he is coming tommorow so we shall see

that's interesting to know. One of my washing machine seals was perished to buggery with the creams

Hi Misdee,

What a lovely post - thank you

I dont know how you manage with all those itchy girlies. How on earth do you keep on top of all the skin care? We are just getting DS to do a bit now he is 6. We would have started earlier but his skin was so bad and he has some learning difficulties.

I do like to have a chat about different approaches. Its helpful to feel you are not alone. Unfortuantely I have had a few really horrible comments on MNs and its put me off a bit. I get DLA for DS's excema and LD and was told I was making money out of him. Nice.

I think its hard for people to understand what severe excema is and how it impacts on the child's and the family's life.

But I know a little girl who has a skin condidtion FAR worse than even the worse excema and I count my blessings.

Thanks again for the pep talk

hiya chegirl.

i am a mum to 4 girls with eczema. two are diet related, two arent. all are 'atopic'

dd1 is the one who has the worst eczema. at birth she was scaley and sore. and it has caried on for 9years. hers flares up if she eats artifial additive riddled food. [yuk]. also if she sits on the grass, gets to hot, too cold or too stressed.

dd2+3 are just because. no links to diet wit their eczema.

dd4 is onyl 7months. has had eczema since birth. however hers is link to her milk allergy. since i've removed most milk from my diet (stil waiting to see a dietician and dd4 blood results regarding soya before i cut it completel) her skin has improved immensely over the last 2 months.

i used to feel like i wasnt doing enough, the worlds worst mother, when dd1 was so sore her skin was bleeding. but over the years i have relaxed and just accepted i have itchy kids, and how best to treat them. dd1 has the added complication of developing allergies to creams after prolonged use. so i do sigh a bit when people say 'oh have you tried xxx for it'. if i'm chatting to other mums of itchy kids i try to say 'oh what are you using, have yu heard of this stuff as well? its meant to be good' without making them feel bad.

chin up chuck, dd1 skin has improved to almost normal, its taken a while, but the end is in sight. her dermo was predicting her skin would be clear by the age of 8, but at age 9, its not wuite there but a vast vast improvement.

regarding door seals, the greasy emmoillants can rot the rubber, so its best to wipe them after washing emoillant soiled clothes with a soapy cloth. i find faiy liquid works well at breaking down the greasy deposits.

I hope so. At one point I was sure he was getting better. Now his skin is awful again . Still, he is not as bad as when he was little.

I get pretty fed up of people suggesting that my child with nut allergy ought to eat nuts to desensitise them. Someone died recently trying that without proper supervision and it would be very difficult for us to get to Cambridge. But if a friend hadn't shared their gluten excluding story with me I'd still have skin bleeding in winter, be exhausted, falling asleep after meals, fat from lack of exercise and depressed by all of the rest of it. So I can kind of see both sides of the problem.

I had a friend at primary school whose child had really bad eczema, who was doing wet wraps and like you was fed up of trying eveything. But their child did grow out of the worst of it when they'd given up all hope of that happening. She didn't think she'd changed anything and couldn't identify a reason. It could still happen.

I am happy to listen to suggestions tatt I just get a little when I tried harder i can cure my DS . Not referring to any post on here BTW. Its something I hear/read fairly frequently.

There are lots of different types of eczema and loads of triggers. Sometimes children recover spontaniously and it happens to coincide with a treatment/exclusion. Some children are so allergic to dairy their breast feeding mothers cant even have a latte.

Because so very many kids get eczema its is often seen as a trivial condition. I have been criticised for recieving DLA for my DS because of this attitude. My DS1 had eczema and although it was horrible, it was patchy and he grew out of it pretty quickly. DS2 has had it since birth and it affects all of his skin. His skin care takes up a lot of time and his learning/concentration and sleep is compromised. I know of children who have it even worse than him and I really dont know how they and their families cope.

Its really good to share ideas and treatments. I find it interesting and sometimes helpful.

I find that a weekly wash of bath toys and plug in the top shelf of the dishwasher(unless they are v thin plastic) gets rid of the gunk and kills off any nasties. Also washing the non-slip mat in the washing machine.

sometimes parents of young children haven't heard of things that may help and other times they have already tried everything possible and are fed up of hearing about things that just don't work for them. So it's difficult to know when to offer suggestions, even if you have sort of been invited . Maybe everyone should put a signature on their eczema posts saying tried milk exclusion, oats, aveeno and so on .

But I'm still going to be a possible pain and mention one thing I haven't seen anyone say they've tried. Since I stopped eating gluten my skin has improved. My wrists didn't bleed last winter, it wasn't a mild winter and I didn't take the sort of care I usually do with gloves/ moisturiser! There is some sort of logic to this since the gut is the largest immune organ in the body and anything that irritates it might possibly damage your immune system but it could be peculiar to me.

It's also possible that the special digestive enzymes that work on gluten (like peptizyde or Biocare Glutenzyme plus) might help without being gluten free but they don't totally remove the effect of gluten.

My Ds used to get a bright red and very sore ring of eczema around his mouth and a big patch on his back. I discovered that tomato's and citrus/acidic foods and drinks caused it and once I'd cut those out, the difference was huge,(within a week)but not gone completely. One of my friends who's daughter had it to the extreme asked me if Ds ate yoghurt. He did and she said 'cut them out solo'. I did and in(he isn't lactose intollerant either, so it wasn't the dairy in the yoghurt)4 days, no more eczema. None! so he had no more of these foods and after about a year, I tried him on either a yoghurt or a tomato and then every 6 months approximately to see if a patch appeared and if it didn't and eventually after around 7 years, he can eat anything. A long time I know, but it worked for him.

Thanks I will check it out. It may be something we can save for. I will talk to dermatologist about it at next appointment too.

Last time I looked into it it cost about £250, but the Moneysavingexpert site has info on latest offers.

Dont be sorry ourlady. Its a good point. We have thought about it and there was a trial we tried to get on. We just havent the money to get it done (last time I looked it was really expensive). It is something I would like because I think it would help DS.

My mum lives in a very soft water area and I make the most of it when we visit.

I'm sorry to do that 'have you tried....?' thing, but I was told by a kitchen designer that a lot of his clients were doctors and consultants ('twas a very upmarket company), and without exception they always had water softeners fitted in their houses (the sort that add salt to the supply rather than the magnetic or ionizing kind), as they all knew that this was better for the skin.

I haven't got around to trying it (I have sensitive skin rather than eczema) - but I know I feel much less itchy when on holiday in a soft water area.

turnip that gunk gets all over the bath toys too. Not much you can do to get rid of it if its got bad. I have found best to scrub everything with hot soapy water immediately after bath.

Its a pain but its the only way to keep the stuff under control. I live in a very hard water area and I think that makes it worse.

Blimey how on earth did this thread get so contraversial?

I am really glad you cured your child cocogarden. It must be a huge relief for you.

My son has severe atopic eczema. He isnt allergic to dairy food. He is allergic to pollens and house dust mite. His skin is made worse by heat, cold, water, dirt, most carpets, synthetic fibres, sweat, stress and excitement. I am not sure how I could eliminate these factors from his life.

I have got rid of all my carpets and as many soft furnishings as possible, I hoover at least twice a day, I air the whole house for most of the day (even when its freezing), he has a special play area in the garden with rubber play bark and no plants, he has a allinone suit to wear when he plays out in the garden, he wears cotton clothes and wears at least two outfits a day, nothing is worn more than once before being washed (in non bio without fabric softner) he showers as soon as he gets in from school to remove pollens and dust, his bedding is changed every two days, he has no soft toys (neither does his little brother), he has medication applied anything from 3 to 8 times a day, his pillow and duvet are washed weekly and replaced every few months. He also has wet wraps, medicated bandages, pain killers and antihistamines.

But if you think we are not trying quite hard enough, please feel free to give me some tips

Believe me I have been down the dairy route with my own eczema to no avail.

I am atopic and that's that. I also have asthma and heyfever and am rather beginning to resent being told I haven't tried hard enough to eliminate the triggers.

Just because it works for you doesn't mean it has to work for everyone.

Over and out.

That's interesting about the washing machien door seal. I think the bath oils are playing havoc with my bath plug hole. There is all this black mouldy gunk that I think is a build up of oil. No idea how to get rid of it...

Some dairy intolerances can trigger a type of eczema but it's not the same as atopic eczema which comes from yourself, not necessarily outside triggers.

Well my body doesn't like stress, sun, or any type of pollen but it's impossible to remove THOSE from my life.

I think cocogarden is right & well done for her standing up & saying it. Eczema is a reaction to something the body doesn't like & dairy is a trigger.

Try taking dairy out for 6 months & I bet there would a massive difference.

My daughters eczema was probably brought on by pollen,because she only had it in the summer,but was advised by doctor to only bath her once a week and only with special eczema oil in the bath and it cleared up within a few weeks,although she never had severe eczema.He said that all her natural oils were being washed away by too frequent washing.

Sorry for the hijack chegirl - am interested in your door seal, honest!

at cocogarden.

Eczema can't be CURED. It's not a disease. It's a condition.

So you have to learn to live with it in most cases.

I have done all sorts of blood tests, skin tests etc. but I have atopic eczema which I was BORN with (ie came out of my mother's tummy covered in it).

There is not much I can do except try to live with it.

If only it were that easy for all of us cocogarden.
In the case of my DCs it is not diet related and it isn't always. Not for me either and I have been living with it for a very long time.
However I'm glad you have found the trigger for your DD.

Why don't you try to cure the eczema problem instead of trying to change your life to leave with it?
My little girl suffers with eczema and I found by process of elimination that she is lactose intolerant. Nobody should have problem processing lactose because everything we need to do it is in the milk itself. Except that it is all destroyed by pasteurisation so we tried raw milk and after just a couple of months the difference was amazing. She is so much better that we can forget the creams.

Why do you need a machine to do extra rinses? Why not just set it to do another one yourself?

Apparently its darker grey and bugger to fit. I will let you know when it arrives and try and get a product number.

Interesting. Googled this and didn't find it quickly but did find these washing machines ISE1606W - ISE10 Washing Machine, LG WM16225FD
that do extra rinses for people with eczema.

Also a suggestion that putting WD40 on the door seal after use helps.

I wonder what it looks like and how it is different?

How interesting! Why don't they make this common knowledge? they'd maybe sell more washing machines on that info alone!

My washing machine broke down again last week. It does this a lot but luckily my OH is fond of extended warrenties and it worked out well in this case.

The machine man came round today and was very nice. I was chatting about how much use the machine gets due to DS's severe exzema. He said 'do you use creams?' i said yes, lots. He then said 'I bet Iknow what your door seal looks like' and he was right. He has now ordered me a special door seal designed specifically for people who use eczema medications . My machine is a whirlpool and he wasnt sure if other makes have developed one.

He is coming to fix it on Thursday. I am pathetically excited.