My 21 month old toddler has a bunch of allergies (peanuts, eggs, some tree nuts and FPIES reaction to soy as well as seasonal pollen allergy that he takes OTC zyrtec for). He also has severe eczema. He also gets “mystery rashes” constantly. These rashes do not appear to be triggered by any particular substance/circumstance/etc.

I think you need to document the rashes and rather than trying to track down the thing to eliminate, bring them to your allergist and ask for a more robust skincare regimen. When he was little and we were just tackling skin issues with OTC lotions and ointments, every mystery rash was itchy and angry looking. It broke my heart!

Now that his overall skin health is better, his mystery rashes don’t get as red or itchy and usually disappear on their own in an hour or so. Our skin-breakout regimen includes triamcinolone for his body and high-dose hydrocortisone for his face and prescription-strength zinc-based diaper cream for his butt/groin, all of which gets covered with a thick layer of aquaphor, and in between breakouts we still do aquaphor all over his whole body morning and night. You may need something different.

But my overall advice is to treat as a reflection of her overall skin health and resulting reactivity, rather than looking for a specific trigger.

Anonymous wrote:My guess would be pressure uriticaria or dermotographia or something in that family. I would talk to your allergist.

+1 Keep in touch with your allergist about it. But ultimately when eczema is this sensitive this young, your best support is focusing on excellent eczema care, until their skin (part of the immune system) can better sort good/bad in the environment. This is a great resource:

https://www.childrenshospital.org/sites/default/files/media_migration/6d8a19e6-77a6-4c37-9f98-28769d3a7b99.pdf

For the food allergies, please make sure you are tracking with an allergist doing every 3-4 month follow ups while they are so young, sorting out what can be challenged and getting you in for those. Early intervention, where possible, is strongly preferred. With a subset of children, months matter.

Anonymous wrote:Call the ped and get a referral to an allergist. This is not normal.

I have seen an allergist. She does not seem concerned.

Call the ped and get a referral to an allergist. This is not normal.

Does it happen if you don't hold him in bath? And have you changed the soap?

Anonymous wrote:Why are you using lotion on your baby? Maybe try a different soap or tell your husband to stop using hand cream and wash his hands well.

Because that’s what doctors recommend when a baby has eczema…

Why are you using lotion on your baby? Maybe try a different soap or tell your husband to stop using hand cream and wash his hands well.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. My daughter had allergies when she was an infant, but we didn't realize it. She also had eczema that flared off and on and it was horrible. This was 30 years ago and it never got bad enough to worry about until she was about 8 and had severe asthma, allergies and eczema.

I've recently experienced food allergies and food sensitivities along with histamine intolerance from hormone fluctuations during menopause, that was suspected to be MCAS but is now under control with medication and avoiding food I'm allergic to along with aged foods.

The reason I bring it up is that one of the things that would trigger hives for me and just extremely itchy skin without hives was getting out of the shower. Especially if I was overheated from working out, or being out in the sun and jumped into the shower and out into air conditioning. Or even not AC, just coming out of the water. It was crazy, especially when there were no hives, but I just couldn't control the itching. One of the doctors I saw at some point said when the itching was bad to not completely towel off the skin right out of the water-leave it damp and then apply some good eczema relief lotion like Eucerin.

Figuring out your baby's food allergies and sensitivities will be very helpful. I had to do a complete elimination diet to figure it out. Looking back, I wonder if my daughter was experiencing food sensitivities- we didn't know as much about these things back then. Maybe she even had histamine issues or food sensitivities from some foods or leftover foods.

dermatographia?

Anonymous wrote:MCAS- if the allergist and derm dont know about MCAS please go to another provider.

She doesn’t have any other symptoms besides the hives and allergies.

Is she allergic to the soap your husband is using?

MCAS- if the allergist and derm dont know about MCAS please go to another provider.

My guess would be pressure uriticaria or dermotographia or something in that family. I would talk to your allergist.

Put her in a bath seat. Don't hold her.

My baby has incredibly sensitive skin along with eczema and some food allergies. So far definitely egg but still figuring out others. Surprisingly dairy does not seem to be an issue. Pretty much whenever she gets food on her skin she gets red even if she's not allergic to that food. But worryingly she keeps getting hives wherever we touch her with more than slight pressure. At first we thought it was related to the bath. As soon as we took her out she would be screaming with hives on her torso. We thought it might have been the heat from the bath even though we're only giving her lukewarm baths but we tried doing an even colder bath without having it be an actual cold plunge and she still got the same itchy raised hives. We then realized that she only breaks out on the torso where my husband holds her in the bath (he holds her and I wash her). You can see the actual redness following where his fingers wrap around her torso. This even happens, to a lesser extent, if he's holding her up when we haven't taken a bath without clothes on while I put lotion on her. It doesn't seem to happen when she's dressed. It doesn't seem to be anything on my husband's hands because he has started washing them right before holding her and it still happens. The hives go away in about 15-30 minutes but she is very itchy. Is this a thing? Hives from touch? I spoke to my baby's allergist and dermatologist and they seemed to think I was a little crazy and said it's really hard to know where baby hives are coming from and something like 80% of cases are a mystery. My husband jokes that she must be allergic to him. This isn't a thing, though, right? Right?!?!?!