Parents Help:Need Opinions on Possible Allergy Development

[Agility4mercy]

Ok, I haven't yet looked online for possible answers nor have I yet to seek actually medical opinions because I would rather see if I am maybe looking for something that doesn't exist.

When my little boy was born, we lived in a mobile home that had electric baseboard heaters and a wood stove. During his first winter with the wood stove, he was always stuffed up, always coughing, restless, and if he threw a temper tantrum or a crying fit, less than a minute into the fit he would throw up. And not just a small amount I'm talking like everything he just consumed. Which let me tell you upset him even more, and made me want to throw up behind him.

Ok, I haven't yet looked online for possible answers nor have I yet to seek actually medical opinions because I would rather see if I am maybe looking for something that doesn't exist. But I did post this to Biron's Parentstop.net, so you can already tell I'm looking for a wode variety of answers should they exist.

Now last winter we lived in a small house which ran on oil heat and a small heater fan that I purchased to provide some extra warmth to the upper level. Not once during last winter did my son ever get sick. He was never stuffed up, sleep soundly through the night, and he never threw up when he had temper tantrum. All in all it made for a real nice winter.

This year we live a different house (again ) which has oil heat and a wood stove. We have had to run the wood stove on a few occasions these past few weeks and my son (who is now 2) is again running around stuffed up, coughing, extremely restless while sleeping to the point he's taking 3+ hour nap during the day just to catch up. And he's back to throwing up when he has a fit.

Is this a sign of a possible allergic reaction to the wood stove/smoke?
Or am I just destined to having one good winter, one bad winter for the rest of his childhood?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I am starting my online quest tonight, but some extra help would not be turned down. Thanks in advance!!

[haveblue]

Wood smoke is extremely unhealthy (no less than 11 carcinogens), so I wouldn't be surprised if that were of some relevance. It seems unlikely, but based on what you've described, I'd say try to move to somewhere without a wood stove..

Hope everything is okay.

[BabyDawn]

I believe that haveblue may be right.

My son was sick the entire first year of his life. We didn't have a woodstove, but we lived in a basement apartment where it was really damp and moldy. He was so sick with constant ear infections, throat infections and even RSV. We moved when we thought it might be the apt and low and behold, he was immediately better.

You can get out of a lease from the dr if you believe the home is making your child sick. That's how we got out of our lease. Our doctor wrote us a letter and it was as easy as that.

Good luck to you and I hope the little guy is feeling better soon! Nothing worse than having sick children!

[Agility4mercy]

Thanks Haveblue and BabyDawn for the input so far,

One plus side is that I am not in a lease only a month-to-month. However, this place (according to the landlord) uses about 4/5 cord of wood along with 1 tank of oil to last just one winter. So I can just imagine the oil bill without the wood heat as a supplement, but we are definately searching for a new place, I think we might try to find a house to buy or rent-to-own.
Paying $675/month plus utilities, with the added cost of oil, just isn't worth it. I could have my own home for that price.

Does anyone know if they can actually perform an allergy test for wood smoke?

Thanks again

[Chinimickolot]

They can perfom allergy tests for anything and everything.

[haveblue]

I completely forgot to mention about my own environmental sickness. When I was younger (4-5) we lived in a town in BC that had a pulp factory, and often the air would smell awful from it. I used to get tonsillitis regularly (just about every month) because of it.