So, after about 4 months of ongong “eye issues”…see my previous posts here on FUD and exhausting all other specialist types, Erin took him to an allergist today. Turns out he’s allergic to a bunch of stuff. Specifically, weeds, dust mites, cats, dogs, mold and yeast. Most allergic reaction was seen to dogs and weeds. They have 1 more series of tests to run to determine what other things he’s allergic too. We wondered why our new house and not at our old house? The allergist said it’s because the weed type here is different than where we moved from.
We’re going to make sure we keep his room super clean and dusted regularly to correct the “dust mite” allergy. We don’t have dogs so don’t have to worry about that one. We do have 3 cats that we’ll have to make decisions about whether we keep them or just not allow them into his room (aka - him pretty much keeping door shut all the time). We don’t have mold so that shouldn’t be a concern, then that just leaves yeast (does that mean we have to check foods for yeast content???)
I just want him to get some relief…it’s been over 4 months now. They range from totally OK one day to red, swelling and water (irritating and frustrating for him) the next. I just want this to be over already.
Here’s the complete list of things he’s allergic too:
Farinae Mites
Pteronyssinus Mites
Dogs
Cats
Trees: Oak, Maple, Syhcamore, Ash, Cedar, Pecan, Cottonwood, Birch, Elm, Willow (Oak, Maple and Sycamore are in our yard/area)
Grass: Bermuda, Johnson, Timothy (Bermuda and Timothy are in our yard/area)
Weeds: Sgebrush/Mugwort, English plantain, Dock sorrel, Lambs Quarters, Pigweed (Doc Sorrel, Lambs Quarters and Pigweed are in our yard/area)
Short Ragweed, also in our yard/area
Molds: Alternaria, Hormodendrum, Cephalosporium, Helminthosporium, Aspergillus Penicillium, Pullularia, Fusarium (4 of those, not gonna repeat them, in our area)
Candida - Yeast.
So, the update is that the allergist is going to formulate special shots that we will be administering to Liam once per week for the next 1 year…once per week, he’ll have to go in, get a shot and wait 2 hours to make sure there are no negative effects. According to the allergist, he should start seeing noticeable difference in 6 to 8 weeks (this is what they call “the fast method”) and once they dial in the right dose, his stay would take considerably less time than before they dial it in correctly. There is a slower method which we didn’t elect for where he goes in every week for only 20 minutes per stay but he wouldn’t notice any difference in his eyes for 6 to 8 months.
At least we know so we have a plan! It’s liberating to finally be getting answers after 4 months!
Glad you have a treatment approach for young Liam. As far as the yeast allergy. My wife is allergic to brewers and bakers yeast, and yes, we check everything and avoid yeast like the plague. That includes bread, beer, wine, most processed food etc. The good news is I don’t think Candida yeast falls into those categories. So I don’t expect you would have to quit all foods with yeast, unless your allergist thought this wise. If that is their advice, start reading labels, almost everything has yeast in it. I hope that is not the case.
Edit - Wife says Candida is the genus of the different types of yeasts that include brewers and bakers. Looks like Liam may be allergic to both. Please check with your allergist, maybe he gets lucky and is only allergic to one. For my wife we have eliminated all bread (including outside the house pizza) and most processed foods. Tortillas becomes Liam’s new bread, even most flatbreads contain yeast
It isn’t particularly hard to stay away from these for my wife because they make her feel so bad. But it does make meal prep a little more challenging. The book the Yeast Syndrome by Dr. Trobridge helped her understanding, especially with how having an allergy or sensitivity will help explain sensitivities to other fungi. When she has been particularly good with her diet she can eat mushrooms, other times they send her over the top and really mess with her. It really is a sliding scale. I hope the shots work. And the response has varied considerably in different parts of her life.
Look on the bright side … he’s not allergic to insulin!
I got monthly shots for a year or so when I was in my 40s. They worked. I stopped going when the doc moved farther away, and I haven’t had any problems since, except for periodic “seasonal” allergies. I was diagnosed allergic to trees, grass, mold, dust and dust mites too. I live surrounded by trees, grass and mold, and yeah the place can get dusty, and we did zilch about dust mites, so maybe the tests weren’t accurate or maybe a person grows out of these things.
The shots may not be that special. That’s a pretty typical list of allergens, so this doctor’s “mix #3” or something may do the trick. They don’t generally take the time to compound a custom formula for each patient. There’s no need. If the mix happens to contain something that Liam is not actually allergic to, it won’t matter.
The “fast method” just means they’re going to ramp up the intensity of the dose more quickly. That increases the chance of a systemic reaction, so Liam may gain some experience with epinephrine.
It’s true that old people have weaker immune systems, so allergies can go away with aging. In my case, I was instructed by the allergist that the symptoms appear when the total load of allergens exceeds one’s ability to handle it without significant symptoms. The whole point of the injection therapy is to train the body to accept larger and larger quantities of allergens without panicking into hives or sneezing or itchy eyes. There’s no need to completely avoid everything that one is allergic to. It suffices to reduce the exposure enough that it falls below your individual body’s tolerance level, so that the symptoms go away. In Liam’s case, I wouldn’t start by avoiding bread and other yeast-containing products, that would be going overboard. (With a life-threatening allergy such as bee venom or penicillin, just avoid it.)
I am somewhat disappointed that the physicians you saw didn’t consider the possibility of allergies.
This has been the story of our lives. We diagnosed cancer in our oldest son before they did. We diagnosed autism in our second oldest before they did. And we diagnosed diabetes in Liam before they did. And this is multiple doctors over many years.
I forgot to mention in my initial posting of all the things he’s allergic to that he is considered only “sensitive” to yeast and that this is not one of major allergies. They said he could still eat foods containing yeast, but only one meal each day. All the other things in the list are allergies with dogs and weeds reacting the worst.
I’m very glad given what you said about yeast in foods and reading labels. Blek
I have all sorts of allergies. As a kid I did too. At 8 ish I was diagnosed with pneumonia and stuck in the hospital under an oxygen tent and was completely healed in 10 minutes. Lol, they didn’t make that mistake again! My best friends are air filters in our house. I’ve been known to be a wheezy mess because a field set it off and sit next to an air filter and have it go away in minutes. I do not have asthma, just allergies.
The thing with allergies is they do usually get better, hence came the term you grow out of them. But it’s really only because your immune system strengthens and then up to the age of somewhere around the thirties they start coming back. And they can’t test for everything, only the most common. I would try to get air filters for the house, they help me a lot. If you have a lot of food allergies, it sometimes helps to rotate foods you eat to only every third day.
It’s most likely a protein in the dander causing an issue for cat allergies. There is a shampoo for cats that cuts down on allergic responses to them. Purina now makes a food that is supposed to cut down on cat allergy reactions too.
So the “leaf molds” like alterneria generally become an issue here in the Eastern US after the leaves fall and get rained on. But molds and yeasts happen whenever organic material is breaking down in a moist environment. Think of the leaf litter or needle pack in a moist woods, but this also includes watered mulched landscaping, humus-rich garden soils, lawn clippings left in place as mulch or collected to compost, even potted houseplants. I still remember that time at work when they announced that we should all take our houseplants home and they would no longer be allowed in the office because of “air quality” issues. I think they were trying to reduce the number of air changes per hour to lower the cost of HVAC, and the spores from wet potted plants were identified as one of the limiting issues.
Anyway, you probably do have mold unless you live in a really arid location. But generally these pollens and spores are an issue only during the peak of their seasonal concentrations. Tree pollens in the spring when they bloom before leaf break, grasses in late spring or summer before they go to seed, molds when the leaves fall and get rained on.
Sorry to hear Liam’s still suffering the problems, but glad to hear you at least have a line on the probable cause(s) and possible treatments! I think allergy treatments have seen some major advancements since my and my brothers childhood days in the 60’s and there’s better relief for him in sight. While meds are often the initial method, I understand kids seem to “outgrow” the issues and hopefully both offer Liam some comfort; he (and you) have enough to focus on. Good thoughts for Liam headed your way!
@Marie I always thought the major problem with cats was saliva from them licking themselves so much, did’t realize it was the dander, or does one result in the other and it just doesn’t matter? Anyway, home Liam gets the relief from it!
We live in the Ohio River Valley which is a bowl that holds all of the allergens from the rest of the country. Fun fact: our allergist paid tons of money to do a new local air survey to see if our allergens have changed, and they have! We now have mesquite tree pollen blowing in from new wind patterns up from Texas! That wasn’t here 20 years ago.
Anyways, my boys’ are allergic to every tree, grass, weed, dust mite, mold and dander, and bug stuff possible. I saw their lists and said, “oh good! They’re not allergic to horses, at least!” And he said, “we just didn’t test that since you don’t own horses.” Well, damn.
So my boys did allergy shots (one per arm bc you can’t mix mold and pollen in the same vial) 3x per week for the first 50 shots. Then it was once per week for a year. Now we’re every other week for a year or two. And then it will go down to monthly for the next three years. Once we get to seven years we may “graduate”. This is plus daily inhalers and Singulair and Zyrtec. Then in fall and spring we have to add Bromphed every six hours so that they can go outside for sports and being kids without getting chest infections and ear infections. Woohoo!
I’m the only one in my family not on shots. I take Claritin D daily spring through fall, though. The funny thing is my seasonal allergy symptoms present differently each year…so I didn’t take any Claritin D this year bc I didn’t feel anything. My eye doctor at my annual said, “Are your allergies bad? Bc I can see bumps on the inside of your eyelids without even using my magnifier. How have you not scratched your eyes out?” My pod sites had been welting and flaring and failing quickly so evidently that was allergies. Claritin D fortunately seems to have fixed it.
We have a dog and keep him out of the bedrooms. My boys have allergen proof zipper pillow cases. I run all the bedding through hot water and high heat drying cycles every week or two. We have a really good vacuum cleaner. And we run air purifiers in the bedrooms overnight.
Those methods keeps life way more functional now. Allergy issues were stopping life in its tracks before intervention.
So the shots your sons have been on have helped them? I just want Liam’s eyes to get better…they’re constantly very watery, gunk build up and because I have to clean them often throughout the days they also get red, swollen and irritated for him. I clean very lightly but the freqency of rubbing just causes the redness and swelling
Oh the shots have made a HUGE difference! Major quality of life improvement!
My older son was tested for cystic fibrosis bc he was so sick so much of the time. Just allergies!
We also had to change school systems bc of allergies…bc our old school system has been known for decades to have MASSIVE mold issues. Like they brag about their “bleach on steroids” that they spray into the air ducts bc it makes it impossible for mold to grow there for 30 days. And they spray the carpets with it. And they can’t hang anything on the walls bc mold grows in the shape of it behind the frame. This was all told directly to me by the Assistant Superintendent when I asked for copies of the state required air quality reports. After nine days in that school, my older son was already into bronchospasms and my pediatrician said he cannot set foot in that building ever again. So I immediately had to find a new school to transfer him to…figure out my commute and how to get pick up covered since we were out of district…and we ultimately moved. Crazy. Times.
And we can play sports now without the evening practices sending us back to the doctor for antibiotics and having to do breathing treatments multiple times a day! (Pollen is worse at night.)
So yes…highly recommend…and I hope Liam starts to feel better soon!!! He’s fortunate to have awesome engaged parents!!!
