Son Diagnosed With Wheat Allergy

[Laurelf]

My son, who has multiple food allergies, just got a positive IgE result to wheat, even though he eats wheat all the time with apparently no problem. I would think that it is a false positive except that he tested positive once in a skin test years ago and I have celiac. I know they are two different illnesses, but has anyone found a correlation between IgE allergies and IgA intolerance?

Thanks,

Laurel

[missy'smom]

I can't answer your question but just share my experience. My son tested pos. to wheat via blood and skin test. When he is gluten-free, his eczema disappears so we keep him gluten-free without a celiac disease DX. His recent re-test with skin testing showed no reaction to wheat and dietary challenges showed a recurrence of the eczema when we re-introduced beans after eliminating them for several months, based on a pos. skin test reaction to beans. I don't know what's going on with him but we do know, as I said that gluten-free keeps the eczema away.

[Laurelf]

I just heard from my allergist and he thinks he is cross-reacting to grass pollen with a positive wheat and to ignore the result. I guess I have to understand cross-reactions better because to me, it means that if the grass pollen is out, he will not be able to tolerate wheat too?

[missy'smom]

I just heard from my allergist and he thinks he is cross-reacting to grass pollen with a positive wheat and to ignore the result. I guess I have to understand cross-reactions better because to me, it means that if the grass pollen is out, he will not be able to tolerate wheat too?

Many things about my son are still a mystery to me. My son's old allergist, who did the first set of tests said the same thing-ignore the wheat allergy test results. There may be some truth to the cross-reactivity thing but at the time I couldn't accept that we should ignore it when both blood and skin and dietary elimination and challenge resulted in improvement when he was off wheat(and in our house I was alreday gluten-free so we never tried just wheat-free). Another thing is that our old allergist didn't believe in eliminating foods from the diet unless and anaphalactic reation occurred. I'm just not on that page. So, I got a different allergist who does believe that sometimes we need to eliminate foods for other reasons. He hasn't offered any clear answers yet as to what's up with my son but at least we are on the same page. Good luck to you.

A good book to read is "Food Allergies and Intolerances by Jonathan Brostoff, M.D. and Linda Gamlin.