Question regarding Allergies
I remember someone asking something Similar but unable to find the post now. Question for people with allergies or a child with them. SS years ago got a “blood test” to see if he had any Allergies. The blood test came back “Negative”. BM was highly Allergic to animals and had to get allergy shots which cleared them up. The last few years( since granddad got two cats) SS seems to be always Stuffy and clearing his throat. When he gets a basic cold it takes him WEEKS to get over it and gets this nasty sounding cough. Seems like he spends the whole winter “sick” with Congestion and cough. His Pediatrician has diagnosed him with seasonal allergies and SS takes OTC Allergy meds during the summer.
My Question is how Sensitive is the blood test for Allergies and could have SS been negative years ago but now has Allergies towards animals?
SS’s Grandparents live down the road so he spends every day after school with them and some weekends when BM works.
Can pet Allergies cause you to develop a cold and make it drag out longer than normal? SS is sorta healthy during late spring and summer but come late fall/winter he is Sneezing coughing congested on and off for weeks.
My husband
basically has a permanent sinus infection from allergies, a deviated septum, and chronically stuffed sinuses. He is on daily medications for allergies and such. Maybe your SS needs something like that? Seasonal allergies can go on longer than a season and this sounds like what my husband goes through. He is good in late summer and early fall but the rest of the year he is miserable. If he were younger he could have his sinuses drilled out, but at this point it would make more scar tissue. There are a lot of things that can be done for this including a daily allergy medication, Flonase prescription, and an ENT check.
Many allergic to dander (pets) are also allergic to dust.
Blood tests are not accurate.
Blood tests are not accurate. An allergen can go through your digestive system and/or nasal passages and never reach your blood. A skin test might be a little better. If he has winter allergies, you might consider mold. Food allergies can also look like hay fever as well. You may want to try cutting out the major allergens (nuts, milk, wheat, soy, corn, fish, shellfish) and see if that helps.
Not true.
if you have been exposed to the particular allergen, blood test should pick it up and it can change over the years.
Food allergens will be picked up in blood even pet ones. To say it just goes through your digestive tract is the thing many parents of highly allergic kids have to deal with the lack of education and ignorance some people have regarding allergies.
many breastfeeding mums have kids reacting to allergens passed via breastmilk, it does not just magically go through digestive system and not get absorbed by blood, it can stay in your body for weeks before completely clearing out. Some kids being breastfed can even get anaphylactic to the allerrgen in breastmilk if its severe. So blood testing is quite accurate but beforehand most parents will try to narrow out whats the potential allergen
my son (2.5) is severely allergic to eggs and swells up easily even with minor residual contact and also highly allergic to cat dander and both were picked up via the bood testing.
I tested even worser for allergies to grass and my score was higher than my sons allergies to eggs.
I am not trying to be a
I am not trying to be a smartass here.. because my experience is fairly limited.. but if blood tests are a gold standard of accuracy.. why do they do the 1000 cuts of death screening? I had an allergic reaction as an adult ... hives etc.. and I went to an allergist that did the test on my back with a ton of different things. It was inconclusive really.. just a mild sensitivity to a couple of things that I can eat or come in contact with with zero issues.
As far as a seasonal aspect... there certainly are times of the year where there is so much "stuff" in the air that you can literally see it.. that has to be an irritant.. whether it is an outright allergy or not. Also... some people have more sensitive sinuses etc.. for dry heat in the winter.. etc...
It also could be just too much dust.. vs not really an allergy to dust. A home with pets will have more.
Just as technology has advanced, they have evolved from
Skin pricks to the blood testing. Some still do the skin pricks but often with squirmy young kids who can’t sit still, the blood test is more convenient and cost wise with alot of suspected allergies the blood test is cheaper to do.
also there are limitations with the skin pricks, you cannot consume any antihistamines for a week at most places because this affects the legitimacy of the results and gives false negatives when in reality someone is allergic to the allergen.
with blood testing you can still take most antihistamines right upto the test and with young kids who have severe allergies, eczema flareups and scratching their skin raw, they need daily doses of antihistamines during bad flareups and to have them go without antihistamines for a week for skin pricks allergy style testing would cause more issues with their allergy and skin flareups.
Most people needing to get allergy tested are having severe flareups and would struggle going without antihistamines
please don’t give incorrect info that allergens don’t get absorbed by the blood and just travel through your digestive tract. Plenty of parents out there have severely anaphylactic kids who flare up with residual contact, through breastmilk and being fed or exposed to said allergen because some ignorant person felt allergies were non existent, over exaggerated and they needed to build an immune to the allergen or even more stupid, they claimed a little bit couldn’t possibly hurt them..
I'm a health professional,
I'm a health professional, and a mother of a child with multiple allergies. Yes, allergens can pass through your integumentary system and your digestive system without ever involving your circulatory system, that is the functional reason why there is a skin barrier from the outside, to protect us from invaders. Blood tests are less accurate than skin tests, and skin tests are not always accurate either. When my son's blood tests came back negative to things I knew he was allergic to, I did my research.
Do you know why they would do a blood test over
The Standard 100 Pricks on your back. I had Allergy testing as a teenager and they never suggested a blood test they went right to the pricks on your back. Maybe because SS is Awful about shots and they figured one blood test was better than 100 pricks. Like I said BM was allergic to cats/dogs so I think that’s the reason they tested SS years ago. I’m thinking more animal allergies as SS seemed to get more Stuffy/Coughing/Hacking after Grandparents got the cats.
My allergy nurse
Recommended blood testing for DD because she is needle phobic and to have her do the 100 scratches of doom would make her insane. It's close enough for them to take action, if necessary.
He needs a skin test. I've
He needs a skin test. I've had allergies for years and I had no idea they could even screen for them with a blood test. Allergies can develop at any time so the blood test might have been correct then and now he's got them.
Yes, allergies can seem like a forever cold
And it could be pet dander, it could be dust mites, it could be cockroaches, it could be trees, it could be grass. It could be all of them at once!
Sounds to me like this kiddo needs allergy meds more than just in the summer. Personally, I do allergy shots and still need the medication. It sounds like his symptoms just need better management. That doesn't require testing, but it can help.
I would say he definitely
I would say he definitely needs a skin test. My DD is highly allergic to nuts, most trees and grass, cats, dogs, etc. You name it, she's allergic to it. The ONLY allergy the blood test picked up was her peanut allergy!
Did they do the ELISA test?
https://www.webmd.com/allergies/blood-test#1
It may or may not detect what the allergen is. They did the skin test on DS before they even considered doing the blood tests because the skin test was immediate. That said, when he was little nothing showed up but two years later, wow. It's totally possible he tested negative at first and then built up enough of a reaction to finally show a positive allergy.
Hmmm not sure the exact name of the blood test
This was before I met DH when SS was only a few years old(??). DH just said a “blood test” for Allergies and the test came back “negative”. When SS was around 2yrs old he had a Severe Asthma attack that resulted in him being rushed to the hospital. This along with BM’s history of pet Allergies maybe the reason SS was given the blood test( just me guessing here). SS seems to have grown out of his Asthma as he does not take meds anymore and has not had a Asthma attack since the initial one years ago.
Oh yes. Allergies can cause
Oh yes. Allergies can cause regular URIs which to the initiated can look and sound like a cold. Even if it does not get to the point of an infection allergies can cause sinus and chest congestion, a productive cought, and it all can linger for far longer than would be the usual course for a cold.
And yes, people who have not had allergies before can defelop them. My dad and I have always had them where my mom and my brother never had them. Over the years my mom now has developed them. My brother remains allergy free for the most part.
Those who don't have them can not understand how miserable they can be for those who do suffer from them. For me cats, dogs and mold are my biggest triggers. Though pollen, crop dust, etc... can also put me into a URI.
As a kid I had fairly severe allergy induced asthma and still can have asthmatic symptoms due ot allergies. I keep an inhaler handy though one inhaler can last me multiple years. I also take a daily OTC oral med and daily nasal spray. The newer OTC allergy meds and the Flonase or Nasonex/Nasalcrom type nose sprays are awesome. To be most effective, at least for me, I have to take them daily whether I am symptomatic or not.
I battle with my dad and mom about it. They take them only when they are feeling symptomatic which IMHO is too late. The modern meds significantly reduce the severity of my allergies and have reduced bronchitis incidents for me from as many as half a dozen or so a year to once or twice a year.
I got all of the shit genes in the family with the autoimmune conditions (T-1D, allergies, cholesterol and hypertension and probably a few that I don't know about yet). Everyone else in the family got lucky. Except for dad and his allergies anyway.
I have had allergies my
I have had allergies my entire life. When I was a child I was tested via the skin test. However, 30 years ago my parents' insurance didn't cover treatment so I suffered well into my late 20s.
I used every type of OTC drugs when eventually I became immune to them all. I remember my sister holding my mouth closed so I couldn't breathe because I snored so loud. It wasn't until I was 15 and had a deviated septum removed that I could breathe. My parents use to always tell me to blow my nose when I actually didn't need to. I just talked nasally because my nose was constantly stuffed.
Allergies are not fun because you constantly get sinus infections and breathing problems.
Back to the testing. When I was an adult I went to an ENT to get restested for allergies. For the test you have to be off all anti-histamines for 7 days straight or you can have a false negative.
I was never told this and was suffering so back there was no way I could be off the meds. Well I was tested and everything came back a 4 or 5 on the scale. (5 being the highest) I was told if something came back negative they than would do a blood test to double check the results.
I will mention before going the route of allergy shots you should exhaust all alternative methods. Allergy shots does wonders and improves your quality of life however, they are extremely time consuming and you have to be very dedicated. In the beginning you are going 2-3 times a week for shots and that could last up to a year.
I have been on shots almost 8 years. Started with 6 and now down to three. I still have to go every month. I am hoping to be done next year but there is no guarantee.
This has been my experience with allergies.
Been there myself. Did the
Been there myself. Did the allergy shots for years as a kid. I don't remember it getting any better, but it has been the better part of 45 years since then. I can mostly manage mine with OTCs and a rescue inhaler (periodically).these days.
I would love to have a big slobbery spastic dog. But... since the only furless dogs tend to be little ones, I will forego my slobery spastic giant dog dreams. A cat would be great too, but... cats get me even worse than dogs.
I truly hope that your shots get you past all of this.