dee

hopefully you will bear with me as i give you the story about my ds.

he was always a fussy little bub and he basically spent the first 6mths in our bed he was squirming and windy and no matter what i tried he just wouldn't settle - i gave up breastfeeding when he was 12wks old - he cut his first 2 teeth then and was always a fussy feeder on and off all day every day even the midwives at the hospital mentioned he was to alert for his own good and he didn't seem to concentrate on his feednig and with a 21mth old i was just constantly tired and getting depressed after several bouts of mastitis anyway i decided on formula - it still didn't make a difference with his fussiness but we just got by - i remember vagually at around 7mths of age my dd #1 gave him a piece of crust from her peanut butter toast and he loved it but he got a rash around his mouth and i thought hmmm thats strange - but didn't act upon it just made sure he didn't have it again. at around 9mths of age he developed a sort of cough almost like he had something stuck in his throat and needed to get it out - wasn't really bothering him but i took him to a gp who diagnosed asthma - once i mentioned that jay had slight exema as a baby and my mum was an asthmatic and i occassionaly get exema he just said ds was asthmatic and prescribed ventolin and a few other things (can't remember) anyway i was suss about this as growing up with my mum having asthma i knew what it sounded like and ds did not sound like this, after giving him his first dose of ventolin it made no difference and i knew it should if he was asthmatic - so after speaking to a few friends who had allergies they recommeded me to go and see a paedeatrician (sorry sp?) who is also an allergy specialist - well off i go to him and he said jay did not have asthma so he did the skin analysis testing and low and behold he had several allergies once being dairy (which explained all the problems with settling etc) another being egg, nuts, dust, feathers, grass, cat and dog hair - so i changed him onto soya milk and that was the first night he slept through and we didn't look back - he gets a skin ***** test every year and at 6yrs of age he is no longer allergic to dairy (although he drinks soya milk he prefers the taste) but has ice cream, cheese, yoghurt etc - he has also grown out of the egg allergy but is still very allergic to nuts, cat hair and grass - the later two develp into very watery itchy eyes, and runny nose etc - we don't know how bad the nut allergy is as he does not eat any nuts - we don't have peanut butter in the house and i am very wary about what goes into his mouth and so is he - he always asks if something new has nuts in it - alot of people have commented on how well he handles it - he has a management plan at school and knows that he is not to share lunches and knows that if he does eat nuts then he may get very sick. it is something that can be a hastle but as long as you aware of it you can live with it. he still goes to the allergy doc every 12mths for a review.

hth and sorry it has been so long