Common causes of misdiagnosed allergies in kids

Ronald Ferdman, MD Pediatrician, Allergy & Immunology, Children's Hospital Of Los Angeles, shares advice for parents on how head colds can sometimes be misdiagnosed as an allergy in your child
Common Causes Of Misdiagnosed Allergies In Kids
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Common causes of misdiagnosed allergies in kids

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Usually it's pretty obvious when a child has allergies, but there are other conditions that can mimic allergies. Probably the number one is just a plain common cold. A cold can cause the exact same type of symptoms; you could have sneezing and itching and a runny nose. And when kids start school, they catch an unbelievable amount of colds. The average child will catch 8 - 10 colds in their first school year. And it's not spread out evenly throughout the entire year; they're kind of compressed during the fall and winter months. So it looks like the child is sick over and over and over again, and some parents just can't believe that their child is catching so many colds and they assume it's some other sort of disease, such as allergies. But most often, it's colds that are causing it, and those are the two that get kind of confused the most. Other conditions such as sinus infections and ear infections can also mimic allergies; skin infections, eczema for example, but it's usually just a plain old common cold.

Ronald Ferdman, MD Pediatrician, Allergy & Immunology, Children's Hospital Of Los Angeles, shares advice for parents on how head colds can sometimes be misdiagnosed as an allergy in your child

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Ronald Ferdman, MD

Pediatrician, Allergy and Immunology, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Ronald Ferdman received his BA from the University of California at San Diego and his MD from Hahnemann University (now Drexel University) in Philadelphia.  He completed both his Pediatric residency and his fellowship in Allergy/Immunology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, then obtained a Masters in Medical Education (MEd) from the University of Southern California (USC) School of Education.  He currently is an attending physician in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.  He is board certified allergy/immunologist, and is a fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.  His current interests include management of allergic and immunologic diseases in high-risk children and education for families and clinicians. He is a California native, where he currently lives with his wife Susan and their three of four children, and spends his spare time wishing for more.

 

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