Going To The Allergist

[mom2my3girls]

I'm new here..My name is Kim and I have a daughter named Ally who I suspect has a gluten allergy.

A little background....

My youngest daughter is almost 9 months and is breastfed. Around 4 months I mentioned to her dr that her poop had been mucus-y since birth, but the dr wasn't too concerned b/c she was in the 50% and growing well, not fussy, etc. But then from 4.5-5.5 months I noticed a tiny bit of blood in her poop a couple times. Stool samples were neg for parasites and whatever else they test for so she referred me to a pedi GI. He had me cut dairy out of my diet and there was no more mucus or blood since (but also at that time I started giving her some solid food, so the consistancy of her poop totally changed anyway). Then when she was around 7 months old I gave her a baby food that had wheat in it and she puked her guts out 3 hours after eating it. Then I gave her some Gerber oatmeal (which I had given her around 5-6 months and she had no problem with) and the same thing happened. I thought it might be a fluke, so I tried a couple more times....the boxed kind and the jarred kind, and both made her puke her guts out. Also around that time she got an awful eczema rash, but it got better with hydrocortizone cream. They did a blood test for a wheat allergy and it came back neg, but then I learned that it's not accurate before age 2. But her iron was good. I went back to the GI and he thought she might be allergic to soy (he said the Gerber oatmeal has soy) and told me to try the Beechnut (soy free) oatmeal. She still puked her guts out, so I think it's the gluten. Luckily it doesn't seem to bother her that I eat gluten though.

Any thoughts?

So I am taking her to the allergist on Thursday and they said no antihisthimines 72 hours prior to the appt, so I figure they'll do testing. What do you think they will do? Would they do the skin prick test on a baby? If so, will it show that she's allergic to gluten if she hasn't had any in a month, or is that just the blood test?

[ravenwoodglass]

First off celiac and wheat allergies are two different disorders. Celiac is an autoimmune disease and could cause the problems that you are seeing. Does she only vomit with gluten foods? That would be a good indication that she has a gluten issue. I don't know what tests your allergist may do. If they do a skin prick test don't be alarmed. It is not as painful as you might think. The needles are very small and they go just under the skin. If she has celiac that however would not show up with the skin prick tests. Those detect histamine reactions, or true allergies. Real little ones are very hard to diagnose, even harder than adults. It would not harm her to be gluten free if that solves the problem but I fully understand your need for a diagnosis as it would make it easier to deal with school when she starts. You may also want to post a question or two in the Parents section. I am sure that some of the folks there could be helpful to you.

[Roda]

Any time my boys get any type of allergy testing they cannot have any antihistimines for 7 days before testing. My youngest was 14 months old when he had his first allergy testing and it was repeated at 3 1/2 years old. My other son was 6 when he had allergy testing. So I don't know if her age makes a difference, but I would check it out. If they have had antihistimines it can skew the allergy testing.