Allergies

Baby seems to have food allergies, or at least some serious sensitivities. She’s always tended to eczema, having a persistent patch on the back on one thigh and others which pop up from time to time on her hands, face. Then a few months ago I noticed that after eating tomatoes she would get a red and irritated face which cleared up with some Aquaphor applied overnight. I have a slight skin sensitivity to tomatoes myself which isn’t a big deal, and figured the yumminess of tomatoes was worth having to risk a little skin irritation from time to time, so we kept feeding them to her (she loves tomatoes and tomato sauce). We also noticed that whole milk seemed to be giving her absurdly water poop, so we put her back full-time on formula and that seemed to help. Though I’m not sure if she has a problem with them now, she had effects from citrus when I was breastfeeding.

A couple of weeks ago, while eating eggplant parmigiana, Baby started crying, flipping out a little. Her poor hands were covered in weird white raised welts where the food had touched her. It was scary. We washed her hands, applied Aquaphor (I use that for everything), and wrapped her little hands in gauze and the welts were gone within an hour. She’d had eggplant before, but I thought maybe that was it, since she’d never had that problem with tomato. But the next time she had food with tomato sauce in it she got the welts again. So no more tomato.

Ever since then, though, the eczema on her hands has just been horrible. And then a couple of nights ago Baby got the welts-on-hands problem again from eating some (tomato-free, seafood-free) paella. I can’t imagine what she’s reacting to. From time to time she’ll get red rings around her eyes and on her cheeks. The Aquaphor isn’t helping and neither is the prescription anti-eczema medicine she has, partly because it is very difficult to apply it to her hands. We’ll put some on, wrap the hand in gauze and secure it with tape, but Baby really needs her thumbs to sleep, and the bandage will somehow end up around her wrist by morning, the medicine presumably wiped off. This weird raw redness (maybe it isn’t even eczema) is the worst on her thumbs, I guess because of the thumb-sucking. Her doctor gave us a prescription for her to have Claritin several months ago for seasonal allergies, noting a slight cough and the red around Baby’s eyes, but I never filled it as that’s pretty serious medicine for what seems to me to be run-of-the-mill runny nose pollen-allergy stuff. I think the issue is food, and I’d like to treat that issue by eliminating whatever food it is. How can I figure this out? What can I do?