Testing infants for food allergies

[Abylite]

Hello!

I'm thinking of asking our primary MD (who is cool...and agrees to our no vaxing....) about testing our 6 month old for allergies.

Bummer cuz none run in our families and I was able to nurse DD for 18 months with no problems.

DS though since birth has had eczema off and on, still has cradle cap, gas, fussiness....etc. We are nursing and I'm TRYING so hard to give up all the allergens...but I am starving and hungry and getting somewhat frustrated. I would like to know if possible what I should definitely get rid of in my diet.

I work outside the home and pump EBM...and on my one "long" day he has one bottle of nutramigen.

I was reading about the CAP or RAST test....are they pretty accurate? Which one or both should I request?

If you had your infant tested....what was the procedure? Are you glad you did it??

[txtarheel]

We had both skin prick and RAST testing done when ds was 12 mo. Skin prick gave us results that we had no clue about and eliminating them cleared up fussiness and sleep issues easily. RAST tests didn't turn up a single positive - including dairy, which he'd had an anaphylactic reaction to in the past.

Personally, if I had another allergic infant - I'd go with skin prick tests knowing there is a high rate of false positives. But, DS didn't even notice they were doing it. The RAST test they had to hold him down and draw veinous blood which was pretty invasive at that age, IMO and for the results we got.

[chantald]

We just finished several rounds of blood work and skin tests for my LO, he was 9 months when we started, and nothing showed up other than one slightly high reading on the celiac's panel, but he has sensitivities to potatoes (eczema, red face, loose stools etc) and a few other things. For us, it showed nothing that was useful..
I could have saved $ and emotional trauma by just trusing what I had observed when I fed him, through the elim diet etc.. instead of the tears and screaming the testing caused.. I'm not happy that I had him tested.

[kjbrown92]

I don't think gas and fussiness show up as an IgE allergy. I had DS tested twice (once at 8 months and once when he was 7) and nothing showed up, but he's intolerant to milk, soy, cocoa, and white potatoes, and I think it's now extended to all legumes. I had DD tested once, and nothing showed up for her and she has lots of intolerances (gas, fussiness, screaming all night, eczema, cradle cap, diarrhea, etc.). If you get a negative test result, are you going to just feed your DS everything and not do anything? I guess I don't have much confidence in the tests except when they're anaphylactic allergies. I have heard so many stories of people getting tested and showing they were positive for things they've never reacted to, and negative to things they've always reacted to. I think an elimination-challenge diet is much more effective.