My grandson, age 6, has in the past 2 weeks developed a rash that moves about his body. You can see these red spots or lines develop and disappear, but at any given time they cover virtually his hole body. My wife saw a red line appear on his upper cheek and, a matter of seconds, go up and around his ear.

In recent days they have become welts and small blisters, which to me indicates his condition is worsening. There are no additional symptoms such as fever, itching, pain, nausea, etc.

Their doctor says its an allergy to 'something' and pretty much dismisses it. I think its something in the blood and a complete workup should be done.

Any Ideas?

Uh, Cannon, it's "whole" body. I know we have a lot of orifices, but...

Here's one thing you might try: antihistimine. I'm surprised your doctor didn't suggest it. Wasn't he interested in helping? Regular benedryl should do the job.

Catty (who keeps quarts around the house)

I know its 'whole', I just haven't found the edit button that used to be on here to change it.

Yes, benedryl does seem to help, but that's treating the symptom, not the cause.

In addition to the previous information, the rash disappears at night while he sleeps, only to reappear within minutes of his awakening.

Any suggestions as to the cause of this will be greatly appreciated.

Well, sounds as if whatever causes it isn't in his bedroom. Any new upholstery cleaning or rug cleaning products used lately?

Since you suspect it's internally generated, sit down and record every single thing he eats each day. (It would help if you would write down what he has eaten for the past few days, too, if you can, especially if it was new to his diet.)

Starting with his next meal, put him on a really simple diet: a simple rice cereal with soy milk for breakfast, (no dyes, no sugars, not even honey), and plain water to drink. The other snacks or meals should be very simple too: no animal milk, no eggs, no cheese, no seafoods, no nuts, no citrus fruits, no strawberries.

Try to stick with one grain for this test. If you use rice cereal for breakfast, serve rice cakes instead of bread for other snacks or meals. Don't give him yeast bread, just unleavened bread.

After at least four days you may notice the skin problem is better. This may mean that he had a reaction to some other food not on this list. If it's not better, he may be allergic to a food on the list, or the problem may not be due to food at all.

In any case
(1) Reintroduce foods which he normally ate without problems one per day
(2) Don't re-introduce foods that contain dyes, artificial flavors or coloring, preservative chemicals such as nitrites, etc.
(3) When you re-introduce a grain, e.g. wheat, then replace the previous grain completely. If you started with rice, then switch to wheat, have wheaten breakfast cereals and breads too, and stop using rice products.
(4) When you re-introduce animal milk and discontinue soy milk, don't re-introduce cheese or ice cream the same day; cheese and ice cream contain lots of stuff besides milk.

You will be watching for two things: (1) that a re-introduced food causes the condition to worsen
(2) that a food which has been dropped (e.g. a certain grain) was causing the problem.

That is why it is important to keep a day-book.

This test has two benefits:
(1) It may help you identify the problem
(2) When you carefully re-introduce foods, only introduce healthy, simple foods: e.g. an orange instead of 'orange cocktail beverage' from the juice section of your supermarket. This will help his eating habits a lot if he's a typical kid.

There's practically no known food except water which cannot cause somebody a reaction. So you even have to be suspicious of the simple foods you began the test with!

You can't combine this test with antihistamine treatments because the drug will suppress the response, if any, to the food.

Explain the whole test to the kid. If he sees the point of it, he will be less likely to cheat. Kids love it when adults explain things to them.

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Meantime you could check his environment for allergens to which he has been recently exposed: new pet, new bath soap or scented dryer products, etc.

I've printed your response to give to my daughter.
That sounds more sensible than what their doctor told them.

sometimes these things just go away: it could even be a response to a viral infection. The doctor -- possibly -- was simply preferring to give it time before embarking on a workup. "Something in the blood" is unlikely, at least in the sense of infection, and labwork could be unrevealing. Going through the suggestions of babthrower will give them something to do while seeing if it goes away, and if it does, they can say it was the diet thing. If it doesn't, it'll be time to look further. Absent other symptoms, it's safe to wait as the doctor suggested. By the bye, the term for getting red marks in response to touches is "dermographia." This sounds like a part of what's being seen.