To Ann,

A full body rash sounds more like a food-allergy related eczema than a
contact dermatitis.  My first baby developed the full-body thing after
early hospital exposure to formula and also had a severe contact
dermatitis after exposure to disposable diapers.  A careful diet very
much helped, but did not totally eliminate, the eczema which eventually
predominated on the face, elbows and knees.   He also developed asthma at
about age 5, never very severe and gradually diminishing over the years.
I think that with very allergic children sometimes the best that you can
do is lighten the load and make them as comfortable as possible,
realizing that there is sometimes a limit to what you can do , even when
you seem to be doing everything possible.  In fact, even though my son is
quite allergic to cats, he loves them very much and insists on having one
for a pet - a gradual sort of desensitization seems to keep most symptoms
to a minimum and at age 20, I guess that decision is up to him.  I
definitely think that the many years of breastfeeding and the diet did
help to keep him fairly comfortable and kept the asthma from reaching
life-threatening proportions.

This mom could try eliminating the usual worst offenders for a couple of
weeks - dairy, wheat, citrus - and see what happens.  I ended up on a
diet of rice, chicken, bananas and juices and then slowly added foods.
It really wasn't as bad as it sounds and I think works better than
hop-scotching around eliminating one thing and then another.  However,
even when we did nail down the biggest offenders, in his case dairy,
wheat, and tomatoes, there were occasional breakouts that were difficult
to attribute to anything in particular - they usually subsided quite
quickly and I gradually stopped making myself crazy trying to track down
every little thing that set him off.  As he got older, he started making
decisions for himself and milk was eventually the one thing that he
didn't like at all and couldn't tolerate.  Other dairy products don't
seem to bother him anymore.

Hypoallergenic formula is stinky, expensive, and just as inferior to
breastmilk as other formulas.   I hope she seeks another option.

Warmly,
Sharon Knorr, BSMT, LLLL, IBCLC in Newark, New York (near Rochester)
mailto:[log in to unmask]

___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]