What causes dark circles under the eyes in children?

The Pediatric Insider

© 2017 Roy Benaroch, MD

Rachel wrote in a topic suggestion:

My 8 year old daughter has for years had dark circles under her eyes. What causes this? She is very healthy and hardly ever gets sick. I have ‘heard’ this can be caused by food allergies or liver problems, but I’ve been very skeptical about that.

Rachel, I see these in kids all the time. Most commonly, I think it’s just normal – especially in children with a fair complexion. It’s easier to notice these in kids with thin, light, milky sort of skin (often with light eyes and light or red hair, too.)

One medical issue that can contribute to darkness under the eyes is congestion in the veins lining the nose. This makes the blood vessels dilate and become more noticeable. You’ll see this in children with nasal allergies or “hay fever” to airborne allergens like pollen or dust or molds. That’s why these dark areas are sometimes called “allergic shiners.” If the nasal allergy symptoms are bothering the child, this can be treated by avoiding the triggers (not always easy), or nasal spray OTC allergy sprays like Nasacort or Flonase. Oral antihistamines like Zyrtec or Claritin will be less effective for nasal congestion.

I’ve also often heard that lack of sleep can cause dark circles – Google it, and there are plenty of people who say this. I couldn’t find any evidence that this is true in children, but it might be. And more sleep couldn’t hurt.

As for food allergies – you know, I wouldn’t have thought so, at least not in my experience. But this report showed that about 50% of kids who had classic GI symptoms of food allergy also had allergic shiners. So, yes, in a child who has GI symptoms of food allergies, they might get shiners too. But in a child with no GI symptoms, I don’t think allergic shiners would be a likely isolated finding of food allergy. And liver disease? No, I don’t think so. I couldn’t find any evidence for that at all, at least not in children.

So: pretty much benign, maybe related to allergies, and probably best ignored unless the allergic symptoms themselves are bothering the child. You can add “dark circles under eyes” to our ever-growing list of things parents really don’t need to worry about!

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Tags: allergies

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