Our adventure with egg allergy

We started noticing a rash all over Vance's tiny body when he was about 8 weeks old. My first thought was a dairy issues because a few of my nieces and nephews had dairy intolerance as infants and their moms had to quit eating dairy for the duration of their breastfeeding relationship and a few people in Matt's family are lactose intolerant. I quit consuming dairy for about 6 weeks to no avail. His rash was always there, but I noticed it would flare up after I ate eggs; so I quit eggs. Now, to be honest I quit eating plain, cooked, eggs, I didn't stop eating things that had eggs in them. After a week or so of no difference, I stared eating eggs again. At one point when Vance was about 4 months old his rash got so bad that we took him to three different doctors (Ours was on vacation and I kept not being satisfied with the other doctors answers) to try and find out what was causing it. I brought in every product that would ever come in to contact with his skin, thinking it had to be environmental allergies. We are pretty "crunchy" and everything we use is natural with no harsh chemicals. Not one doctor could pinpoint what was probably causing it; one even said, "babies get rashes" and told us to go home and stop wasting their time. We ended up putting a low dose steroid ointment all over him almost every night in order to control the rash. There wasn't a part of his body that wasn't covered in a dry, scaly, rash.

This is the side of his abdomen

Matt and I decided that Vance would only eat fruits and veggies, aside from breast milk, his first year. That meant no grains, no dairy, no meat or anything; basically he was a gluten free vegan. Vance's first birthday came around and we even made him a gluten free, vegan, applesauce, pineapple, banana, cake -a decision I am very thankful for. A few days after his first birthday, a friend and her daughter came over to play and she brought breakfast for us: muffin tin eggs with kale and garlic. I decided that since Vance was one now, I would let him try an egg. Almost immediately he got red and puffy all around his face, but otherwise was fine until about 30-45 minutes later when he started crying due to what I thought was a stomach ache. I decided that this was not normal and that he maybe had an egg allergy. After about a week or two of me eliminating all eggs, plain cooked or an ingredient in something, his rash was completely gone. It was like we had a new baby! I talked to our new pediatrician and got a referral to an allergist where his egg allergy was confirmed with a skin prick test (which was easy) and a blood test (which was horrible). We also had a false positive for peanut allergy on the skin prick test, but luckily it was a false positive that was confirmed with a negative blood test and a food challenge.

Skin prick test with reaction to egg.

Our allergist believed that his egg allergy would only produce eczema type reactions and to be honest, I was a little unsure of this. Everything I read said that red, puffy face, and digestive issues was a sign of a more serious reaction and I was upset that we were not given an epinephrine injector just in case. We had another appointment set up for a few months down the road and decided we would discuss it with our doctor at that point and until then just be very diligent about him not coming in contact with any egg.

I have since learned that egg allergy is the number one food related cause of eczema. I knew something was wrong with that rash all over his body, but if I had only researched a little more and cut out all types of egg in my diet earlier our poor baby could have been diagnosed 8 months earlier than he was. I urge all parents who have a child with "eczema" to keep a food journal for baby, and mom if breastfeeding, to see if there are any signs that suggest food allergy. Also, if you suspect any allergy, be sure to eliminate it COMPLETELY from the diet; read those food labels!  In our case with egg that meant salad dressing, some noodles, and most baked goods. Also realize it might take 4-6 weeks for it to be completely out of mom and baby's system, so don't dismiss a possible allergy because it doesn't clear up right away. Other signs of food allergies might be constant crying or spitting up. Over 3 million kids in the US have food allergies and it doesn't hurt to get tested with an allergist at the first sign...it could just save your baby months of pain!

Little did we know that we would end up in the allergist's office much sooner than we expected....but more on that later.