We finally have some answer’s.

For our Mikey he is allgeric to wheat.   we have been battling really bad ezhema on his face for month's. All his allgery test came back neg(except peanut's) whcih we already knew. So I got on the internet and found out that RAST test's don't alway's show up in young children. I spoke to a naturalpath who reccomend we try and cut out wheat from his diet.   And what do you know we have for about a month and we only had one major flare up and that is casue he had naughty food one night. So ya for having an answer he still has some ezhema so we have been refered to dietation and skin speciallst at the hospital. We have finally got him a GP that will listen to us rather then jsut keep adding more cream ti the huge collection we already have. It has been so hard watching him suffer for so long with his skin.   Also he is very low in iron so on iron med's which is helping boost his immune system.

Deb, the allergy would have made him not absorb iron very well and that's why his iron will be low. So that will come right in time.

Soph I wonder if you have gluten intolerance on your hands instead of a wheat allergy. That would also have likely malabsorbtion (of iron, etc) issues and may be linked to the dark circles? (They can test wheat allergy by a blood test.)

Soph that is exactly how my son is if he has wheat it take's a few day's, but then he has this huge flare up. Get's really irrtable and jsut want's lots of comfort. As for gluten there is a test, but from what I understand (my friend's little one had it) it is pretty invastvie for a yeoung child. I also from waht i understand of glutel isa you will also have other systom's such aas low weaight gain and also upset tummy. I would not listen to the doc's test cause they don't alway's show up. my son's all came back neg. And start elimitating wheat. We have a diffent kid as a result. takes a little bit of an effort, but totally worth it.

Thanks, I will give a try withdrawn both off gluten/wheat to see if any benefit. They are due for skin prick on wheat, soy etc in two weeks time.

Soph, first step for a gluten intolerance is to have a blood test (testing for gliadins in the blood stream I think) if this comes back positive your son will need to have a gastroscopy to confirm the diagnosis although a peadiatrician might suggest a gluten challenge as a non-invasive form of diagnosis it won't diagnose whether he has coeliacs disease or not.

Symptoms for coeliacs disease are contradictory (eg diarrhoea and constipation are both symtpoms) and not alway obvious.  Check out this site for further details and see if any or all of it matches (nb. coeliacs don't display all symptoms) http://www.colourcards.com/coeliac/

I wasn't diagnosed until I was 26, I was not underweight and many of the symptoms I had were mild and other I would have never put down to gluten in my diet for eg I was on condroitens for joint pain (used by arthritics) by the time I was 24.  In hindsight I suffered from it for a long time.

The tests to diagnose are invasive but I had gene test done on Michaela a couple of years ago and she carries the gene so I will have her tested when she's older (nb. it's very hard to diagnos in young children because generally they haven't consumed enough gluten to cause major damage to the stomach yet) docs prefer to wait until kids are 3-4yo unless their symptoms are obvious.