Ask the Expert
Q. How can I tell if my infant has food allergies?
A. If you suspect your baby is allergic to any food, your best approach is to discuss his or her symptoms with your pediatrician. Common allergy symptoms in babies include hives, colic, wheezing, or red and itchy scaly patches on the skin (eczema). Keep a log of what food cause a reaction in your child and how soon symptoms appear. Share this information, along with your family's history of asthma or allergies, your child has about a 75% chance of having allergies. If one of you is allergic, or if relatives on one side of your family have allergies, then your child has a 50% chance of developing them. Sometimes blood tests and allergy testing are done to help make a diagnosis. Your pediatrician may refer you to an allergist for specialized testing or treatment.
Q. My prescription allergy medications don't seem to be working as well as they used to. Is it possible to build up a tolerance to medications taken regularly?
A. No, you can't build up a tolerance to any medications used to treat asthma or allergies. If your medicine does not seem to be working well, you may be experiencing increased asthma or allergy symptoms that require a change in your care plan. Consult your allergist about modifying your medications to help manage your symptoms better when they increase.
Q. I am asthmatic with an allergy to dogs that triggers my asthma. Are there an nonallergenic breeds of dogs?
A. There is no known breed of dog that does not trigger asthma. Some people believe that short-haired dogs, such as a chihuahua, won’t cause difficulty because there is less hair to shed. They fail to realize that this is dog dander, rather than the hair, that causes most of the problem. Every dog sheds dander.
Q. Following a respiratory virus this fall, my son developed a chronic cough. He was finally diagnosed with asthma. Daily use of medications controls it, but if we reduce these, the cough returns. Could this virus have caused the asthma? Will we be able to reduce the amount of medicine he takes?
A. Yours son’s virus probably did bring on his asthma problem because he had a genetic susceptibility to asthma. The process is not well understood but we know that several genes are involved. From now on, it is likely that a number of triggers will cause his symptoms to reappear.
Trial and error is the best guide to reducing medicines since every patient is different. My patients track their peak flow, signs and symptoms to guide this process. Once they have no symptoms and their peak flow is normal for a specified period of time, they reduce their medicine dose. If their peak flow drops, their return to the original dose.
You should take a look at your environment to make sure that your son is not exposed to cigarette smoke, pets that he might be allergic to, a dusty bedroom or other triggers.