Clarty epaderm everywhere!

[greencybermummy]

Does anyone else feel like they spend their life covered in epaderm? DD (3) is so so dry that we need to cream her numerous times a day and I just feel that I spend my life with streaks of epaderm all over everything! Sometimes I strip off myself to apply it to her but sometimes its not practical! Those times when she wants to give me a big hug mid cream and I'm thinking 'Noooo'. She needs it behind her ears and on her neck too so her hair is always lank and greasy.

The worst part is that an hour or so later and you can't even tell she was greased up and we need to start again.

How do those of you who use steroid cream and epaderm manage the time gap in between? Any advice welcome.

Luckily for me those days are over for my girls but I do remember realising after it stopped how lovely the skin on my hands had been because of it. They are like sandpaper these days. Every cloud....

It's a nightmare, isn't it? We use 50/50 most of the time which is like runny Vaseline - truly awful! All these emollients also clog up and wreck your washing machine over time plus they destroy the elastic in their clothes thus making my son's pyjama bottoms fall down all the time! The worst is when I get the stuff all over my suit just before I leave for work, lovely. But hey ho, them's the breaks as they say, and if it helps their skin, who cares eh? Re: gap between steriod and emollient, I usually apply the steriod first thing then give him breakfast/brush teeth etc then apply emollient and get him dressed. In the evening, I apply steriod straight after bath then give him his milk substitute/brush teeth before applying emollient just before bed.

It is hard to fit everything in especially on a school morning when you need to allow a half hour gap between the steroid and emollient. Like freefrommum we do the steroid first thing then breakfast before the epaderm or disgusting gunk as my dd affectionately calls it. We usually sit her on a towel spread on the bed or sofa to minimise accidental mess - that's on the days when she's cooperating, otherwise it's a free for all and it goes everywhere as we attempt to pin down and apply at the same time.

One thing that helps a bit with keeping hair epaderm-free is to use her pyjama-top or t-shirt as an impromptu turban ie pulling it only part way off so that the neck hole stays around the hair-line and the body of the t-shirt hangs down and covers up the hair.

We do that with jammies too pink. I also sometimes put a vest or bodysuit on them first and stick my hands up or down inside it to cover their torso.

My upstairs carpets are ruined by it. No point in replacing them though until they're old enough to know not to run off in the middle of cream application

Some useful tips there, many thanks, am going to try the t-shirt/pj's top thing on the head!!

I am so with you on this! We've recently moved to 50/50, which I love - I find it spreads much more easily and actually washes out of my clothes without leaving those horrible greasy streaks you get with epaderm. Unfortunately we've had an extremely prolonged flare and so have had ichthammol to contend with as well for the last couple of months - now that's truly yuck! We both have old clothes we keep in the bathroom for the evening cream session!

I really struggle with the gap between steroids and emollient as well - it's good to know we're not the only ones! Our biggest problem is that we've been having to used bandaging and tubifast garments as well, and the whole shebang at night takes a good hour. I have to work nearly full time, and so it's late as it is when we're getting ready, and another half hour between creams is really not on as she's already knackered when we're doing it, and gets really frustrated and angry (she's only 2).

I didn't ever realise what an major intrusion into normal life eczema is - an hour every night and a gooe 30-45 minutes every morning just for the cream. I must admit that when we stay with friends and watch them just chuck some jammies on their LOs without any faff I get sooooo jealous.

Oh, and we also have the greasy hair thing. I wash her hair first when she's in the bath, then immediately put it up in a kind of topknot thing with a wee stretchy band so it doesn't get greasy from the epaderm in the water. It kind of gets knocked out a bit by the tubifast top (the necks are so tight!) but I only take it out once her face has been 50-50d.

I need to find out about 50/50 it sounds like. Have just been prescibed some doublebase ointment to try, not opened it yet but guess it's like epaderm.

TheWicketKeeper I am so with you on the time thing - it's all consuming isn't it. I hadn't realised what a cruel condition chronic eczema is especially for little ones. Our lives have been completely taken over by it.

ATM I can't really leave a gap between steroid and cream as my DD rips herself to shreds when clothes are off, but maybe we could steroid up and then put pj's on for 30 mins then off again and cream, will give it a go.

My DD who is 3 next week said to me this week "eczema, that's a really funny word mummy!" I tend to agree!

Keep smiling everyone,