Was Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Allergic?

When my son got his first ear infection at 8 weeks old, I might have known.  Soon after he began having continual congestion.  He spent much of his childhood with itchy eyes and nose.  Many pictures from that time show him smiling away with a red nose like Rudolph.  He lived on Zyrtec and Flovent in the winter months in order to keep the itching and coughing down and to help him sleep and not be miserable during the day.  Teenage years came and thank god he outgrew that stuff.  Now his biggest medical complaint is a sore pitching arm. Head allergies are common in kids, though they are sometimes hard to diagnose.  Cold viruses and sinus infections give kids a lot of the same symptoms- runny nose, cough, itching eyes and noses.  Allergies tend to give kids symptoms a lot longer, but young ones in daycares or schools can have long lasting symptoms too because they catch cold virus after cold virus, one right after the other, so it looks like one continous illness.  Chronic asthma can sometimes act like allergies, with continous coughing and chest congestion that doesn't always wheeze.  So how do you tell the difference between continuous colds, allergies, or mild chronic asthma?  Besides the itchy head, does your child get his symptoms with change in seasons?  Is there a history of allergies in mom or dad or other relatives?  Do obvious allergic triggers like animals or dust seem to make the child sneeze and itch?  If it seems like the kid has allergies, one way to make the diagnosis is to try an anti-allergy medicine.  Drugs like Claritin (Loratidine) or Zyrtec (Cetirizine) are pretty effective and very safe, so safe that they can be bought over-the-counter.  If the child gets better in a day or two and stays better on the drug, allergies may be the cause.  Some allergies are hard to diagnose, or hard to treat effectively, in which case the child might need to see the allergist. Your pediatrician or family practitioner can usually diagnose allergies without an allergist's help.  If the child has lots of eye and nose itching and is always congested, if there is a family history of allergy, that may be enough.  The doctor will often ask for the parent's help with figuring out what is causing the allergic reaction- dust, dogs, seasonal pollens in the air, mold?  What seems to make their child sneeze and twitch?  Sometimes parents are asked to keep a journal of when their child has symptoms and where they are at the time.  Your doctor can also order blood tests which can give clues to allergy being the problem and what is causing the allergy.  If your doctor has trouble figuring out if allergies are truly the cause of the child's misery, or if standard treatments aren't working, that is when the child is referred to an allergist.  The allergist can perform more accurate tests to see if the child is allergic, and to what.  Once the diagnosis is confirmed, the allergist then often goes back to the basics for treatment- avoiding the thing the kid is allergic to. Avoidance is the mainstay of allergy treatment.  If dust is the cause, and it often is, then the allergist can talk to the family about dust control in the bedroom and the rest of the house.  If it is cockroaches, another common allergy trigger, they can address that.  If medicines are needed, the allergist can help the family figure out what medicine or combination of medicines would be best.  Finally, if a child has an allergy that is really hard to avoid and treat, the allergist can design a "immunotherapy" program to help the child's body be less sensitive to the allergen.  These are the"allergy shots."  Immunotherapy is safe and effective for the right patient, and can make a big difference in the quality of the kid's life. So if you think your child has allergies, talk to your doctor.  Pay attention to what seems to make your child cough and sneeze and rub his nose and eyes.  Itchy faces can be miserable, take it from my son.