Jennifer

Hi. I am new here. I have an 11 month old son. He was fine ... eating and sleeping well and overall very happy until he was about 3 months old. At that time, he became fussy and began to vomit his formula. I switched his formula a few times to see what happened but the only thing that happened was that I noticed his small eczema rash blossom into full blown eczema!!! I brought him to his dr. who suggested I try the Neutramigen, which to no surprise made no difference. Then it began!!! He has not slept through the night since he was 3 months old. I said I thought it was allergies but I was denied by drs., dermatologists, and even one of the best allergists in NJ who later apologized and said he had never seen such a random case of allergies like this. When the skin test was administered, it turned out that not only is he allergic to dairy, but he is allergic to soy, rice, orange veggies, and severly to eggs!! The eczema has been coming and going now for months. Now it is mostly on the backs of his knees and in his neck crevice. He is always itching even though I use the lightest possible laundry detergent, bathe him in only sea salt and baby oil, and he wears nothing but 100 percent cotton. I have been suffering with this for a long time (what feels like an eternity) and now with the massive sleep depervation, I could use some advice. His sleep has gotten as bad as him waking up every 30 minutes at night SCREAMING!! Does anyone else suffer with the sleep issues?? And if you're past this, when does it calm down??? PLEASE pass along anything you can share!!

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nele

Hi,

Sorry to hear your child is so allergic. My son (now 1,5 years old) is also allergic to several foods (dairy, potato, eggs, oranges, wheat and gluten), I'm really happy he recently outgrew his allergy to soy and fish. He's very young to already have outgrown such allergies, so I'm very happy.

All this time I have put him on a very strict diet, not even allowing traces of the allergens into his food.
And it went so well, I don't use any cream or medicine anymore, and his skin is just fine like that, just a little dry maybe. Sometimes just a very little bit of eczema on his cheeks, but really nothing that bothers him. In the past, his cheeks used to be so full of eczema, moisture used to drip out of his damaged skin, and he was bleeding easily when he scratched.
I bathe him in plain water with bath oil, and use hypo-allergenic laundry detergent.

I don't know how strict you are with his diet, and if other peolpe are strict (does he go to daycare?). It might be that he still gets to eat what he is allergic to?
If not, perhaps he still has an allergy you haven't discovered yet?
If he's only difficult at night, but he's fine in the day, is there anything in his bedroom that he might be allergic to that you don't know about? Do you use the same diapers for night and day? Any toys or whatever in or next to his bed? Air freshener? Anything at all?
You have to consider every possibility.
Try letting him sleep one night in another room, like the living room, if he's doing well there during the day.
Try giving him other food for his last dinner, like what he gets for breakfast if he doesn't react to that that during the day.

If he's still itching so much and has such trouble with eczema, I really think that he still has allergic reactions to something. And it can really be a hard task finding out what it is. But I'm convinced there is something. Whatever his diet is not followed strictly enough, or another allergy you don't know about. Or perhaps even several more allergies.

When my son still had a lot of eczema, he used to scratch himself in his sleep, and then woke up screaming from the burning sensation. It was hell. Even when I used mittens to cover his hands, the rubbing of the mittens on his cheeks stil caused a burning sensation which woke him up screaming, several times per night.
Finally I was so desperate and sleep-deprived, I did something that might seem like abuse (I did it with pain in my heart), I tied the hands of my baby son tightly next to his body, so he couldn't move them and there was no way he could scratch or rub his cheeks anymore. He didn't go to sleep easily, he cried and was upset by it and wanted to get loose, but when he finally fell asleep anyway, he slept for such a long time, without waking up, I finally had my first good sleep since he was born. And he was much happier also the next day. So I kept doing that because I really saw it was for his own good. Until his cheeks were not so bad anymore.

So you have find out yourself ALL the allergies your son has, and keep a very strict diet, and in the meantime, you have to consider doing the same like I did, until he's not that itchy anymore that he could scratch himself awake.

If the doctors aren't much help, and you're not sure about a certain kind of food, try holding some of the food on the inner lip of your son for about 10-15 seconds, and wait for 10-15 minutes to see if he gets any allergic reaction or redness there. It's no guaranteed result, but it might help if you don't have any other possibilities.
Or you could try the skin test yourself. Take a sterile needle, dip or stab the end in the food that you want to test, and then make a small scratch on your son's arm with that. Wait for 10-15 minutes and then see if he has a bubble on his skin or not.

Furthermore, try to avoid much foods which are high in histamine, because they tend to worsen allergic reactions and eczema. Foods high in histamine are for example tomato, paprika, pepper, strawberry, pineapple, kiwifruit, orange, and more I can't think of right now, but the information is easily found on the internet. Try typing "histamine diet" in google or something. You don't have to keep so strict to this diet, because there is no direct allergy to those foods. Just limit the intake of the foods highest in histamine content.

I wish you a lot of success, please let me know if you have any more questions, and if you discover something new in your son's case, or if there's any improvement in his situation.

Greetz
Nele

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Theresa

Janna had execma but hasn't been troubled by it so much anymore. Her diet is meat, vegetables, beans and formula. As long as she stays on the diet, she does very well. She wakes up once or twice in the night asking for milk and wanting to sleep with mama so I just give her formula, put her in bed with me and we go back to sleep. When she gets a breakout, Aquaphor seems to do the trick. I also got some samples of Calmoseptine from the doctor and was AMAZED by the results. When she gets a rash, any kind of rash, I put that on and it usually goes away within a couple of hours.

Janna has never had eggs, fish or nuts. Because of her Allergic Enterocolitis, I cannot give her any food that is not on her diet. Foods that are suspect for allergies in children have to be strictly avoided.

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