eczema possible sign of allergy to rice cereal

[Jamom]

My ds started rice cereal 4 weeks ago.  In the last couple of weeks, he has gotten a mild form of eczema and htis week it is getting worst.  He has also had a runny nose off and on.  I didn't really think much of it since I have read that normall rice cereal is a low risk for allergies and I didn't notice any other types of symptoms.  And the runny nose correlated to his first week at daycare and is now better.  Food allergies run in my side of the family but that is to peanuts.  Could this be a sign of an allergy to rice cereal?  Or could it be related to other things -- e.g., family history of asthma and hay fever allergeries?  How long should I take him off the cereal to test?  Should I just take him off and not substitute anything else since we haven't tried any other types of solids or cereals?  I have recently done some reading about keeping him on one food too long and that creating sensitivities to that food.  Is that what could have happened here?

Thanks.

[Livvismum]

Hi Erin

Personally I would try something else. I have heard of others with a reaction to rice cereal and it did not agree with Liv (although we gave her solids way too early). If you want to keep on the solids route for now then maybe try carrots or pear (no doubt when you are researching you will hear of people who have allergies to both) but I was told by my doc that they were low allergenic in general.

All I would say is that it sounds that you may want to err on the side of caution due to the allergies in your family (food, asthma, hay fever) We only have hay fever and eczema but still ended up with milk protein allergy.

Hope to help
Sara

[Lici's Mum]

If it helps, Lici gets ezcema with bread. I thought nothing about it and didn't really connect the two until I started her on weet bix for breakfast. WHoa! Bad bad bad (I cannot stress how bad) nappies. Took them to a paediatric gastro specialist and even he was shocked at how bad the nappy stench was.
So although I will occasionally give her bread to eat, her ezcema incidents are pretty rare now but of course I don't o/d her on wheat products. And I am not about to test the weet bix theory again. Though she is toilet trained so it won't be so bad I guess  :lol: .
She seems to be growing out of it.
So yes, it could be an allergy. Eliminate from the diet and try again in a week and see if the ezcema comes back - slowly eliminate items from diet until you have it pinpointed.

[Jamom]

An update-- just went to the doc.  He said eczema is fairly common in infants (especially since I found out that I had it as well as my mother) and that it's most likely not an allergy to rice cereal.  After I posted, I thought about it and the week that we introduced rice cereal... there was no signs of an allergy or eczema and it wasn't until a couple weeks after that that it appeared.  That said, I am still going to try to change the diet to see if that also helps.  Doc said it could've been aggravated by so many things, it may be hard to tell what exactly it is.  For the time being, I have the slickest baby ever as doc suggested we bathe him and give him a vaseline rubdown to help with the dryness.  He's so slick, he almost falls right out of our hands.    Thanks for all the replies.  Hopefully, we can figure this out.