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Insect bite reactions?
My AT (for a year now) 5-yr old has recently started having severe reactions to bug bites. Her temp runs a degree or so hotter than normal so we suspect this is why they seem attracted to her and no one else in the fam. Once bitten, the bites become severely inflamed and unbearably itchy. She has had 4 episodes of multiple bites in the last month or so while the rest of her family has been unaffected. A little googling and I've found that overly swollen/ itchy bites are an over-reaction of the immune system...no surprise. Anyone else experience this? Until better treatments/ a cure is found I remain dedicated to gathering as much info/ making as many connections as I can to solve this puzzle.
On another thread, we are almost at the one-year mark of our gluten-free experiment. My D does have some very sparse regrowth, and due to a few other improvements in her health we are continuing GF for awhile more...but hope is waning that GF may do anything further for her and I wonder if continuing strict GF makes any sense...anyone have insights, intuitions, perspectives to share?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Trish on
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Hi Erin...I've had Alopecia for most of my life, i'm 44 now and I've not ever noticed a corolation between bites and my immune system. I have however always had somewhat of an allergic reaction to the sun when i get my first "tan" of the season. I break out into red bumps wherever the sun has made contact with my skin. But after a few days, if I continue to go in the sun, they disappear and dont come back that season. Its really strange.
As far as the diet is concerned, I have heard of this working for others but unfortunately, its generally not permanent. It certainly cant hurt to eat a healthy diet but you're right, i'm not real convinced that it makes a big difference in the end. But thats just my opinion after having tried just about every remedy out there over my 37 yrs span of having had this. Good luck with it though because this disease has no rhyme or reason and you never know when you might find something that works for her and you.
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Permalink Reply by terri on
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Hi Erin,
You are the only other person I know that this happened to. My daughter at age 2 was at a friend's house playing in the backyard. She got several mosquito bites. Her skin broke out everywhere in exaggerated bites. I took her to the doctor who had to prove to me that it was an overreaction to bug bites. She pulled out the PDR and read me the entire entry. lol. About 2 - 3 months later, my daughter got alopecia (universalis). We always thought it was triggered from her immunization shots, but I also remember asking the doctors at Hopkins if the bug bite reaction caused her immune system to go into overdrive and trigger the alopecia. Of course, they don't know. And at this point it really doesn't matter what caused it, but at the time I wanted answers.
Hope she feels better. By the way, my daughter never had the bug bite reaction happen ever again.
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Permalink Reply by Jfpwatson on
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My son was also far more prone to mosquito bites. We were in Brazil at a friend's country house when he was 4. We woke to find he was covered head to toe with bites. I had a few and my wife had none.
At age 17 he was bitten by something (tick, spider, mosquito?) and he had terrible swelling and rash. We took him to the doctor but didn't learn anything. Everything healed but few months later we noticed a bald spot on his neckline. Within another 6 months he had lost 50% of his hair. He's 19 now and has lost all body hair except his armpits. Ironically, there was a kid a year older just down the street who developed Alopecia Universalis several years before we moved to the neighborhood.
Can't say if there is a correlation or not, but it's interesting to read others' experience, including this thread from 2011.
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Erin, I am 70 years old with AU (5 years now), and this summer while working in the garden, I was bitten by some insects. In the past, I would normally have some itching which stopped soon after I stopped scratching. This time was much much different. The itching was non-stop and severe. My whole body itched and felt inflamed for two days whether I scratched or not. I could not even sleep at night as I felt like my whole body was on fire. I looked online and found that this is possible due to an overload of histamines being produced by an overactive immune system. Lotions and topical creams did not help, so I took Benedryl and the itching was gone in less than 24 hours. So yes, I had the same reaction as your daughter.
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