Passing Allergies to Kids ?

[cammiec]

I am almost 30 and have just recently been diagnosed with my wide array of allergens.  I know now that I have had some of them my entire life, but they were never life threatening until now.  No one else in my family has food allergies.  What are the odds of my future children having food allergies?  Will they be the same allergies?  How do you know (those with children) if your kids have food allergies?

[Janelle205]

I may be wrong, but I believe that the general thought is that specific allergies aren't inherited, but the tendency to be atopic is.  Having a parent (or both parents) with an atopic condition (food or environmental allergies, asthma, eczema), increases the possibility that a child will have an atopic condition, but doesn't necessarily predict which one.

My Mom has pretty bad environmental allergies and eczema.  My dad has no atopic disease.  My brother had eczema and food allergies as a baby, but now only has environmental allergies and really mild asthma.  I apparently hit the atopic lottery with no real explanation as to why.  (Food, environmental, and drug allergies, eczema, severe asthma)

I've talked to my doctor (allergist/pulmo) about children and allergies.  He advised that when we have kids, we keep an eye out for reactions, but not to go overboard.  We're not going to do allergy testing on our potential children unless we start seeing reactions.  I have had some (not very tactful) people ask why I would want to have kids when I might pass on allergic conditions to them.  My thought process is that yes, my life is challenging and uncomfortable sometimes, but it is also awesome.  And my children might have a higher possibility of their life being medically challenging, but their life will be awesome too.

[CMdeux]

Yes, it seems to be the atopic profile which is heritable.  The details of that are not entirely clear, either-- so it's entirely plausible that the ability to ANAPHYLAX may be heritable, or that a propensity to develop asthma and environmental allergies, but not eczema or food allergies, might be.  Theoretically, I mean.


I'm summarizing a HUGE volume of research studies in that statement, btw.

[cammiec]

Thank you for the input guys.

Janelle, people have said the same things to me.  Which not only hurts but has also made me start to worry.  But knowing the signs and symptoms, I would like to think that I would be able to identify and help my child with allergies.

So to summarize what I'm getting from what you guys have said, the tendency to have allergies is possibly hereditary.  But not necessarily the actual types of allergies.

[YouKnowWho]

Atopically, my end of the gene pool is green with sludge (grandmother, father, numerous cousins, my brother and myself).  DH is the only one with allergies in his family.

DS1 was diagnosed by 5mo of age, celebrated with his first ana rxn at 6ish mo (he wasn't tested for barley).

When we announced we were pregnant with number 2 - people asked why we continued to breed.  Someone told me that I must like the attention of having a child with allergies.   

DS2 did go through a crazy phase of allergen overload and he does have some atopic issues. 

DD walked away scott free.  If she didn't look exactly like me, I would think she was switched at birth. 

Who knows what number 4 will bring - but in so many ways, I am prepared.  It was our decision to keep going.  My SIL looks at me and says I don't know how you do it and I look at her and say the same (one of my twin nieces is deaf with bi-lateral cochlear implants). 

[CMdeux]

Thank you for the input guys.

Janelle, people have said the same things to me.  Which not only hurts but has also made me start to worry.  But knowing the signs and symptoms, I would like to think that I would be able to identify and help my child with allergies.

So to summarize what I'm getting from what you guys have said, the tendency to have allergies is possibly hereditary.  But not necessarily the actual types of allergies.

Almost.

The atopic TENDENCY IS hereditary.  There's no question of that.

The only question is how high the probability is of active expressions of atopy.  Honestly, you may not even know that one during childhood, but obviously the more atopic parental family history and expression, the higher the probability becomes.  There are VERY few individuals in my family or my spouse's without atopic conditions.

Ergo, all of our children inherit atopic genes.  Probably a lot of them.

Among them, likely 50-50 odds of:

anaphylaxis potential
animal allergies
severe skin atopy
insect venom sensitivity

and higher than that for
food allergens in particular
asthma


That last category is where I'm speculating some, but there is clear family history to support the notion that in a family like my DD's, those were the 'house' odds at the genetic poker table.  Now, she got dealt a royal flush, no question.   But her odds of that were pretty much awesome (!! I know-- funny way of seeing this, huh) to start with.

Our long-time allergist (himself someone who lived in a family like ours) put it this way--

our odds of a repeat of DD's atopic profile were around 75-80%.  The catch was that we didn't control how that mix came out.  So our second hypothetical child could well have had allergies to the (seemingly few) things that DD tolerated, like milk, fish, or our pets. 

We have joked with some very black humor at times that we only need ONE family member to cover any particular anaphylaxis trigger.  We're VERY efficient that way.     

[cammiec]

YouKnowWho, your child had their first anaphylactic reaction at 6 months!?  I wondered at what age symptoms started showing; that is so early =(

CMdeux, I like your take on the genetic possibilities.  As terrible as it all is, I still find the genetics of it fascinating. Lol

At what age will a doctor test a child for food allergies?  I've heard some people say they won't until they are two, but if they are having severe reactions before that then I don't understand the delay.

[CMdeux]

DD was both skin and RAST tested before then.  She first anaphylaxed with all the bells and whistles at 11mo-- to about 100 mg (? I'm estimating) of pb.

But it is clear, looking back at her baby pictures, that she was a hivey, rashy MESS long before then.

[YouKnowWho]

YouKnowWho, your child had their first anaphylactic reaction at 6 months!?  I wondered at what age symptoms started showing; that is so early =(

CMdeux, I like your take on the genetic possibilities.  As terrible as it all is, I still find the genetics of it fascinating. Lol

At what age will a doctor test a child for food allergies?  I've heard some people say they won't until they are two, but if they are having severe reactions before that then I don't understand the delay.

We had signs of food allergies while I was breastfeeding him - failure to thrive despite eating consistently, covered in eczema and rashes, etc.  Ped wanted us to supplement with formula and DS1 never wanted the breast again, his rashes cleared up and almost no eczema.  I asked ped repeatedly about food allergies - no, food allergies don't develop until two.  But I had a gut feeling, kwim?  (DS1 is 9.5yrs old - to give you an idea of how long ago it was).  Thankfully I did not need a referral, I made the appointment.

DS1 was initially diagnosed with allergies to wheat, egg, soy, peanuts and tree nuts via SPT.  I didn't really have a food diary to go from because we were breastfeeding and while he was reacting, it was not clear to what exactly.  I was sent off with an epi pen but no clear understanding of how to proceed.

We were going along fine with introduction of foods and formula.  We started introducing multiple ingredient foods (I do not recommend this at all at 6mo of age - live and learn).  One of which was a stew that listed barley as an ingredient.  From the first bite, he started screaming and clawing at his face.  I just thought he didn't like it.  But he refused anymore, so I took him out of the high chair and noted he was red.  I called the allergist and they said don't worry, it didn't have nuts in it.  I went with my gut and drove him to the ER.  Both the ped and allergist blew off the ER report and told me that I couldn't rush to the ER everytime a child cried about eating. 

I think I saw that allergist one more time - status quo.  But I also knew that big chain allergist specialized in environmental allergies, not food.  I found another allergist who insisted on testing him for everything because DS1 was so skinny - she determined via SPT and RAST that DS1 was allergic to wheat, rye, barley, rice, corn, egg, soy, dairy, peanuts and tree nuts.  WTH?      One by one, I reintroduced his supposed allergens with no issues.

When DS2 was 2 - he started reacting to foods left and right.  So I brought him in to see her and she manhandled him to the point he was fearful of drs.  There were other issues - shocked that Cracker Jacks contained corn, telling me to give DS1 GatorAid (which had corn ingredients) - more bothersome because she was supposedly corn allergic, kwim?  She also told me may contains were over labeling - ie plain M&M's are fine for peanut allergic (M&M's will tell you that plain M&M's are made from run off chocolate from the peanut M&M's).

Back to the drawing board - at that point, I was on a local allergy board and found an amazing office that truly got food allergies.  The allergist ran his tests, looked at the numbers and said he felt DS1 was dealing with a long list of false positives (which was my feeling on the corn, rice, soy and dairy which he not only ate, but begged for).  But he truly surprised me with questioning peanuts and tree nuts - he scheduled challenges for all of them and he passed. 

So I understand not testing but at the same time, I think if there are clearcut reactions, testing is possible.  I will never recommend blind testing which also happened to DS2.  He seems to have outgrown all of his other issues but 2nd allergist tossed on peanut testing which came back positive.  Since we were avoiding for DS1, DS2 had never had peanuts.  But numbers are high enough that our fab allergist questions doing an in office food challenge (I need to figure out where our insurance stands on the component testing, previous one didn't cover it).