Mumtodd, I posted this in another thread, excuse me for copying and pasting but I am about to go out. If you have more questions please ask
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It's terrible to see our children getting red, then itchy, then full of cuts caused by scratching and finally the skin weeping with infection, but unfortunately every child is different and eczema is different in each case, so you will need to keep trying different creams until you find "the one" that suits your child.
The HC only helps to stop the inflamation (redness) before it evolves to a worse stage (mentioned above), it won't cure eczema, it only sorts a symptom. The only thing you can realistically control to prevent the redness (or flares) coming back after they have been cleared is to keep applying emollients. If the one you are using doesn't work try another and another until you find "the" one. My personal ranking of the creams I have tried is the following: Aqueous cream - E45, Hidrous cream, Diprobase, Lipikar Baume, Aveeno and Eucerin 10% Urea. Being Eucerin 10% the stronger.
Bear in mind that until you find the right emollient for your child you will need to apply any emollient she is on as many times as it is needed (when DS was at his worst we covered him in Diprobase at every nappy change, but once we changed to Eucerin we went from 8-9 times a day to 3). You can get Aveeno and Eucerin in Boots for around 7 or 8 pounds for a 200+ml bottle. If you can afford it, get a bottle and if it works, you can try to convince your GP to prescribe them, mine did.
One of the most frustrating things about eczema is that the child may be covered in rashes and scratching his skin off but by the time you arrive to the GP it all has magically disapeared and then they think you are over reacting! (AAAARGGHHH!!!). My advice would be to take pictures of it for the doctor to see. But bear in mind that, as disturbing as they are, rashes are only a first grade eczema, and in those cases the best thing is to keep things simple (HC + emollient) and wait for it to improve, it certainly does in most cases.
DS only got refered to a NHS dermatologist after we took him to see a dermatologist privately who assesed the severity of DS's eczema. Even then, the first time I saw the NHS dermatologist she told me DS's eczema was not really that bad, but when I showed him DS's cot sheet covered in blood (he had weeping and bleeding patches from head to toe which became worse at night), I got a year pass to see a NHS dermatologist without the need to be refered by a GP.
In terms of products for the bath, DS responded better to Oilatum Plus (Regular Oilatum didn't help at all, nor did Balneum but, as with emollients, the fact that they didn't work for him , doesn't mean by that they wouldn't have been perfect for children suffering of similar intensity eczema).
some creams like Eucerin intensify the effect of other creams (that why it's advised to wait 20 minutes to apply a different cream. Besides... if you mix the HC with another cream like acqueous cream you are actually making the HC less effective, I have noticed that applying less HC than advised only makes longer the time you have to use it and therefore you end up using more HC for a longer time, use it as directed the number of applications is significatively reduced, as once the cycle is broken you only need to maintain the skin moisturised to keep it fine. Otherwise you can end up using HC in a regular basis.
HTH