Egg allergy that gets worse before it gets better?

[xvcxcewer]

My daughter has an egg allergy. 1 year ago when she was around 10 months old, she tested at 2.2 IgE kU/L. This year, after a year of baked egg goods, her levels had risen to 11.8 IgE kU/L, pushing her from a Category 2 to Category 3.

The allergist basically told us that they are not sure why her response to the allergen had worsened. While I understand the data seems to point to children generally outgrowing egg allergies, I have also read some evidence to suggest it isn't necessarily because they were being given baked eggs.

Has anyone had a child who's allergy got worse before it got better? Or should we just be prepared for her to be allergic to eggs forever?

Any anecdotal advice welcome, but I'd also love to hear from anyone with a science/medical background who might be able to give me a more in depth understanding of what could be happening. Is it possible we weren't exposing her to a high enough concentration of baked eggs?

 

[orachii]

@xvcxcewer My sons egg allergy got worse and has continued to get worse on test. His reactions are less severe the older he gets.

I’d be concerned that your allergist said they don’t know why it went up? Our allergist was and is able to explain all the changes up or down and why they may or may not happen.

Sometimes other factors can come into play making the immune response higher on the blood work; seasonal allergies, a cold, eczema flair ups, really any number of factors can come into play here.

You can always request a food challenge at the allergist office where you give the child a small amount of baked egg and wait for a reaction. For me it’s more comfortable in the controlled environment of the doctors office in case something goes wrong.

 

[john89]

@xvcxcewer My kid’s and my own allergies flare big time when our immune systems are compromised. Either viruses, infections, or being run down/exhausted make both of us way more vulnerable to dramatic reactions. Allergist pretty much shrugged and said “that’s weird” but allergies and especially atypical allergies aren’t a heavily researched field. The attitude seems to be that an epipen either helps or nothing will.

 

[xvcxcewer]

@john89 Hm, I hadn't even considered this. She happened to have a cold while we did the test this year. Interesting. Thanks for sharing!

 

[john89]

@xvcxcewer You’re welcome! I hope it give you and your specialists something to work with.

 

[wrb]

@xvcxcewer Wait, is the recommendation to expose to baked eggs with an allergy?

 

[nani00]

@wrb That was the recommendation for my daughter. She tested at 43 (the allergist literally wrote on the printed results “Very high!”), but when she was 2.5 years old the levels came down to about 11, at which point the allergist recommended we do an egg ladder of baked goods. She got 1/4 of a cupcake a day for 30 days, then 1/2 a cupcake a day for 30 days, and finally a whole cupcake a day for 30 days. The 1 cupcake a day period was tough—it’s a lot for a kid to eat. I ended up switching things up towards the end and started baking donuts that had the same ratio (2 eggs in the recipe, makes 12 servings). Now we have to try and make sure she eats something with baked egg in it every day. She won’t get retested until this summer so we’ll see where her levels are at.

 

[xvcxcewer]

@nani00 So this is one of my concerns. At 2.2, we did the baked egg challenge, she had like 1/2 a muffin and no visible reaction. We chose to use store-bought baked goods at home, which I regret in hindsight. Now a year later, they haven't recommended repeating the challenge even though she's at nearly a 12. The expectation is that I feed her the exact same recipe and hope she doesn't have a reaction. I don't understand why they wouldn't want us to repeat the challenge? I'm considering reaching out to request we do the challenge again for my own peace of mind.

 

[nani00]

@xvcxcewer Our allergist gave us a recipe to follow so I had to bake like a bajillion cupcakes over a 90-day period. Like I said, towards the end I switched to donuts for some variety but made sure the ratios were the same. I’m also perplexed as to why your doctor is reticent to retry the test—is there another allergist you could reach out to for a second opinion?

I actually get allergy shots for environmental allergies, and after I had an adverse reaction to a specific concentration, they pulled me back and kept me at a reduced level for a while before trying again at the level I reacted at. That’s what I assume they’d do with your kid.

 

[jacknorth]

@wrb Yes. Unless is like anaphylactic I think they tell you to do the egg ladder.

OP sorry you are dealing with this. One of my kids had a big reaction to scrambled at 5 months old, we then did a year of baked. We went in and tried to do the allergy challenge but my kid was so defiant I couldn’t get him to eat so we just left. Now he’s 3 and I’ve just been feeding him eggs for a year working up to straight up semi cooked egg and raw egg cookie dough and he seems to have grown out of it.

My understanding is that they grow out of it but I’m sure that’s a generalization. Maybe she is going to grow out of it it will just take awhile. I will say when mine was under 2 and had no response to the bit of allergy challenge we managed to get through our allergist said 2 would be very very early to grow out of it. So I think they’re usually a bit older.

 

[xvcxcewer]

@wrb I'm not sure if that's the across the board recommendation from a group like the AAP. Oral immunotherapy to some of the more common allergens (peanuts, eggs, milk) seems to be increasingly used. It's what our pediatric allergist recommends.

 

[jacotte]

@xvcxcewer Agree, from what I've seen food ladders seem to be fairly common (possibly standard?) for reintroduction in the UK and Europe (as long as the initial allergic reaction meets certain criteria).

I found the UK egg ladder first, and then this interesting paper from a group in Canada which states that egg and milk ladders are widely used in Europe. But less so in Canada, so they wanted to establish a food ladder with the types of products available in the country.

Our pediatrician told us that the field is moving so fast, only allergists can really keep up with the latest science, which isn't even published yet in some cases.

 

[maria2012]

@wrb Sometimes - some people with egg allergies are able to tolerate eggs in things like muffins, cakes, etc. but not something like say, scrambled eggs. My son’s levels are still too high for his allergist to be comfortable doing a baked egg challenge, but we hope that his levels continue to fall and it will be our first step towards seeing if he’s outgrowing his allergy.

 

[kitteh]

@maria2012 I was able to over a long time work up to a soft scramble or Quiche. Cannot do a hard scramble or fried.

 

[brotony]

@xvcxcewer Not my child, but I, after giving birth developed an egg allergy. Went the baked egg route and it's also become worse after originally trying the method of not eating any for 8 weeks and reintroducing.

 

[jessie_jones_godlover]

@xvcxcewer My daughter was also tested around 7 months after she had a reaction shortly after starting BLW, and then we tested her again shortly afterwards at maybe 10-11 months before she entered daycare. I remember it did show as a more severe allergy the second time. She had a reaction again at about a year and a half old when she accidentally ate something that had mayonnaise in it. She’s turning 2 soon, and the daycare wanted us to test egg again since they start adding egg to their diet at this age and so I gave her scrambled egg and fried egg on two separate occasions over the last week or two and she didn’t show any reaction at all.

For the record she had the type of allergy where baked goods with egg were fine but stuff like omelette, fried, raw, etc egg wasn’t

 

[itsmepippy]

@xvcxcewer I’m sorry I don’t have a study but I have been told that IGE often increases significantly at like 2-3 years old. It doesn’t always stay high but it’s a fairly common phenomenon. I’d definitely keep the baked egg going! It’s growth spurts that kids are most likely to grow into or out of allergies. I think like 5-6 it often sets in for what childhood will be and then in teenage years it can change again.

 

[kitteh]

@xvcxcewer I've had weird intermittent reactions to eggs my whole life.

I cannot tolerate a hard cooked egg white. Whatever happens to the protein there, my body hates

Quiche? Fine. Usually if it's baked or soft cooked I don't have problems

If I'm stressed or sick otherwise, I stay away. Don't know why the flu makes it worse, but it does.

My only point with this, is I think the body is a tricky thing. Lots of little interactions on the protein/enzyme level that can change based on preparation and your bodies response is not constant

Over time, however, it has gotten better