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Originally Posted by Dessirey  hello. I am very new to this community - this is my very first post.
My son 2 1/2 is getting more and more allergic… He was allergic to dairy when he was an infant and we were both dairy free for about 1 1/2 years. When he was 1 1/2 we took him to a homeopath and after the treatment was over I was sure he was cured...but now we are suffering with a major eczema...I still breastfeed him and my 4 month old. I know he is still allergic to dairy but I suspect other allergies...But if I try to method of elimination well it may take years…Especially when I just realized that I was doing it wrong. I was supposed to eliminate suspected food for no less than 5 days but no more than 12. Well I was eliminating for longer and then re-introducing. Well when you eliminate for a long period of time and re-introduce it takes time for the reaction to occur. It is like filling up a barrel – if it was almost empty it would take longer to fill it up. So I would eliminate a certain food and then when I re-introduce weeks later (or months) I don’t get the immediate reaction and I am thinking we are safe…But if one re-introduces in less than 12 days then the reaction is supposed to be immediate. Also I say we were dairy free but I never cut it off completely – I still ate cake and other foods that contain dairy. I am reading "Is this your child?" and I am just horrified by how sneaky allergies are and how serious they can be! My poor son is very highly allergic…But going back to the testing - how effective was the blood test for narrowing down your toddlers allergies? Are there different kids of blood tests? Were there many "false positives”? How many things did it narrow it down to?
Thank you!
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Welcome to the board!
I am very suspicious of "natural" cures for true allergies. That's not to say that I don't use natural/alternative methods to help heal my daughter, but I don't believe anything will "take away" her body's tendency to produce histamine in response to certain food proteins. And that's not for lack of trying. We've had muscle testing and NAET. I just don't think they are the answer for us. Elimination, food journals and allopathic allergy testing are what helped us identify problems.
Anyway, if you never eliminated ALL dairy, then, it may be that his dairy allergy has escalated and now he has eczema. You really have to eliminate all dairy to see accurate results. Elimination doesn't have to take months or years. There are a couple of ways to do it. You can do a Total Elimination diet, where you eat a limited number of foods (turkey, pears, etc.) and then, reintroduce other foods slowly. Or, you can do an Elimination Diet of just the top 10 or so allergens (wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, peanut, fish, shellfish, corn and sesame), and then, reintroduce those after you get to baseline (when all symptoms have gone away). Or if you're feeling overwhelmed right now, you can do a strict elimination of just dairy (and it would be good to do soy at the same time, imo). You want to keep a food journal during this time to write down all of his symptoms (sleep, stools, skin, behavior, time of food consumption, time of reaction, etc.).
About testing. . .under age o 4 or 5, it's not highly accurate. We identified our dd's two biggest allergens through skin testing, but blood testing (RAST) gave us a bunch of false negatives. Neither test will identify food intolerances or sensitivities because those are not histamine-mediated (IgE). And actually, allergists in general seem very uneducated about the wide variety of food reactions, unless it's an IgE allergy. So, I'm not saying it's a bad idea, you just have to understand the limitations of allergy testing, and if you do use it, use it in conjuction with a food journal and elimination diet.
Also, with eczema, you want to make sure you're using safe laundry soap, body soap, lotion, etc. so as not to exacerbate the problem.
