Eczema and Food Alleries?

My pediatrician said that eczema presents with allergies in about 80% of the cases. It also can be hereditary (along with the allergy). I can tell you my 6 1/2 yo son has eczema and has had it since he was a couple months old. He did have food allergies which triggered the flareups, but now, he has outgrown food allergies. Now we have environmental allergies (cat, dog, grass, fragrances, dyes, etc), and the eczema is still there. You could start by doing the dye/fragrance free detergents, shampoos, soaps, dryer sheets, etc. And no bleach whatsoever. See if it improves some. If you still feel like it's foods, introduce new foods very cautiously and only do the really low allergy foods like bananas or carrots. Stay away from eggs, nuts, etc until a year old. Always watch for a reaction of any kind.
Hope this helps!

My son had ezcema..he has issues with Milk, gluten, and is allergic to Cantloupe, raw egg & pennicillion. Yes, it is some type of allergy.. usually one that is ingested.

I nursed him, so he started less than 6 weeks. so the food I was eating was triggering some of his ezcema.

I have a good friend whose son's eczema was actually CAUSED by food allergies. Once they figured out what all he was allergic to (milk was one of them), and eradicated those things from his diet, his eczema nearly disappeared. They get flare-ups every so often when he eats something he shouldn't, but beyond that, they don't have any major issues anymore. So, I would say that yes, there can definitely be a correlation.

Along with cold weather in the winter, milk protein(aka casein) and oats...small wonder the Aveeno products didn't help my little man...

Yes. Or at least related to allergies in general. My now 16-year-old had eczema as a baby and gets a patch of it on his hand during hockey seasons (gross gloves I assume). As a toddler he was allergic to dairy and soy. He is no longer allergic to dairy, but he has bad seasonal allergies (especially grasses) and is allergic to cats, among other things. He also has mild asthma. Sorry, but yes, eczema is often associated with allergies and/or asthma.

My mom had eczema as a child that she related to fish and green beans. Her allergies also changed as she grew up.

Might not hurt to keep a food diary for him to see if you can determine any links and I assume you are introducing only one new food at a time?

My DD had patches of eczema and also has an allergy to apples. I don't know if they are related, but since we switched her to sensitive skin lotions (Eucerine worked well) and eliminated apples, her skin has not had many problems.

I have found it to be the case, but in varying degrees. My step-son is 13yrs old now, has awful allergies that we have to carry an epi-pen around for and he struggles with awful eczema to the point that he often bleeds from it, especially in the creases. My 23mo old daughter has eczema as well, but not nearly as severe. We noticed it pretty early on, especially that the severity came and went with her diet. We have had her tested and she isn't allergic to foods, but she does have some pretty bad food intolerance. She is milk and soy protien intolerant (MSPI), and she also seems to be intolerant of bananas (she seems to be growing out of this a bit that she can have one every few days or so now, and anything very acidic like citrus fruits or kiwi (the worst - horrible bleeding rashes). To make it even more odd, these intolerances vary depending on preparation meaning she can have milk if it's been cultured (yogurt & cheese), she can have soy oils, can have bananas if they are cooked, essentially anything that breaks the protiens down. If she eats something she is intolerant too, she will get red, raised scaly patches, almost like hives, starting from her legs and working their way up her torso, on her back and her arms, and sometimes on her face. I have prescription hydro-cortisone cream for when it really flares up, but most of the time the best thing has been to slather her up with Aquaphor (this is a life-saver, promise you). She also will get these horribly painful, raised diaper rashes that the skin will crack and bleed from the poop when it touches her skin. This rash ONLY appears after she eats something that she is intolerant from. Also, especially with milk, she will get very irritable (they kept saying she was colicky and that she had reflux, as soon as I started treating her diet for MSPI it all dissapeared), a very bad runny nose, and this mucusy, liquidy diarrhea. The other thing was, she was very small for her age (on the boarder of failure to thrive) but as soon as she went on to Nutramigen she started to grow substantially, and when she moved more firmly onto solids and then onto rice milk - she's more than doubled at each check-up. I'm starting to think her 2yr checkup will be higher than 50% - which is a HUGE deal for her. The other tricky thing about something like MSPI (and I'm not saying this is what is going on with your son, but perhaps it is something akin) is that if you are breast feeding and you yourself consume a milk or soy product, the protien will travel through the breastmilk and affect the baby, and it can take a week or more to fully clear out of your system.

I mention all of this because eczema is an auto-immune disease, and sometimes it's nothing more than the baby is super sensitive to stuff in soaps or lotions, but it could also be an indicator that you need to be more observant. I started DD on solids at 4 mos (again, because of her dietary issues it was better for her to be on solids) and it's amazing what this girl will eat. I was able to introduce a wide variety of foods, but I just kept a log of what I fed her, waited a few days, and wrote down anything I noticed at all - change in stool, change in skin, temperment, etc. and I was able to quickly figure out what was good and what wasn't. The other thing, I think the main thing, is also that I made everything from her from scratch (BEABA is AWESOME! - I was working full time and I still could do it because it's so easy with it) so I knew exactly what she was eating. For example, even the organic squeeze pouches can cause her an issue because even though it's just "apples" it has a touch of lemon juice to prevent spoilage. Most prepared foods, especially baby foods has some sort of milk product in it (butter, whey protien, cassien protien, powdered milk, etc) - even something as simple as "pasta in broth" will have a milk product in it. So, get in the habit of reading any label no matter what the brand, and see if the eczema worsens, even a few days after he tries it.

Anyway, I found the internet to actually be my best friend in helping to figure out what was going on because there just isn't a lot of literature on MSPI. Perhaps with some research and using a log book to track when the eczema worsens and gets better can help you figure out if it's diet (your's included if breast feeding) or something else.

My daughter's used to flare up by eating any kind of nut and playing in grass.

My granddaughter began to have eczema younger than that. The doctor tested her blood and found that she was allergic to milk protein. Her mom switched her to Nutrimagen and the eczema patches lessoned. She's also allergic to soy.

Eczema needs to have treatment. If you haven't begun to treat the patches then learn what he needs. I won't go into that now assuming you are already doing that part.

Yes, Eczema and Psoriasis are both caused by food allergies. If you look up the specific "disease" they will say that they are an autoimmune disease, that Psoriasis and Eczema are caused by too many helper T-Cells thinking that there is a wound and attacking the skin, which causes the sores to appear. However, if you look up food allergies and even specific, for example, wheat or dairy, etc. one of the biggest symptoms of a food allergy is Eczema or Psoriasis.
My Story:
For years my husband was diagnosed with Psoriasis, as young as 10yrs old, (that is when his parents finally took him to the Dr.) They put him on topical Corticosteroids and even gave him some sort of pill. He always had patches of dryness. Halloween day 5 years ago my husband couldn't stop throwing up and convulsing so I took him to the ER. They pumped him full of NS, which has a gluten binder, and it got worse, so they admitted him to the ICU. As soon as they took the IV out he got to be better, but broke out in Eczema and Psoriasis from head to toe. We were sent to all of the specialists around. I finally got fed up, went on line, found out how to cure psoriasis the natural way, and then boom in 1 week 75% of his body was healed. I had him go to the family Dr and make them run a blood allergy test. He came back allergic to wheat, cows milk, and egg whites. We completely eliminated the wheat, reduced cows milk to cheese only and kept the eggs in. He is completely fine, and has been since. Now if he gets cross contamination, he breaks out in welts on his arm, and direct contamination results in him passing out or throwing up.

With your son being so little I would look at environmental as well. Laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, etc. My husband can only use ALL Free and Clear for his laundry detergent. Soap we use St. Ives Free. Basically we buy all natural dye free extra harmful ingredient free, but you still have to read labels, there are some that still use Wheat or Gluten as a binder and if that is what your son is allergic to, it will cause his skin to break out.

Hope this helps you.

It is definitely a common link, though it is not always the case. Do you breastfeed or formula feed? If you're nursing, it is possible that he is allergic to something that you're passing through your breastmilk.

When starting solids, it's really critical that you space each new food out be a few days. Make sure you pay very close to his eczema during this time and see if there are any changes. If it gets worse, consider eliminating that food.

The eight most common food allergens are milk, eggs, wheat, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. While there certainly are others, these are considered the main eight.

At seven months, he should be on solids, so I would start those soon. Take it slow to see how he does.

One of my sons had eczema as an infant. It was mostly on his face and neck. The pediatrician said it was likely a protein sensitivity and would get better when he stopped drooling as much. His eczema is pretty much gone away now (he's 4). Once it got better on his face/neck, he had minor problems with patches on his ankles and inside elbows, particularly when it was warm out. But now, we don't have any issues. We still use sensitive skin products and detergent though as I do think some laundry detergents were more problematic. (FYI, we use Tide Free now and had some trouble with All Free. We always double rinse too. And no fabric softeners.)

He did develop food allergies (nuts and shellfish) and has asthma. He also had an egg allergy that he has outgrown.

Also, his fraternal twin brother did not have eczema, does not have food allergies (yet), but does have signs of outdoor pollen allergies.

Both of my kids were so allergic to milk protein that I couldn't eat anything dairy while I was pregnant. My daughter has outgrown her milk allergy, like she can drink it/eat it, but her eczema is so bad that her skin blisters from it. She drinks goat milk and has no issues. she is 3.5.

My son turned 2 last weekend, and he is allergic to milk protein and soy, so he can't have either one. He used Alimentum until he was 13 months, and then we switched him to Neocate, Jr, which is similar, but made for toddlers instead of babies. I don't know if he will have eczema from the allergies because he can't eat them to start with. So, yes, eczema can come straight from allergies. I hope this helps.

Sorry to hear your son is suffering from eczema, I know I had tried just about everything with my daughter who had it in the same areas on her elbows and on her back too. Eczema is a lot of times related to the chemicals in many bath and body products as well as your laundry detergent. We switched to a toxin-free company that has helped so much that my daughter no longer has eczema! I couldn't believe some of the chemicals that were in my daughters body wash - Huggies Natural Care has formaldehyde and other cancer and skin irritating chemicals. Tide detergent and All Free & Clear were favorite detergents of ours, yet we found out that they contain fiberglass, formaldehyde and other toxic ingredients that were harmful to our families health. If you would like to learn more about the company I shop from, please visit my site at http://www.amberlymauszycki.com/toxin-awareness/

My daughter has been eczema-free for 5 years now, and I know it has made a huge difference in our peace of mind knowing we have better, safer products in our home that are saving us money too! :)

Amberly~