who can tell me about the allergy skin prick tests? - we got 2mm swellings

[EloysH]

Hi

Ds2 recently got tested for environmental and food allergies.
He got 4 swellings of 2mm in diameter.
These were:  wheat, cod fish, brazil nut and walnut.
The Dr informs me that this means he has mild allergies, 10mm is considered a strong allergy.
If it is a mild allergy does it mean he will grow out of it quicker than a strong allergy?

How can you have a mild allergy, I thought an allergy was an allergy?

what is the treatment - avoidance until retesting shows it is not an allergy?
I find that strange because for food intolerance, one treatment method is to expose one in small amounts to build up a tolerance.    The other method is to let the body heal by avoiding the foods, then retry at a later date - similar to allergies I guess.

And lastly, I cannot belIeve my son has 4 allergies    + plus food intolerances to salicylates, caesin, preservatives and additives!!!!  This is pretty hard to digest right now. 

 

[Katet]

Mild allergy means that there is a Basophil/Mast cell response producing  IgE, but it isn't huge & the level of IgE isn't high. I have a mild allergy to dairy, yeast & citrus, but a greater allergy to dustmite and certain grasses, but I am serverely allergic to Rabbit dander (rabbit skin) to the point of needing an epi pen... fortunately I can easily avoid them.  So with my food allergies, I didn't have any of those food groups for 2 years then started eating them again no problems BUT I have noticed that I do self limit & if I over indulge - like last week with Yeast foods- I don't cope well. So at the moment I am going yeast free for 3 months & then will keep it down to 2 -3 serves/week - which is kind of sad as yeast included wine/champagne.

As to what it means as to long term what to do... I think that is hard because it can go either way, apart from the Wheat the others are pretty easy to avoid, but the wheat is harder because it would be something that would be good to outgrow but a pain to be highly allergic to.

[Buntybear]

Hi, when Olly was tested in Feb time he got around 2/3mm swellings for dairy and wheat, egg was 4 and egg white around 9. They are going to retest the dairy and egg next month with the hope that they will go down and he can be tested for them. 2mm is very borderline, but still enough to warrant excluding from the diet unless given under medical supervision (here in the UK anyway).

[EloysH]

thanks girls!.  Keep me posted Claire.  Are they hoping he will have outgrown the milder allergies?

How do I know if Kai isn't even more sensitive than the tests have shown up?  I ask this because at 10 months old he tested negative for allergies via blood test for igE anitbodies - but he had never been exposed to dairy or wheat or gluten.  At 12 motnhs i literally only let him eat a few crusts of bread over 5 days for his wheat and then again around 14 months old.  For dairy he had goat products for about 6 weeks.  Is it possible that with more exposure to wheat the allergy test would show a stronger result?   

And also, how do I know that there isn't more fish he has a problem with, apparantly fish allergies can be lifelong?  He currently has fish in his diet (but not the cod fish which he tested allergic to). 

[Buntybear]

Hi, yes that is the hope. They aren't going to retest egg yet as the reaction was much stronger.