[RockysMum]

Hello everyone,
i have just joined this wonderful forum in hope to get a bit if advice on allergies to dogs.I brought a puppy 3 weeks ago,a pedigree black labrador who is 12 weeks old now.Everything was going fine until last week my 5 year old son developed a dry excema type rash on his back and shoulder but no other symptoms.I took him to my gp who ordered some skin prick tests and this confirmed that my son has a mild allergic reaction to dogs.We desperately dont want to get rid of our puppy and i have been advised to buy hepa air purifers and a product called biolife petal clense and home clense that proclaims to reduce the allergens on our puppy by 90%.Also i have brought 2 doggy gates so the puppy cannot play in my sons bedroom or playroom,plus i have stripped all the bedding and cleaned all rooms throughly whilst hoovering twice a day to.Hopefully this will all help but im wondering if anyone else has a child that is allergic to dogs as any advice or further information on treatments ect would be fantastic.
Thankyou so much x

 

[lexilu]

hi Rockysmom - Eczema is a tricky one... my daughter (who almost 20) has had it since she was about 6 years old. It was so bad, the school nurse thought it was chicken pox. The doctors were stumped too, as it was all over her body. We have two dogs but it has no bearing on her breakouts. We have found very humid weather is a problem, as is dry weather. The more she scratches the worse the rash becomes. We have used steroid creams and had allergy tests. She's allergic to grass, mites, and other things that you just can't avoid in life. We were told that if you have anyone in the family with asthma the chances of your son having eczema increases - it may be from the dogs, it may not. All my friends who have dog allergies manifest as itchy eyes and sneezing, more like hayfever. So the eczema reaction may be a coincidence and have nothing really to do with the pup even though he's testing positive for it. My daughter actually has not had severe rashes for a while, up until about 3-4 weeks ago. Maybe it's the weather. Good luck

 

[GSDGAL]

my sister had that and the doctor put her on 2 10mg tablets of allergy meds a day, cleared it right up

 

[rosemaryninja]

http://www.dogforums.com/2-general-dog-forum/52814-how-many-you-allergic.html

I'm allergic to dogs -- I too have eczema, have had it from birth. I keep the dogs out of my bedroom and off furniture. I wash my hands with soap right after handling them and I make a conscious effort not to touch any affected areas before washing my hands.

When it gets really bad, I take a Zyrtec or an Atarax (sp?) antihistamine to bring the inflammation down, but I don't take them on a regular basis. Once a week I brush, brush, brush my dogs to get all the fur and dander out at once, so less of it falls all over the rest of the house.

I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

 

[hulkamaniac]

Some kids grow out of some allergies. I was terribly allergic to milk as a child, but I'm not now. He may be fine in a couple of years. My sister and I were both allergic to cats as kids and she grew out of it, but I never did.

 

[RonE]

If the dog is truly the cause of the eczema, they're not going to want to wait a few years to see if he outgrows it. Young children, in particular, can get secondary infections from scratching and it can be very serious.

Eczema can be caused, or aggravated, by exposure to chemicals ranging from deodorant soaps or laundry detergents to chlorine in a pool. Stress can make it worse (though folks without children may wonder what a 5-year-old would stress about.)

I was allergic to dogs and may still be slightly so, but I had the more traditional symptoms with sniffles and itchy eyes. The eczema came later from daily swim practices in an ancient high school pool.

I had the allergy shots and the dogs weren't allowed to sleep in my room but otherwise there were few limitations.

A lab may be a special challenge as they are very heavy shedders and have that undercoat.

 

[rosemaryninja]

Where do you stay? Humidity plays a huge factor as well.

 

[jboboxer]

I have bad allergies and somethings I do around the house helps a lot. You might want to look into one of those roomba vacuum cleaners that cleans on it's own. Nobody has time to clean 1 hour, but a machine does, so I've noticed better air quality.
And you said you don't let the pet in the kids bedroom, which is good, but a good air purification system in the bedroom would probably help a lot. We spend more time in our beds than any other place or room, since we're there almost 60 hours per day.
I would also use a larger air filter with a high merv rating, which should help as well.

Most people aren't allergic to the shedding of animals from my understanding it's the dander and saliva and I just saw some product on amazon that claims to reduce dander by 71%, which seems pretty amazing.
A friend of mine was having a lot of allergies with his dog and it was so bad he was considering getting rid of his family pet, but started to give the dog fish oil in his food and my friend swears by it that he doesn't have the bad allergies he once had.