Need Opinions on Daughter's Allergy.

I haven't read through all of the comments here, but I can tell you that doctors can make mistakes. My friend's son has severe seasonal allergies. Around age 5, they took him to an allergist, they did a blood test and told them he was highly allergic to peanuts and apples and do not eat anything with these in them. The kid had eaten apples with peanut butter nearly every day for 2 or 3 years and never had a reaction. They went to 2 other doctors who said that was nonsense, he likely reacted to the blood test because it was spring and his body was so overloaded with an inflammatory reaction that he was reacting to everything. Also, blood tests are often nonspecific. I would definitely get a second or third opinion.

get rid of the cat.

I see your SWH Sorry i apologize i've seen this type of question several times on here over the years and it surprises me how people struggle with choosing their childs health over their [ets.

Ok so if your question is what tests or specialist do you need to be confident in this diagnosis.-- then I guess i would want to know more about what brought you to the dr in the first place, What were her Asthma symptoms??
Maybe keep a log of when she has difficulties and see if it's more at home or school or after excercise.
You might want to ask your question again, but more generally about Allergies and how people have discovered they ahve them and what they do about it.
sorry for the misunderstanding, I hate it when people don't read the question-so guilty on this one today.

out with the cat, it wouldnt even be a question for us personally,

Instead of just a few skin prick tests she needs an Total IgE blood test for environmental and food triggers. There are certain values that will push the kiddo over her limit. The key to ALLERGIES is avoidance but he didn't test for nearly enough to make the call to get rid of the cat. It could be her pillow her stuffed animal or milk.

Please trust me, I work for a national testing lab and this is a huge focus this time of year.

An allergist is paid for the skin prick tests, pulmonary function tests....a ped can order the test I'm talking about. Most insurances cover allergy testing once per year so add on everything you can think of.

Good luck!

ok she has asthma. shes not going to magically get it. it will be allergy induced. if you keep on top of her meds and have her on a prevenative she should be fine.

As a kid, I showed no allergy symptoms to absolutely anything. I developed asthma early in my college years. As an adult, I'm allergic to horses, dogs, cats, some seasonal pollens, poison ivy, etc. Who knew our metabolisms change over time?

In my 20s I had a cat. No allergy symptoms to my OWN cat. Still, if I visited any other house with a cat, I sneezed and sniffled and my eyes swelled. Once my poor kitty died, any cat caused the allergic reaction. Weird, but true. Perhaps your daughter, since she lives with your coon cat, has built an immunity to it but may still be allergic to other cats. Consider your Coon sort of your own personal "allergy shot" system!

In short, your doctor AND your own observations may both be correct. And, yeah, I have never owned another cat -- but I live with two dogs and spend every minute I can at the barn with my horse. Claritin is my friend!

Get rid of the cat. Your child doesn't have to shown full blown allergic asthma in order to have symptoms. She obviously HAD symptoms already (even those were not obvious to you) or she wouldn't have done badly on the pulmonary function test. She may never show full blown asthma symptoms, but instead may be tired, have trouble concentrating or have trouble sleeping, she may be more susceptible to infections and sometimes symptoms include gastrointestinal issues, even if it is not a food allergy. The symptoms can seem almost negligible at times... but they do add up and affect how is she feeling every day.
Get rid of the cat and then get her the shots... my husband is super allergic to cats and wishes his mom had done the shots for cats (they did it for dust and some other things. He has actually lived with cats at times and it wasn't until the cats were gone that he noticed how much it REALLY affected him, even though he didn't feel it was that bad at the time.

F., my husband has been to the allergy doctor as well and has been surprised at what the tests show. He is allergic to everything, and only shows symptoms for certain things. I'd go with your gut instinct. I would suggest before giving up your cat to give up your carpet. It does wonders to get a wood floor or ceramic tile or whatever, because if your daughter does end up with severe allergies, or heaven forbid asthma, getting rid of the carpets and draperies is key. Anyway, another thing about the asthma doctors: my youngest son started the 5 year shot program, and he started developing hives all the time, could not go out in the cold (he has cold urdicaria, probably spelled that wrong, but it is an allergy to being cold), anyway, everytime he got his shots, he developed hives terribly, and I'd have to give him Benadryl all the time. If we went swimming, Benadryl. If he went out in the snow, Benadryl. I decided to stop the shots, and WALAH, all his problems stopped. He is still alergic to nuts and some fruits, but I guess what I'm trying to say is don't put 100% of your faith in all that the doctor says. You have to use your gut instinct too, since you live with her and see her everyday. And I'm sure if your daughter was going to have this asthma develop like the doctor says, if you kept your cat, she would certainly develop some allergy symptoms to the cat before she would develop asthma, I'd assume. Good luck to you.

I second that - get rid of the cat. :(

My brother and his family had to get rid of their dog when they figured out it was contributing to my nephews asthma and allergies. It was a total bummer, but they found him a great home.

I would get a second, and maybe even third opinion, including additional types of tests, before I'd ever give up a cat. No one doctore ever knows it all. I've had bad advice before from a doctor, that was contradicted by the next one.

I would get rid of all the carpets you can, down pillows, old stuffed animals. I would strip her bedroom of any and all dust collectors - move toys and books to another room, rethink drapes/rugs/stuffed furniture, no down pillows, get an air filter and keep the cat out of her room.

Then re-evaluate after some time has passed and she's had further tests.

That is me. As a child.
I had allergies to stuff in the air. ie: pollen, dust, pets.
Plus I had childhood Asthma and still have it.
I was just like your child.

Yes, an inhaler will help thusly.
An inhaler is used because, Asthma or triggers, makes the bronchial airways constricted. It gets constricted because it is inflamed.
And if constricted, a person cannot breathe, normally.

As a child, my parents got air purifiers, for my room and all the rooms in the house. And I did not have any carpeting, in my room.
And though we had pets, it was kept outdoors.
NOT indoors... because, pet hair and dander... WILL BE stuck to all the surfaces in a home. And a person cannot clean it all entirely.
It can even be on a person's clothing, and you will not know it because pollen/dander/hair can be so small that you cannot see it with the naked eye.

Pet hair/dander will affect a person in these conditions.
For me, it was also certain pets and cats. Not all breeds.
So this is not uncommon.
However, Poodles and Airedales, have "hair" not fur. So this is less allergenic. But cats, and their dander can be very allergenic.
Know that.

You have to manage her condition/allergy to pets/asthma... or it will get worse.
Asthma... can be very serious. People die from it.
And, every person has a different trigger for it. What may trigger my Asthma may be different from the next person. So you have to know, what triggers your child's condition.
And you do need to follow directions for her medications. And use it.
If a person cannot breathe or has an asthmatic attack... that means they cannot breathe and/or are not getting enough oxygen into their bloodstream either. Not only about their lungs.

You need to do, what the Doctor recommends.

I have a friend who had horrible allergies - environmental, dogs, you name it. They gave her a scratch test and she turned up positive for everything except 4 trees - something like 56 out of 60 different things. She walked around with a box of Kleenex under her arm, took shots, and had 2 prescription meds and one OTC med. Her 1 year old was miserable too - spent 3 weeks out or 4 with terrible symptoms and was on a nebulizer way more than they were comfortable with. They also were told to pull up the carpets, get rid of the cat, and so on. Another friend had 2 daughters with terrible asthma - one couldn't take steroids so wound up in the ER with every attack.

They are all virtually symptom-free for years now because they supplemented their diets with a comprehensive and highly absorbable nutritional supplement. Not the usual multi-vitamin thing, and no pills.

I always had bad allergies - pollen, grasses, cats - and have not needed any medication for 5 years, even with the last two terrible spring allergy seasons.

There is another way than what your doctor is saying. I think you can ward this off and keep your cat, as well as reduce symptoms with other people's animals. I got a lot of help from the people I mentioned (they are now nutritional consultants) and I'm happy to pass that info on.

It is possible to be allergic to cats, but not to all cats. Just like dogs, some dogs and cats are considered hypoallergenic. These are ones that don't shed.

It is also possible that since she has been around the Maine for so long that her body is accustomed to that type of hair or dander but that your neighbor's cat would trigger a sneeze fest.

I actually had to laugh when i read someone said to get rid of the cat and get the shots for the cat. If you knew anything about allergies or the components of those shots, basically they are injecting you with what you are allergic to, so they inject you with cat protein. It is kind of silly to say get rid of the cat but get the shots, when some allergists will suggest instead of spending the time an effort to get shots just get the pet. But you must get the cat as a kitten if you are introducing to someone with a known allergy. as the kitten grows it slowly produces more of the protein and you are slowly exposed to more and more, just like the shots, they slowly increase the the protein until your body no longer reacts to high doses. My daughter was severely allergic to eggs, so we slowly added first heat treated eggs to her diet in very minute amounts and slowly increased it, now she can tolerate all amounts of heat treated eggs, but still cannot tolerate fresh/whole eggs yet. So by having your cat, you have already desensitized your child to cat protein. Now she is likely most desensitized to that particular breed, and may still react when she is around other people's cats, but it won't be as severe as it would be if you did not have a cat. Ironically getting rid of the cat, could potentially make her condition worse, as she will no longer have contact with the protein(like they do with shots), and her immunity will drop and her allergy to cats will get worse. Now allergists were often trained years ago to tell patients to get rid of all animals and some still will, but some will recommend you get an animal to actually prevent or lessen allergies, as it has been shown repeat exposure thru shots or directly thru contact with an animal decreases symptoms. So basically what I am saying is keep the cat. Ditch the allergist if you don't like them or they don't do the research. But no having a cat since she was an infant will not now suddenly give her asthma. And having a cat could potentially make her asthma more resistant to pet dander. Meaning when she goes to a friends house with a cat, she will likely have a lesser reaction than if she did not have daily contact with a cat. Now since she has not had exposure to dogs, I would not recommend getting a dog at this age. By about age 3 you need to introduce the pet, later than that and it becomes more difficult to build up the tolerance and can often make the condition worse. Being that she is six, she is well beyond the age for introducing new animals. However since she has had exposure to cat her whole life, do not remove it, but do not make it worse. Both my kids and myself are severely allergic to cats. i did not have exposure until adulthood, my kids exposure since infancy. My kids show no symptoms when visiting anyone with a cat, yet they both test allergic. I too test allergic but i react, not as bad as I did before i had cats of my own, but i still have a mild reaction. Hope this helps to explain the way allergens function within the body, and how building up a tolerance can help. Now if someone has a food allergy you also need to avoid and introduce it under the close supervision of a doctor, it is not something to be done on your own. I would highly suspect your daughter's asthma could be improved by limiting other things, like stuffed animals in her room, using allergen covers on her bed and pillows, put a hepa filter in her room, and remove any carpeting you can.