My anxious child - Allergies and stress, how one can make the other worse.

I myself have anxiety from time to time and it seems that so does my 5 year old.

I suspect that her stress is manifesting in physical ways also, as she complains of a sore tummy and I am suspecting it is increasing and prolonging a small allergic reaction into a larger one.

So while the stress itself isn't causing an allergic reaction, a minor allergic reaction (to pollen or the red food colouring she is allergic too) happens, then it seems to be prolonged and flares up when she is in a stressed situation.

I learned that when you are stressed out, your body releases hormones and chemicals (including histamine, that leads to allergy symptoms).

So the stress can make an allergic reaction worse by increasing the histamine in your bloodstream.

Scarlett had a 3 day allergy over her eyes which seemed to flare up for no reason and then go away... then come back again.

I suspect the initial reaction came from touching something that her body wasn't used to (we went to the museum and touched a LOT of things that day) and then getting a bit of a reaction, but then I read up about stress enhancing the histamine in the body and increasing the severity.

So maybe this has something to do with it as transitioning to school seems to be causing a lot of anxiety for her at the moment?

She is now taking her lunchbox to school which is new, as daycare supplied her lunch.

I have told her that we don't share lunches because there could be a child there who might be allergic to the food in her lunchbox and also that she shouldn't take food from other kids as it might contain the red food colouring she is allergic too.

But she came home the first week with her lunch box pretty much full.