Seasonal Allergies

[Anonymous]

UGH pollen!! It is everywhere in VA and poor Cooper is having such a hard time at night getting settled to go to sleep. His nose was bright red last night from itching it at bedtime. He is already on Zyrtec and I give him that in the morning as he usually wakes up and sneezes for the first 1-2 hrs after he gets up. I can’t figure out where all that snot is being stored! Anyway just curious if anybody else is going through this or has gone through this in the past. I had to give him Benadryl last night to finally get him to be able to settle down and luckily he slept pretty well. I guess I am just going to have to do Zyrtec in the morning and Bendryl at night until all of this yucky pollen goes away…. I hate allergies.

[Anonymous]

Kaden has horrible seasonal allergies and Landen is sneezing a ton tody (we are in MD, so north of you) and I hope he won’t be as bad as Kaden.

kaden was also on Zyrtec until his pedi noted bronchial spasms at night and then switched him to singulair. that works really good, but it had some side effects. Made kaden have a really bad temper and some other weird things. I ended up switching him back to zyrtec. thank goodness it’s OTC now! There is also Children’s claritin to try, or you could ask for singulair to try. Not all babies/kids react to singulair like Kaden did.

Good luck, I feel your pain!

[Anonymous]

beth

I am going through this with danika my 2yo. She got her dad’s allergies and Ashlynn got his reflux. So far Clartin has beening doing the trick for Danika. Can you give both? (Zytrec and Bendryl). Danika wakes up alot becasue she can not breath. So on the 29th this months she is havign her 2nd set of tubes plus adeinods and Ashlynn is habing her first set.

Note:

Zyrtec also caused Danika to have a bad temper, she would not sleep at night. So we quit giving that to her and started Clartin

stcwatt2008-04-14 14:14:16

[Anonymous]

you can take benadryl and Zyrtec together.. not together but together if you know what I mean. dh is a pharmacist and he said I just need to make sure it has been more than 6hrs after the zyrtec before you give the benadryl. My ped even told me back in Jan if he was having a particularly sneezy day that we could do benadryl at night. They are the same but very different so it is okay to use them both. Cooper does great with the zyrtec no drowsiness or crankiness or anything and he has been on it now for almost 3 months. I just want all the trees to bud and then for use to have a bunch of rain to was all this nasty pollen away. I don’t like in general but now with poor Cooper I have no patience.

[Anonymous]

Dagney’s been refluxy and very snotty lately too. We have her on 3/4 t of Claritin at night, but she’s got the runny nose all day too, and I was thinking of adding the Benadryl into the mix too. I may switch her to Claritin in am & benadryl in pm. Has anyone had allergy testing for little ones this young?

We’re in Maryland too, the allergies seem to be much worse here. My dh and I both have allergies, so Dagney’s pretty much doomed!!

[Anonymous]

Ugh! It’s just starting here in North Dakota. Dh has allergies. I have them and my poor Eliana has them. She’s sneezing her head off and has a runny/stuffy nose. I haven’t started it yet this year but she was on Zyrtec last year. I’ll probably have to put her on it again soon.

I just saw something on CNN about Singulair causing personality changes, and even suicides, so I’d be leery of trying that one.

I wonder about allergy testing too. Does anyone know what age they like to do testing? I think it would be better for a kid to get shots for a few years than have to take medication for their entire life, but I’m not sure when you start that.

[Anonymous]

Dagney is still really bad with stuffy/runny nose, I felt so bad when she woke up this morning with boogies all over the place!! Her little scratchy voice is cute, but I feel bad for her too! I’m planning on calling the allergist tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll have some more info on testing for kids…I’ll let you know what they say.

[Anonymous]

Yeah Cooper wakes up with boogies all over his face almost every morning. I have been having to put saline in his nose in the middle of the night b/c they get so crusty. He was so miserable tonight it took me almost an hour to get him to sleep. He got benadryl, tylenol, gas drops and mylanta…. Then he of course let out a huge sneeze full of boogies (glad I gave the benadryl) and passed a ton of gas (go job gas drops and mylanta). I gave tylenol b/c he was acting like his teeth might be hurting… I feel like he finally went to sleep b/c he was so drunk on meds. Not really funny but I hate guessing what might be wrong. I will be so happy when he can tell me what is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Dylan was tested (I can’t remember now) but I think approx 18 months (definitely under 2 years old) and tested positive for grass and dust mites with the skin prick test. I don’t know if he was too young to test positive for other allergens (pollen etc…) but he is suffering, too.

I just got a lab slip from the doc to do the blood test on him as he is older now. I don’t think Carter is as bad as Dylan, but I am always amazed how much snot can come out of Dylan when he sneezes! YUCK!

[Anonymous]

I called the allergist today and set up the appointment, but i’m not sure if I will do it. They told me that at this age they can do the skin prick test, but they do it on the back, and it is a 1 1/2-2 hr process. OR we can have our pediatrician order a blood test. She’ll hate them both, but I think the blood test will be quicker, so I may do that instead.

[Anonymous]

We’re in Maryland too, and Niko has been a snotty little thing the last few days. We had her allergy tested at around 12 months, both blood and skin prick. for the blood test, they take a lot of blood from what I recall. It was pretty stressful. for the skin prick test, the test itself took like 2 minutes- the doctor had these 4 plates with pins on them, and he pressed each one into her back. I think she cried for about 10 seconds. Then you have to wait 30 or 45 minutes for the doc to come back and read the results. this was our experience, anyway, and I think the skin prick was far less stressful for everyone involved.

on the down side, both tests came back negative for everything – even foods that she has a pretty substantial reaction to (like milk, fruits, etc) and the doc said these results are pretty inconclusive in kids under 2.

in a related allergy question- is it possible to get bad eczema from seasonal allergies? Niko always has little patches on her hands and on her calves, but now she is just covered with it everywhere except her back (although it’s starting there too) her face and diaper area. Could it be pollen or is it for sure something she’s eating and we have to start eliminating things from her diet?

[Anonymous]

Sorry if you get this twice as I posted it with my weaning question as well. I started weaning Cooper’s prevacid on Monday but noticed that I posted this the same day regarding the few nights before. I have been concerned for a few days now that he wasn’t tolerating the wean, but now I think I am pretty convinced that all his troubles are from allergies. He is so congested and snotty. I gave him his Zyrtec yesterday a.m. and then Benadryl 2x last night which I never do, but poor thing kept waking up and blowing his nose and rubbing it on the sheets. He now is having a hard time taking his paci so I think that maybe he has a sore/raw throat from post nasal drip. Whenever I give him gas drops he will take his paci for a second or two and the same whenever I give him anything (tylenol/bendryl). I have him some mylanta not more than 2ml so if it was his tummy I don’t think that would be enough to cause a problem and he calmed down and I think it is b/c the mylanta coated his throat. Does anyone have a “sore throat” remedy that can he used on little ones? I was thinking Carafate but I don’t like that ped that is oncall this weekend and I know he would just tell me to deal with things so I can’t really get any anyway until Monday when our ped is in the office. Just wanted to see what we could do in the mean time. The poor little guy is miserable. Just to add He is fine during the day and eating well and not cranky at all so I really don’t think it is the med wean.

[Anonymous]

Allergies are such a pain in the patootie!! We were out of state this weekend, and Dagney was great, she didn’t cough all night and slept right through no problem. I talked to the Pedi today–who’s still pushing us to do the elimination challenge–and he had said that allergies only bring out the reflux more because of the mucus etc, but the reflux itself is caused by an intollerance, so he still wants me to eliminate milk/soy. He also said that the skin test is more accurate, but again, it still may not show something the child obviously has an intollerance to, or it may show there is an intollerance where the child doesn’t show it otherwise. He’s still pushing for the food challenge and I’m still hedging…(I’ll post that somewhere else!)

[Anonymous]

Just an update but I went to the ped yesterday b/c Cooper’s naps had gotten horrible (may 1.5hrs max) and his nighttime sleep was pitiful even with 2 doses of benadryl so obviously he needed something. So I am happy to report that he doesn’t have an ear infection or a sinus infection which I was worried about. But we started on Singulair in addition to the Zyrtec. He slept pretty good last night ( up about 4 times , usually just for a paci) and took about a 2.5hr nap today. And so far so good tonight (he has only been down for 1.5hrs though). I talked with many of my friends whose little ones have been or currently are on Singulair and decided to try it while the pollen is so bad and then wean him off when it clears up. There is a bit of a question too as to if Cooper is allergic to the new puppy so we may have to have him tested to find out. But that will happen much later. Just wanted to give you all an update.

[Anonymous]

I am glad he’s making improvements on the singulair. Kaden was on that for a length of time b/t 1-2 yrs of age. he had some temperament issues on it, but not all kids do. hope he continues to beat the allergies. they suck!

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