Allergies on a 9 Month Old Baby Boy Etc....

I'm not sure why Kari is so upset about people recommending products to you. If it's okay to recommend probiotics or a brand name product sold in a store (where a lot more money is made), why is it so wrong to suggest something from a company that sells through distributors? A product sold in a supermarket or drug store jacks up the price to pay the manufacturer, the distributor, the trucking company (and its gas to ship something across the country), the ad agency that did the commercials, the TV stations and newspapers that ran the ads, the store overhead (rent, utilities, insurance), the employees' salaries and benefits, their workers' comp, the store ads/circulars, and a whole lot more. And the recommendations to go to multiple specialists for a lot of tests and drugs - well, there's money in that too!

I think there's a difference between a reputable company and its products (perhaps with US patents and sterling manufacturing facilities) and someone making up some product in their kitchen.

I have a good friend whose daughter no longer has her soy & egg allergies, and whose peanut allergy is just about gone. (They don't feed her peanuts yet, but they can go out to eat and the other kids can have peanut butter in the house.) And a colleague of mine who is a nurse, who suffered with eczema essentially since birth, is finally getting rid of it through nutritional supplementation. Another friend got rid of her own eczema (bleeding hands, couldn't tie her kids' shoes) and her son's eczema the same way.

It's hard to say when your child's problem developed, but you can't blame yourself or the formula. Usually food "allergies" are the result of accumulated problems, and those are generally resolved by ADDING the right nutrients instead of having to go through costly and aggravating elimination diets and endless drugs, steroid creams and so on. Your child will be able to properly digest the foods he eats and get rid of the eczema if you give him the right tools.

Ask your doctor about a probiotic. May or may not cure, but certainly would help.

Am I the only one that is bothered by answers that are from people trying to make money selling you products?! Anyways, my 6 month old has eczema, rather badly. And first I want to say that your Ped. is awesome, mine won't allergy test till age 2. So we are in limbo. He was breastfed for a long time and we actually switched to formula because we could figure out what in my diet was causing the problem. Well regular formula and soy both caused problems as well. He's now on alimentum (similac) and his skin is 90% clear 90% of the time. He gets some breakouts and has some dry spots, but nothing like when 75% of his body was covered in nasty red spots.

The predigested milk protein in a formula such as alimentum could help with the slight allergy that showed up in your little ones test.

I also like aquphor lotion for before bed, it's greasy but it seems to really help us.

formula is full of soy and dairy. peanut ingredients are found in some vaccines some be careful

We didn't experience this symptom, but there are people in the Feingold group that we are part of for other symptoms of an allergies that our dd has. There's a free yahoo group called Feingold 4 Us where you can learn a bit more before buying the supplies if Feingold looks right to you, but I'll tell you it's worth it and many, many kids that have one food allergy end up being allergic to artificials too, so check out www.feingold.org and/or the yahoo group for some great info! :)

H.

My son had very bad excsema when he was an infant. We didn't allergy test, because it is unreliable until after 2 years old. You can get false positives and false negatives. We discovered that my ds excsema was caused by contact with our carpet (we lived in an apartment at the time.) So, we covered the floor with those rubber mats, and all was fine. Unfortunately, you'll need to do a process of elimination to find out what the trigger is. Also, there are two schools of thought about how often to bathe a child with excsema. Some say more often, some say less often. We discovered that less frequent bathing helped a lot. Also, we used Cetaphyl cleanser and lotion. Lots of lotion! When it became unbearable, we used a little prescription cortisone cream, but we had to be very careful as it was on his face. DS eventually outgrew it, and it definitely helped that we moved out of the apartment. I hope some of this helps you :) best of luck!

When my daughter was born she had no problems. When she became 6 months old she broke out in eczema all over. We went through creams and lotions at the stores and nothing worked, when the ped. doctor recommended cream that had steroids in it I said no and went researching online. I found a lotion that is chemical free called Renew lotion. You can only buy it online from a 25 year old green company that sells 100% natural, chemical free products. Besides the lotion, I went ahead and replaced all of my cleaning products, bath and body, Makeup, vitamins, and pharmacy with their chemical free products. You would be surprised at what stores carry nowadays that are harmful to kids and pets. I refuse to shop for anything except for food at the store now. I even make my own baby wipes now that don't break my sons skin out. I am happy to have the chance to have two kids with no eczema problems at all and since I went chemical free, my son doesn't have breathing problems at night or allergies during the day. If you want to know more just email me ____@____.com

Take him off the allergans for now and you'll probably see an improvement in his skin. I know it seems drastic, but after a couple of weeks you'll get the hang of the substitutes and it will be OK. Are you still producing any milk? If so, you could try to start breastfeeding again. In that case, see a lactation consultant, eat tons and drink lots of water and hopefully your milk supply will start to increase. (It's not uncommon for moms to start trying to lose weight when their baby is 6-12 months and at the same time milk supply drops - usually is caused by eating fewer calories - so be careful of that). If you're not able to continue breastfeeding, you can look for vegan prepared foods (won't have eggs or milk), and look on them to make sure they don't have peanuts or soy. Feed him lots of veggies and fruits, which is probably what he's eating at this age anyway. Good luck!

Hello Lucky -

my son had eczema also - started at 2 months. His was all over his face and it was pretty bad. I was breastfeeding at a time.
He was also tested for allergies and got positives for milk, egg, peanut and soy.
We got eczema under control after the following:
1) I eliminated allergents from my diet as I was still breastfeeding;
2) allergist prescribed children's Zyrtec for my son and this helped a lot;
3) allergist also prescribed cream for him that I used sparingly;
4) after observing what my son ate and how his skin was, I was able to pinpoint two more things that triggered his eczema to get worse, such as bananas and squash, and I eliminated these;
5) whenever I needed to supplement with formula, I used Nutramigen.

Also, I was very careful with introducing new foods (one a time, watched for reactions).

After his skin got better, I became more lax with my elimination diet, and then eventually I stopped giving him Zyrtec (he was probably on it from 6 months to 1 year). At his recent appointment, he was no longer testing positive for milk, so now I give him some and he is tolerating it OK. The egg and peanuts remain an issue and I am not giving him that.

If your son started having problems after you started him on formula, I would try to switch him to elemental formula such as Nitramigen and see what happens. Also, if you started him on any other solids, I would eliminate these and to see if his skin gets better, and then re-introduce them one at a time. If this doesn't help, see if you can take him to pediatric allergist, that can give you more ideas.

Unfortunately, allergies in kids are so frustrating to diagnose, like other people had mentioned the tests are not always accurate, and there is still a lot of unknown. There is a good website www.kidswithfoodallergies.org that has a lot of useful info on allegies, as well as parents forum.

Also, sometimes eczema is just skin issue and is not related to allergies.

Good luck!