Hello. Guess what, another eczema baby

[osbornes]

Hello all, have been reading this and many other sites with interest in our hope to improve our 11 month old daughters eczema.

I have to say, compared to many of the tales i have read on here, she's not so bad off, but it would still be great to improve her quality of life by improving her itchyness.

Story starts at 8 weeks old when finally a doctor at the hospital diagnosed her with a Diary allergy and switched her feed to Pregestimil. This helped within a week and her face started to recover back to normal.

You can see how bad her skin got in this picture.




All was well skin wise until 4 months when the eczema got so bad on her chest that she scratched it to bleeding. Doc's gave us emollients & mild steroid cream and by the use of a bib at night to block the scratching we managed to get on top of it.

Another quiet period skin wise until 7 months when specific areas started to flare up and we are now battling with these. These areas are specifically backs of knees (Bad) and interior of the right elbow (Bad) but the left is fine??? and both ankles (milder).

Try as we might with lots of moisturising & infrequent use of the steroid cream when it gets really bad & only bathing once every other day, we seem to be standing still at best with improving these areas.

Our latest try has been with Pure Potions www.purepotions.co.uk which has probably been the most effective and I would encourage other to try it.

We have 2 cats but a very clean home - vacuumed daily - and she sleeps in cotton baby grows & a specialist growbag.

She has no dairy but now takes soya milk, which we have now halted for a week to see if it improves the situation.

We wash her clothes in Surecare but as this is related to the creases area of skin im thinking it may not be clothing related?!?!

If anyone has any other similar experiences of these crease area issues I'd be very interested and good luck to the rest of you, there's nothing more heartbreaking than seeing your little one in pain and having no idea how you can help


Gareth

[Andrea]

Hello there

Congratulations of your beautiful baby girl, she's truly gorgeous!
Sorry to here she's been so sore; I'm pleased your Dr picked up her dairy problems.

I have tried the pure potions cream, it is very nice - I'm pleased it's helping for you.

Creases are one of the common spots for eczema.
Often because these areas are damp.  The lady on the sloveeczema site suggests this can be due to damp contact with the clothing and any detergent on the clothes or something that the child is ingesting that is being carried out of the body as sweat and is irritating the skin.  Soooo   not sure how helpful that is!
It could be the weather is making her warmer.

Surecare is a very mild detergent, but it is still possible that it could be causing the problem I guess.
I'd recommend having a look at the Solveeczema site to see if anything resonates with you.

Once an area is inflamed and sore it can be harder to settle as the skin is still healing for several weeks once it looks 'normal'
What happens if you settle these areas totally with your steroid cream?  Then moisturise them lots?  Dose the eczema come straight back?

[osbornes]

Hello & thanks for the reply,

Regarding food we have cut Soya for a week from her diet, but after 4 days we see little difference so I don't thank that's a factor which is good news as shes diary free so options are limited.

Im going to get soapflakes today to start washing with them - it's worth a go.

the 1% steroid scream works wonders - it really does remove the redness - but we have tried to keep it to a minimum as shes so young. We've done maybe 3 days of 2 applications a day till the area looks better & then just moisturise from there - but it still comes back.

Maybe we should do 1 week with steroid cream twice a day & then just moisturise.

Bad news is yesterday she realised that she could scratch her irritated right elbow area with her left hand for the first time. This is bad news as it has stopped the area getting cut up.

[EmmaCole]

Hello the Osbornes!

Sorry to hear you are having such a hard time. We have been really lucky with Lucie as once we had seen a consultant we were then allocated an eczema nurse who we saw weekly. With her help, and the dreaded steroids we have really seen an improvement - currently no eczema patches. Our instructions are to use the steroids on a monday and friday (easy to remember) and then, in the case of any flare up back to daily. This is our third week of mon and fri applications and so far so good. We will be returning soon to the eczema nurse to see if we can downgrade the steroid as all is well. Have you seen a dermatologist or just your GP - if not push for a referral.

Good Luck

[Andrea]

I was just wondering if the eczema came straight back when you stopped steroids.
To me the fact it comes back means there’s something there 'causing' it to come back.

My little boy had a little patch on his face, I just couldn't clear it.  I'd use steroids.... it would settle.  Then come straight back.
I noticed when it got red - he'd been in our dinning room.

I then worked out; it was when he'd been playing/chewing some old toys of mine.    I washed these toys in soap, and the patch went and never returned.
The toys when I'd got them out of the loft 8 months earlier had been washed in fairy liquid

With regard to the detergent thing, I've been helping a couple of friends locally to go detergent free.  I'd never under estimate the effect that detergents can have on these sensitive little children’s skin.

1 parent (whose little girls eczema was just behind her knees) like me got some new organic bits and bobs and hand washed them.  None of her little girl’s clothes go into the washing machine and she uses natural cream..... The change in her little girl’s skin is amazing, like Josh she's free of eczema and other than a little flare now and then it is great.

The other parent is still using the washing machine and old clothing, there road is way more rocky and although they are seeing big improvements they get set backs all the time.  It's hard to see the progress they are making often as one item of clothing can set her skin way back again, and the patches do not get the time to heal properly.

If you decide to go detergent free, I'd really advise to try and 'test' your daughters clothing first.  Going detergent free can be amazing and have unbelievable results but you have to be so meticulous that it's hard to notice the effects doing it 1/2 and 1/2 in fact a mixture of detergents and soap can in fact be more irritating to the skin than just soap.

I really must spend time writing up a page on this properly

I just want to say, if you want to try 'detergent free' and I'd strongly advise it to any parent of a baby with eczema - do a test first.  
Get a couple of new clothing items that cover the babies body, organic may be better but any new clothing is better than an item that you have washed.  
Then let your child ware only those items for at least 1 week.   Wash one ware one, and wash it only in very hot water in a sink washed out with 'true' soap first.  (All by hand, no washing machine rinse or spin and no tumble dry)  With in the week the skin should be settling down.

This should give you an idea of how the detergents are affecting the skin   If you see an improvement then you will need to start ridding your home of detergents, but just 'using' soap flakes unfortunately won't give you much of idea as to if it will help or not.

[osbornes]

Thanks for the replies Emma & Andrea,

we did 5 days of steroids twice a day and it's marvellous stuff - the redness had gone but she did still itch some.

But now we have just tried to moisturise and we can see some traces of it coming back especially on her arm.

So we have Granny's sopaflakes now that we are going to try on her clothes and bedding.

It's so tricky with all the things going on to work out the trigger. She's just started nursery - where it gets worse, but then she doesn't sleep well at nursery so this may be leading to getting worse (stress related). Also her night time sleep which had been great has now taken a dive with her crying at night & going into her cot. But again is this the Eczema or maybe just the muggy nights, just another 'phase' she's going through or is she teething. It's impossible to tell.

We have reintroduced Soya now and it seems to change nothing which is good news.

So we'll carry on with the flakes and keep our fingers crossed.

[Andrea]

Thanks for the update

It sounds like the stress may be causing it, has she settled any better at nursery yet?
How is the change to soap flakes going?

[roz]

Hi there!

I think i may be the mama of one of the babys andrea was talking about.
My little girl got excema around 5 months old, and none of the prescribed lotions and potions did any good. She had to have steroid cream behind her knees where, as soon as i stopped the steroid cream within 2 days the skin would be weeping and infected again. It was so sad to see my lovely girl sore.
Then thank my lucky stars i spoke to andrea who made it all better!!
Here is what worked for us:
Only bath every other day, to begin with when her skin was super sore, just bathed once a week, sounds a bit icky, but a top and tail was fine and it gave her skin a chance to recover.
Most importantly we got rid of detergents, used soap nuts for everything! i washed and washed some towels which i put over her mattress in case anything in there was affecting her skin. Bought some organic clothes for her and the beeswax cream from itchy baby which i doused her in.
I cannot stress the difference this made!!
You would never know she had had excema, its amazing!
I had some weleda cream left over which i popped on her yesterday and today for the first time in 2 months she has sore spotty patches behind her legs. Its amazing how something can trigger it.
I really hope you get your beautiful girl less itchy
 

[osbornes]

Well thanks for the info people.

She's getting on better at Nursery now which is a relief - only downside is that they don't manage her eczema through the day as well as we do so there has been some deterioration in her arm as she now scratches it. But a quick bit of bandaging up before shes goes seems to be doing the trick.

The soapflakes are now in full use and her legs are looking better but as ever, we are unsure whether this is due to one thing or another. We have very hard water here and it is difficult to get the soap flake to foam in the wash but we will persist.

We've continued with purepotions skin salve but Im going to get some of the bees wax cream as suggested and try this on her next week maybe.

One other thing we noticed is that having flowers in the house makes her face very irritated so it would seem that her has a pollen allergy also. 

Other than that it's just trying to manage at as ever, but things are looking somewhat better.!

Anyone got any advice for swimming in public pools with her Eczema? She's not been swimming yet but we want to soon.

She was 1 last week - how much better her face skin look now at 1 year!

[osbornes]

One other point that I have noticed in the last week is that the scratching is linked to stress etc. I can explain.

Our daughter is 1 and is trying to walk/talk and teeth all at the same time. We assume this is why she has quite a few unhappy days at the moment - not made any easier by the eczema. But I have noticed, when for instance, she cannot get through the stairgate and gets upset about it she will sit down, yell, maybe start sobbing, but will go for the back of her knees and scratch scratch scratch. She'll do the same with her elbow when she gets pissed off.

Has anyone else noticed this link?

She's a super active baby, never sits (literally) and plays, just does laps of the lounge going from one thing to another. I suppose this could cause sweat and therefore more itching?

Maybe the change in weather for autumn will help

[Andrea]

Awww she's gorgeous! 

Josh scratches with stress too, and tiredness.  He claws and scrapes the back of his neck.

If you have a look on the summer info page on the site there’s swimming info on there   Have you tried using soda crystals with the soap flakes?

My laundry method   '
The method we use in a spoon full of washing soda, or soda crystals into the soap draw of the washing machine.   
Wash this down with a pint of hot water.
Mix about 200mls of soap flakes with very hot water and stir until it's a soapy solution, then pour this into the washing machine.   
Add a further 1 or 2 pints of hot water and start washing machine immediately.

When it's finished use an extra rinse.'       The extra hot water & the soda crystals all help