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Combating Allergies
Helping Your Child Get a Good Night's Sleep By Heather Johnson Durocher
Blood tests can take place as early as 3 months of age. Parents may be interested in doing this, especially if allergies run in the family and if some allergy symptoms are already present. But parents should also know that allergies can, and often do, develop later in childhood so early testing may need to be repeated.
What a child is allergic to can change or increase as they age. Experts refer to this type of allergy progression as the "allergy march." This means that infants and toddlers who have food allergies, which can trigger eczema an itchy rash may eventually experience inhaling-type allergies as preschoolers and be at risk for ultimately developing asthma between ages 4 and 6, Reinhardt says.
The idea of the "allergy march" is becoming more widely known and accepted within the medical community, he says.
"We're starting to research whether you can prevent this progression, if not from happening at all, at least from being as severe and whether it is beneficial to identify these sensitizations as soon as possible," Reinhardt says. "If you can at least slow the progression and decrease the severity of the symptoms, these certainly are goals parents and doctors want to attain for the kids."
"What you want to do is control allergic diseases; don't let them control you," says Dr. Kathleen Sheerin, an allergist at the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic in Atlanta, Ga. whose 5-year-old son has hay fever and 4-year-old had eczema and now has asthma. "If you don't control it, you will be up in the middle of the night, and everybody will be unhappy. There is no cure for allergies, but we can make a difference in the quality of life."
