Since he was 7 weeks old Mr. Hop has been battling eczema. While he has had some dry spots on his back, arms, and legs, the worst of the eczema has been focused on his cheeks.
It started with just a little bit of redness on his cheeks at 7 weeks, which completely spiraled out of control by 12 weeks. I don’t think I even realized the severity of it until I look back at photos taken during that time.
Mr. Hop and his terrible eczema flare ups at 12 weeks.
Our pediatrician advised us to use an over the counter hydrocortisone cream on his cheeks, and we would slather him with a good ointment like Aquaphor. We eventually got the worst of the his eczema under control but it was (and still is) always lingering – from dry, itchy legs that he was constantly scratching to dry patches that a would crop up all over his back.
At one point my mother mentioned to me how she had read an article about how children with eczema are more likely to have food allergies. That fact definitely made my ears perk up and the mindset that “we need to be extra careful with Mr. Hop” has stuck with me. I’m not certain specifically what article she was referencing, but this WebMD article provides a general overview on the topic.
We were careful (as we would be under any circumstances) when we started giving the twins food around 5.5 months. We didn’t introduce any of the foods that commonly cause allergic reactions in young children. However, by about 7 months we reached out to our pediatrician with concerns: his eczema was only kept under control with regular hydrocortisone use (not ideal), and he was scratching his legs nonstop. At that point, she referred us to an allergist.
This appointment was a huge relief to me because I had for months been carrying around the thought that Mr. Hop may have some food allergies and I didn’t want to find out the hard way after he had an allergic reaction.
The allergist performed a “scratch test” on Mr. Hop’s back to see how his skin reacted to different known allergens (peanuts, dog hair, egg, soy, etc). Unfortunately I wasn’t at the appointment but Mr. H said that he was a champ during the test!
From this appointment we knew immediately that Mr. Hop has food allergies: he is allergic to egg whites and very allergic to peanuts. He is also likely allergic to tree nuts; instead of putting him through that test, the doctor just advised us to avoid peanuts and all tree nuts.
What does this mean from here on out?
For the moment, Mr. Hop cannot have anything with egg (even baked items) and we keep anything with nuts to an absolute minimum in the house, especially peanut butter. And, you know, we obviously don’t feed him anything nut-related! We have an epi-pen with us at all times and make sure everyone who is with him (nanny, grandparents, etc) is familiar with how to use it. After he turns 1, Mr. Hop will get re-tested for these allergies. Because egg allergies are very common under 1, we are hopeful he will grow out of it.
One thing we do not know is what type of allergic reaction Mr. Hop will have. For instance, he is very allergic to peanuts, but that doesn’t translate into what type of reaction he will have. Meaning he could be exposed to peanut butter but only break out into a rash. Or, he could go into anaphylactic shock. We just will not know until it happens.
If my mother hadn’t alerted me to the possibility of food allergies we would have been much more at risk for exposing Mr. Hop to one of these foods, the consequences of which really scare me! We do not have any allergies in our family so this is entirely new territory for us and not something we were anticipating.
Today Mr. Hop’s cheeks are relatively clear on most days and the dry spots on the rest of his body are at a minimum (thanks mostly to the fact that it’s summer – the dry winter air is terrible for eczema!). We’re getting creative with finding foods for him that won’t trigger an allergic reaction, and have switched Miss H over to a soy “butter” in place of peanut butter to help ensure Mr. Hop doesn’t come into contact with anything peanut-related.
Were you aware of the possible link between eczema and food allergies?
grapefruit / 4988 posts
This is very interesting. LO goes to daycare with a child who had bad eczema as an infant and I remember weirdly wondering if he had food issues (I was on a strict elimination diet for LO at the time, and she had skin issues that resolved after I went on the diet). Turns out the other child has peanut, treenut, and egg allergies, which they discovered when he had a bad reaction to eggs. I remember feeling bad when I found out and wondering if I should have shared with his mom. But eczema is so common, I figured I was being crazy.
pomegranate / 3032 posts
I suffer from psoriasis (which is a skin disease cousin of eczema) It really a auto immune disease that manifests itself as a skin rash, so it makes sense that it is tied into allergies. A lot of psoriasis sufferers see some relief when they cut out night shades like tomatoes, squash, eggplants – they tend to be inflammatory. I hope your little one sees some relief soon and the winter is a mild one.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
I wasn’t aware of the link initially. Both my boys have eczema and food allergies, so I definitely can see it.
kiwi / 706 posts
I did not know and wish I had – great post that will be really helpful to a lot of people! My son had eczema since he was a baby and it took until his ten month appointment for any ped to even call it that – before that they always said baby acne…… And then we only found out about his peanut and tree-nut allergy after he reacted to his first bite of PB. He had instant hives all over his neck and back. Very scary but thankfully it wasn’t worse.
guest
Had Mr. Hop had any of the foods he was allergic to prior to your visit with the allergist? Or do you think his eczema is better just due to the summer weather? Thanks!
pear / 1531 posts
My son has a peanut allergy and eczema, but supposedly 2/3 of eczema cases are not food-related.
I am surprised they did a skin prick test that young. Also, do you plan to get retested as he gets older? I ask because skin prick tests have false positive rates of between 50%-70% for peanut allergies so it’s still very possible he is not allergic. I plan on retesting my son every year even though he had a reaction to ingesting peanuts to see if he outgrows it. I have been surprised at how diagnosing allergies is not cut and dry like I thought. I spent 6 months, for instance, eliminating food because of my son’s eczema, which never got better. And that elimination diet, according to a recent study, actually might have caused his peanut allergy. It’s all very frustrating.
eggplant / 11408 posts
@Adira: oh no, L, too?
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
@LovelyPlum: Yep, he’s allergic to peanuts!
eggplant / 11408 posts
I did know this, but mostly because LO had MSPI but super clear skin. Our ped and GI both said the same thing-thst they were surprised by the MSPI because her skin was so clear! Crazy how that works.
eggplant / 11408 posts
@Adira: oy, fristrating.
@raintreebee: ugh, thst sounds crazy frustrating. Do you have a link to that study? I would be interested in reading it.
pear / 1531 posts
@LovelyPlum: which one?
Here are the false positive rate for peanut skin test pricks ones. One study says 70% and one says 50%.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11069561
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12911776
Here is the 2015 study that shows early exposure to peanuts reduces peanut allergies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25705822
I don’t have a study, but here is a link saying that 1 in 3 children with eczema also have food allergies. http://acaai.org/allergies/who-has-allergies/children-allergies/eczema
Enjoy!
persimmon / 1316 posts
My baby got diagnosed with eczema at 6 weeks. At that point my pediatrician was convinced it was from a food allergy and put me on an elimination diet to rule out what was causing it. (no dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, nuts,corn, citrus fruits, soy, sesame..) I was also told she was too young to be allergy tested. After 8 weeks of misery on that diet and not seeing any improvements I spoke with an allergist at a allergy workshop and she said she would never recommend eliminating foods from a mom who was BFing until the baby has been tested and that she was NOT too young to be allergy tested. We asked for a referral to see an allergist and that allergist also agreed you shouldnt just cut stuff from your diet unless you know it is going to help by being confirmed through allergy testing. The statistics he told me is 1 in 3 kids with eczema have a food allergy. Well we did the scratch test and she wasn’t allergic to any foods. I was so relieved but also pretty pissed my pediatrician put me through that elimination diet for 2 months. Being a new mom, pumping/ BFing and not being able to eat hardly anything was brutal. Not to mention the guilt I felt when her rash would get worse and I was blaming myself thinking it was something I ate.
pomegranate / 3601 posts
I caught the link by pure accident for my kids. My son always had dry skin and I noticed it was better some days than others. Finally on a road trip I noticed how much better it was and started thinking about what was currently done differently and we weren’t having juice in the morning! So we stopped giving him his glas of OJ in the morning and his skin is a million times better. My daughter’s skin also got a lot better so I quit all citrus juices too and her exzema cleared too (she’s BF).
persimmon / 1165 posts
my twins had mild eczema when they were younger. We did have a steroid cream for when it would get back. But for regular maintenance, I found that CeraVe cream works WONDERS! For us, using that regularly virtually eliminated the need to use the steroid cream.
pomelo / 5258 posts
My LO’s cheeks looked just like your son’s when I was BFing and she is sensitive to lightly cooked eggs. Fortunately she can eat well cooked eggs just fine. I hope your LO outgrows his allergies.
kiwi / 511 posts
Yes I was aware of the connection because of my niece. However I didn’t really make the connection with my little one until you know he had a reaction to eggs at 1 year old. He got all wheezy and absolutely refused more than the half a bite of eggs he had already had. He had been sick at the time and had been wheezy so we had albuterol to give him via nebulizer as needed, we actually had mistaken the wheezy for the cold. However when he got up from his nap an hour after the neb, he had hives on his neck and face, but no more wheeze and no blue tint anywhere. A quick call to the pediatrician (this was a Saturday naturally) and they said give him Benadryl , but if he starts to wheeze again 911. They called us back about 45 minutes later and his hives were gone due to the Benadryl and no more issues.
We had him tested within days (ordered by the pediatrician but the results went to our allergist that specializes in pediatric care), first the blood work and then the skin test. We didn’t skin test for the eggs but did get the blood numbers. His walnut and pecan numbers blood work wise were low, however the skin test that was very reactive so much so that they couldn’t get a good read on the peanut skin test we had to go back 6 months later. Right now he is allergic to eggs, walnuts, and pecans and carries an epi pen. He is three now and just passed a skin test and in a couple of weeks we do the baked egg challenge in the doctor’s office. I have to admit I am freaked out.
I have been getting his flu shot at the allergist’s office since it is one of the vaccines that has egg in it. They skin test him with the vaccine and then if there is no reaction they will give him the vaccine from that same vial that they used for the skin test. So far things have been fine but I feel more comfortable getting the shot with the allergist after the skin test. And the pediatrician actually recommended the first flu shot after the allergy presented be given by the allergist.
For the blood work I absolutely love the numbing cream for my little one. I put it on both inner elbows where they usually draw the blood from and wrap the area in plastic wrap to keep it on his arms and not clothes for an hour prior to the draw. It makes it easier for him and me.
For his eczema I prefer Hydrolatum and I put it on right before PJs at night and right before he gets dressed for the day. If he has a really bad patch I will go with straight Crisco (in the blue can or bar) and an old pair of clothes that I don’t mind getting greasy and the patch is gone within one or two applications.
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
How interesting. I grew up with awful eczema and still fight it in some ways but I’ve never had any food sensitivities. Hoping Mr Hop grows out of it, I’ve heard that childhood eczema usually gets much better as kids get older.
guest
I wasn’t really sure what eczema looked like (I’d never had it) but thinking back I think my LO had it at a few months old. It was never severe but it wasn’t until he was about 18 mo. and threw up/broke out in hives that I knew something he ate was the culprit. Food testing at an allergists confirmed it was sunflower seeds, of all things. He had reacted to sunflower seed butter which I had thought was the “allergy friendly” butter but for my little guy that’s not the case. Thankfully it’s not in everything like egg or dairy. We do avoid dairy bc overdoing it does make his eczema flare, although it wasn’t a positive on his test.
guest
I was aware because my daughter has dairy protein and egg allergies. She has thankfully outgrown them but we had to eliminate both from her diet completely for over a year. I was chatting with our allergist at a recent appointment about the likelihood of my son having the same allergies and she mentioned new research is showing allergies are often caused through the skin instead of when the allergen in ingested. She suggested rubbing aquaphor on our son’s skin when introducing new foods and being very diligent about wiping him clean afterwards to remove any possible allergen. It’s so interesting to me about the two are related.
guest
The other tricky thing is that just because you don’t show up as allergic in a scratch test, it doesn’t mean you don’t react in another way. There was no question that my daughter has a dairy sensitivity/intolerance that caused colic/reflux and gut problems, but her scratch test showed she wasn’t allergic.
The main thing that flares her eczema though is tomato and acidic fruits, especially on contact. Tomato sauce seems especially potent, because it’s concentrated I guess.
A daily probiotic is a must in our house, too.
kiwi / 558 posts
Your twins are too cute!! Good luck with the allergies!
guest
Love your posts and following your twins growing.
coffee bean / 42 posts
Have you tried aveeno oatmeal baths? It works amazingly on my son who has eczema. I highly recommend it Aveeno Baby Eczema Therapy Soothing Baby Bath Treatment, 5 Count-3.75oz (Pack of 2) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005982NIU/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_Vvx1vb8CAZKKC