Diet taboos for children with urticaria

During the onset of urticaria in children, you only need to avoid three types of foods that are clearly risky in your diet. There is no need to blindly expand the scope of taboos - the first is foods that have been known to cause allergies in the past, the second is stale ingredients with high histamine content, processed meat products, and fermented foods, and the third is food additives and artificial coloring products that are known to induce allergic reactions in your child. Unless there is clear evidence of allergy, there is no need to stop eating core sources of daily nutrition such as eggs, milk, and common staple foods. Blind dietary restrictions will drag down the child's immunity and make the rash heal more slowly.

Last week, I met a 3-year-old boy in the outpatient clinic. He had hives for a whole week. My mother heard from the community group that she should avoid "fat foods", so she stopped eating eggs, milk, fish, shrimp and even pork. She only ate white porridge and boiled vegetables every day. As a result, the rash did not go away.

When it comes to "fading things", in fact, there are indeed differences in the views of traditional Chinese and Western medicine, and there is no absolute right or wrong. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that acute urticaria is mostly caused by wind evil invading the body tissues. Pungent and warm foods such as mutton, leeks, peppers, and alcohol will aggravate the invasion of wind evil, so it is recommended to avoid it during the attack period. ； However, the general view of modern allergists is that as long as there is no clear evidence of allergy, such foods do not require special avoidance. You can make the decision based on your own baby's condition. If the baby usually gets red in the face and scratches the neck after eating mutton, then don't touch it during the attack. There will be no problem after eating mutton, so there is really no need to specifically remove the meat.

Don't tell me, what many parents tend to overlook is not the natural ingredients, but the small ingredients in processed foods. I met a 6-year-old girl before, and all the common IgE allergen tests were negative, but she got hives exactly once every month, and it was so itchy that she couldn't sleep at night. Later, her mother kept a food diary for two months, and the culprit was discovered: the day before each rash, she secretly bought colored lollipops worth 50 cents each at the school gate. The artificial coloring lemon yellow in them was the trigger for her. After she stopped such snacks, she never did it again.

There is another question that people often ask: My child is never allergic to shrimp, so why did he get a rash after eating it this time? First, check to see if the shrimp has been frozen in the refrigerator for almost a week? The histamine content in stale seafood, red meat that has been stored for a long time, fermented cheese, fermented bean curd, and even leftovers that have been stored at room temperature for several hours will be several times higher than when it was fresh. Even if you are not allergic to the food, ingesting too much histamine at one time can induce allergic-like reactions, such as hives, dizziness, and stomachaches. In this case, it is not that you cannot eat shrimp, but you should avoid it because it is stale.

As for many tropical fruits such as mangoes, pineapples, and kiwis that Kopori said to avoid, there is actually no unified standard. My clinical experience is that if the baby has eaten before and the area around the mouth is not red or itchy after eating, then he can eat normally during the attack. ； If you have never tried it before, don’t rush to give it to your baby during an attack. After all, the plant proteases in these fruits can easily irritate the mucous membranes. The skin is already in a highly sensitive state during the attack, so there is no need to take this risk.

Oh, by the way, here’s another piece of trivia that many people don’t know: If a baby develops urticaria just in time for a cold or fever, taking aspirin or certain antibiotics will temporarily affect the body’s histamine metabolism. At this time, even eating foods that are usually fine may trigger a rash. In this case, there is no need to restrict food. Once the drug is metabolized and the body returns to normal, it will naturally get better.

Anyway, I have been working in pediatrics for so many years, and among the children with urticaria I have encountered, less than 30% are purely caused by diet. Most of them are caused by viral infection, exposure to dust mite pollen, and sudden changes in temperature. When many parents see that their children have a rash, they rush to cut down on their food intake and avoid food for half a year. As a result, their children's height and weight will fall behind, and the rash may not be cured. If you are really not sure about the trigger, just keep a food diary and write down everything you eat 12 hours before the attack. You can find the pattern by comparing it several times. If it is not possible, do a food challenge test. It is much more reliable than the "100 taboos for urticaria" that are circulated on the Internet.