm allergic to soy, wheat, beef, and shellfish to name a few.

I react differently to each one of my allergens and most of them are not the "normal" text book reactions. Sometimes it can take hours (up to 8) for a reaction to happen. My reactions can be anything from irritability, sleepyness, headaches, unable to focus or think including dyslexia, hiccups, gastric pain, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain/cramps, eczema, rash, asthma, and anaphylactic shock (once.)

Skin tests are not 100% accurate. If he was allergic to soy and diary as an infant, chances are he still is. I know children can and do grow out of some allergies but it can take a very, very long time (years) of complete avoidance before the body no longer reacts. If he's allergic to soy, have you been very careful to avoid ALL soy derivatives? Soy is found in all most everything, and can include vegetable oil, and vitamin E. Have you had him tested for Celiac disease? I've heard that sometimes that doesn't cause symptoms in children.

[tylerdylan]

Originally Posted by jayell79

I react differently to each one of my allergens and most of them are not the "normal" text book reactions. Sometimes it can take hours (up to 8) for a reaction to happen. My reactions can be anything from irritability, sleepyness, headaches, unable to focus or think including dyslexia, hiccups, gastric pain, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain/cramps, eczema, rash, asthma, and anaphylactic shock (once.)

Skin tests are not 100% accurate. If he was allergic to soy and diary as an infant, chances are he still is. I know children can and do grow out of some allergies but it can take a very, very long time (years) of complete avoidance before the body no longer reacts. If he's allergic to soy, have you been very careful to avoid ALL soy derivatives? Soy is found in all most everything, and can include vegetable oil, and vitamin E. Have you had him tested for Celiac disease? I've heard that sometimes that doesn't cause symptoms in children.

So you think irritability may be a potential symptom signalling a food allergy?? How am I supposed to figure out which food he is allergic to doing an elimination diet and looking for irritability?? argh. This is getting more impossible to deal with everyday.
DS is currently having soy and a lot of it based on our peds recommendations to eliminate only dairy and replace it with soy. We see the ped again tomorrow to get back his bloodtest results (including his re-test for Celiac). He may very well agree with you and have us remove soy too. I don't know how we will manage that. DS is already very upset because we have had to eliminate so many of his favorite foods and luckily I was able to replace most with soy products, if we have to remove soy too he will be devistated and probably irritable because he can't eat anything that he enjoys making it impossible to determine the source of the irritability. I wish there was an easier way to do this....is there?? Could allergy testing of his blood show which foods are a problem or would it just show that there is food allergies without specifying which foods? We see an allergy specialist for his peanut and sesame allergies and she mentioned measuring his level of allergy to peanuts to see how bad it is (we declined). Would those allergies being present just throw off the results of the blood test?? Anybody??

[Sweetjane]

Hi,
There is a product called Vance's Dari Free that is a non dairy drink that is made from potatoes. It comes in powdered form. There is also rice milk, but we are dealing with multiple food allergies and I do not feel comfortable with the manufacturing of any rice milk I can find (cross contamination issues). You can make shakes, pops, thicken it with mashed banana or something to give it a thicker consistency. You can probably even culture it to make yogurt, but I don't know how to do that. I have heard that there is high rate of false negatives for celiac tests, as well as people being gluten intolerant who do not have Celiac disease. It may help to try a one month elimination. From what I have heard, with gluten (unlike with milk) you may see results within a few days. What type of test did your son do for the milk and soy allergies? With my son, it took a while to figure out the foods which would work, but it's going ok now. The really hard things were the yogurt (which he loved and still asks for occasionally) and cheese. I haven't found the gluten to be so bad...seems like ther are a ton of gluten free products on the market now. My biggest issue is that most of them are unsafe for our other allergies!

Also, are you still nursing? If so, are you still avoiding the foods he is avoiding as well? My allergist told me that I did not have to do this, but there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that this is helpful. I also feel like it's easier for him when he sees that we are eating the same foods.
Good luck.

[cat19]

It sounds to me as if your son's reactions to food could be non-IgE-mediated reactions, in which case they aren't going to show up on a skin or blood test.

Before I pursued further eliminations, if it were me, I'd pursue a referral to have him tested/scoped for the various things that can cause malabsorption and gut issues that are not necessarily visible. You'd need to see a pediatric GI. Blood tests for celiac are a start, but they aren't conclusive, and many other things that can cause malabsorption need a skilled ped GI for ruling in or out: fructose issues, eosinophilic issues (which for me would be a BIG red flag to check on as your son has failure to thrive, IgE allergies, past eczema, and past reflux), celiac, etc etc.

A pediatrician can't effectively test for those, but should be willing to refer you.

[tylerdylan]

Originally Posted by cat19

It sounds to me as if your son's reactions to food could be non-IgE-mediated reactions, in which case they aren't going to show up on a skin or blood test.

Before I pursued further eliminations, if it were me, I'd pursue a referral to have him tested/scoped for the various things that can cause malabsorption and gut issues that are not necessarily visible. You'd need to see a pediatric GI. Blood tests for celiac are a start, but they aren't conclusive, and many other things that can cause malabsorption need a skilled ped GI for ruling in or out: fructose issues, eosinophilic issues (which for me would be a BIG red flag to check on as your son has failure to thrive, IgE allergies, past eczema, and past reflux), celiac, etc etc.

A pediatrician can't effectively test for those, but should be willing to refer you.

Thank you!!! Your response has perfect timing. We are leaving in 30 minutes to go see our pediatrician. The ped had suggested that seeing a pediatric GI specialist should be our next step, but I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary. I think you are right though and we should go. Thanks again...

[Pilgrim]

Hi, I am so sorry you are having to deal with that, and I totally hear your frustrations! My DD has many food allergies, and it took me 17 months of food eliminations to discover them all. (And she may have more, but her symptoms are much better now.)

I was also going to mention the gluten issue. Gluten problems are very pervasive now. And some people (DH and I) have no overt symptoms when we eat gluten, and yet I have gut damage and pretty bad nutrient absorption issues.

I wish I could type out the "highlights," but I've got to go. Please, PLEASE check out this website: www.enterolab.com. This lab will do a simple stool check and you can get a lot of information, especially if you order the full panel. It's rather expensive (over $300) but so well worth it. The scope will only tell you if damage has occurred. You want to know well before that has happened. The blood tests for gluten problems are totally unreliable. No need to bother with it. If you spend some time at that website (poke around for the articles) you will learn a lot. The stool test is *the* way to go if you really want to know. The full panel also includes dairy, soy, and yeast. Plus it includes genetic testing, and a fecal fat score (indicating damage and malabsorption problems.)

Enterolab has an analogy on the site. If a person having heart troubles goes to the ER, and they take a biopsy of the heart and say "your heart is not damaged. You are fine, go home." That's what the scope is like. It will only tell you if there is damage, and you just don't want to get there.

Whenever someone says "failure to thrive" I always think of gluten right off the bat. Gluten problems cause intestinal damage, inflamed immune system, and malabsorption. Those problems don't necessarily show themselves as quickly like an allergic response.

[jayell79]

Originally Posted by tylerdylan

So you think irritability may be a potential symptom signalling a food allergy?? How am I supposed to figure out which food he is allergic to doing an elimination diet and looking for irritability?? argh. This is getting more impossible to deal with everyday.
DS is currently having soy and a lot of it based on our peds recommendations to eliminate only dairy and replace it with soy. We see the ped again tomorrow to get back his bloodtest results (including his re-test for Celiac). He may very well agree with you and have us remove soy too. I don't know how we will manage that. DS is already very upset because we have had to eliminate so many of his favorite foods and luckily I was able to replace most with soy products, if we have to remove soy too he will be devistated and probably irritable because he can't eat anything that he enjoys making it impossible to determine the source of the irritability. I wish there was an easier way to do this....is there?? Could allergy testing of his blood show which foods are a problem or would it just show that there is food allergies without specifying which foods? We see an allergy specialist for his peanut and sesame allergies and she mentioned measuring his level of allergy to peanuts to see how bad it is (we declined). Would those allergies being present just throw off the results of the blood test?? Anybody??

Well, yes irritability could be a symptom. But for a child it could very well be a number of other things as well. Trying to sort out and pin point feelings and emotions is most likely impossible. My main point was that an allergic reaction may not involve the normal tell tale signs, or happen within the normal time frame.

I don't know how your family normally eats, but getting back to basics and embracing a 'whole food' diet may provide many benefits. Processed and prepared food is not healthy and the longer the ingredient list is, the more you are introducing into to your system at one time (which makes guessing what caused the reaction impossible.) if you provide whole foods, you know exactly what you and your children are eating. Personally, I would not be feeding any amount of soy to any children considering the health risks involved. But that is completely IMO.

[USAmma]

Yes, sort of. My dd never had the diarrhea, etc. of regular food allergies. She had a hard time swallowing and had general FTT until we got her a feeding tube. Finally was seen by a good GI, and was diagnosed through a biopsy. She has EE (www.apfed.org/ee.htm) which is a hard to find food allergic disease. I think seeing a GI is an excellent move for your child right now. Make sure they do the biopsy and check for EE.

[naturegirl7]

my son has multiple food allergies - some severe/ana. and others delayed. He is ana reactive to peanuts and soy. He is allergic with reactions of vomitting, diarrhea to gluten. Milk and other dairy and eggs - he gets eczema and in large doses diarrhea.
These were the OBVIOUS allergens - but he has quite a few delayed food allergies that we never would have guessed - some foods that he ate almost daily!

After 2.5 months of doing an elimination diet, with only moderate success, we decided to test for delayed food allergies. He came back positive for all of the above, plus avacado (which he ate almost daily) and rice (which is why the elim. diet never worked for us).

We cut out rice and avacado - and his chronic, constant ear infections magically disappeared. He started sleeping like a dream. My happy-go-lucky baby was EVEN HAPPIER. Now he never fusses, whines, or has meltdowns (unless he is super super overtired). He stopped getting sick. And suddenly, despite taking so many foods out of our diet, my baby started to grow again!!! He had gone from the 95% to the 30, then 25, then 20, then 15% after introducing solid foods. He just stopped growing, got really thin - it was really scaring me, but our ped then didn't seem to worry about it. I could count his ribs from across the room. It amazed me to take so much out of our diet and suddenly have his growing - now he doesn't stop. His last growth spurt was almost 2.5 inches in height! In about 2 months!


Since you have celiac, and you KNOW that dairy and soy are issues for him - I would recommend you taking diary, soy and gluten out of his diet. ANd doing an elimination diet to see what else might be going on. And using a rotation diet - we do and it helps so much. And testing for IgE and IgG (delayed) allergies may be something you want to consider. There are also supplements for "healing the gut" that can help.

please feel free to PM me.

[naturegirl7]

BTW - how old is your son? my is almost 2.5 now - diagnosed initially at 18 months with the soy and peanut and at 22 months for the rest of it - it is sooo hard taking away favorite foods from a toddler - but it just means you have to get creative. I have found versions of many of his fave foods - except cheese. :*(