Madness and Mayhem: What Allergies can Look Like in Infancy

There are so many blogs in the world that are dedicated to helping out with the “Major 8”, while I appreciate and have made use of them, please be aware that this is not that kind of  blog. While I will cover the "Major 8", it is not the sole allergy I deal with. We have in excess of fifteen food allergies, intollerances, and sensitivities in my family of five, and out of the 4 individuals with allergies, only 3 share 2 common allergies. If you want madness and mayhem for dinner - my table is the place for it. I know overwhelming in the allergy world, in some respects, far better than most, and thankfully not as tragically as some.
It has been said there is reason to believe that allergies do not "fully develop" during infancy, simply because their little digestive systems are not mature, therefore, a lot of food is difficult to tolerate. Typically, if you test prior to 12mos of age, you are more likely to have false positives. Please know, I am not suggesting that if your child experiences the below symptoms (in bold) they have definite allergies.

I am sharing my story to educate you. If you have a similar story with your baby, I want you to know that considering allergies to be the culprit is a perfectly understandable concern, and I am encouraging you to speak with your Pediatrician regarding your concerns. There are numerous links between colic and allergies in later life. For those of us parents who have experienced colic, I can say we would do anything that we could to help our child feel better, to include limiting/changing diet. I hope this gives insight to you, if you find yourself in this stage of life.

When we first began the allergy life I had no idea what was occurring. I had nights on end with an upset, unhappy, screaming baby that would cry for hours, she was in pain, and there was no help for her. I’d sit and sometimes cry with her, but oftentimes I'd wonder what was going on and why couldn’t I figure out the way to help her. My daughter had colic. She had it for six and a half months, and we had crying stints that would last up to 15 hours. The Pediatrician agreed that it was colic, and there was nothing that could be done out of the normal routines of washing machine sittings, vacuum runnings (we went through three vacuums, by the way), car rides, swaddling, stretching the baby over our knees, as our legs were bent to add pressure to her belly, and those "famous" over the counter drops.

After several weeks of this, she began to have reflux. Like any "good mother", I took my baby to the Dr. hoping for help. Help is what we got. We were given a prescription for an antacid, and home we went. I had high hopes this was the “cure all” and the previous ten weeks of crying would come to an end, and our peaceful nursing sessions could resume to what they were in the hospital. Little did I know this was our introduction to the allergy ridden world we live in today.

My daughter had (in hindsight, and with the knowledge I have now) an unmistakable drug allergy that caused her to be unresponsive for several minutes, and eventually hospitalized for three days. It gave her father and I our first grey hairs, and a deep desire to find out what was going on with her. Once every “preliminary test” had been ran, and she became the normal child she was prior, the Dr's determined that it was an allergic reaction. While it's rare for babies to have such reactions, and we had never had previous drug allergies, we were content with this explanation and hoped that we could find a way around the colic, but we would be doing it in a non-medicinal way. I happily dealt with spit up, and a conscience, unhappy-but-alive baby. At this point she was a formula fed baby because thanks to her allergy related antics mommys body quit milk production. We began the basic formula suggested by our pediatrician and became even more aware of how much of a “spitty-baby” she was. I changed outfits for her nearly 6-8 times a day, until she was about a year old, and just figured it would eventually change as her digestive tract matured.

Fast forward to 13 months of age, I made a delightful, healthy balanced dish of peas, fish, peaches, and milk for my growing girl. My daughter took three bites one of peas, two of fish, and swelled up like a balloon, with bright pink cheeks, the redness eventually spread to her body, she later had difficulty breathing, and was wheezing. At that point I realized that we were in for a bumpy ride, it was to the hospital in an Ambulance, our second one. It carried us further down the Allergy laden road of life. My daughter was on the cusp of Anaphylaxis, and I had no inkling of what that meant to our lifestyle changes we would make.

*For more information on what allergies can look like in Children over 12 months, see my blog post "Common Day to Day signs: It’s not the Weather and It's not in Your Head, It’s Allergies"