Eczema and swimming?

[poppypoppy]

I'd love to take my toddler swimming but have never done it because of her ezcema. I let her in the paddling pool in the garden the other day and she had the time of her life! Do you think that letting her paddle in the sea / swim in a public swimming pool would make her skin too sore? I was thinking that I could cover her in Epaderm first and maybe get one of those swim suits that covers the arms and legs, but not sure it would make any difference.

MY DS1 suffered from eczema when he was little (still gets falre ups now, esp in this hot weather) and personally I never found taht swimming made it any worse, or indeed, any better. Now there will probably be a whole host of people who disagree with me, but I guess that's the point. You can only really tell if you take her along. Also, I feel it is quite important for them to go swimming if you possibly can at a young age so they don't get scared - and you would need to weigh up the pros and cons of eczema versus swimming.

swimming does not agtree with my dd1 skin, but she loves it. so we cover her in emoiilant before she goes in, then shower as soon as she gets out, more cream ,then when we gert hoem another bath to make sure its all gone, then the thickest layer of cream.

dd1 is 6years old, and this is the best way we have found for preventing her skin drying out and getting infected.

I suppose you wont know how it will be for her unless you try.

DS2 (15 months) gets eczema. He loves swimming but sadly I have just given up taking him. I covered him with cream before, showered him down and applied more cream after and then continually throughout the rest of the day but it the chlorine just flares it up too much. Even after creaming up so much, after a swimming session it takes us 7-10 days to get on top of his eczema again and its hell so I dont do it anymore.

Poppy - I asked the same question of our skin doctor at GOSH . He said it's a case of suck it and see because some children respond well and others do not. He suggested Unguentum or other before going in, a shower post, and another cream up post swim. For our daughter this has worked fine although it obviously doesn't work for all, like popppiesinaline. Sea water may affect your toddler in a different way to chlorinated water, so both experiments might be worthwhile. Good luck with it - my daughter loves it now.

a dermatologist told me recently my dd1's flare up of her eczema (when she was quite young) to swimming pool water was probably more to do with the detergents than the chlorine as such. he advised covering any affected areas with something non-water based like vaseline to protect it. hth

Unguentum was one of the creams we tried - personally found it useless - but someone had recommended it so it obviously worked good for them.

We are going on holiday in a couple of weeks and am interested to see how DS2 responds to the sea water. I am told apparently eczema responds well - I certainly hope so!

Thanks all, I think I'll just give it a go in both the sea and the swimming pool and see what happens. If her skin flares up badly at least I'll know I've tried.

Bundle - interested in what you said about the detergents rather than the chlorine. My skin is always red and itchy after I use a public swimming pool so I've always just assumed it was the chlorine, maybe it wasn't

x

my ds suffers horribly from sea water but seems to be fine in the pool - so another case of what works for one won't work for another.

I have always found that sea water improves my excema. It always used to improve during the summer due to spending lots of time in the sea, however now i have 15month old DD i havent been so the excema is still bad.

we use epaderm on ds (14 months) b4 and after plus a quick shower coming out of the pool.... we only swim twice a month and it does not really seem to make a huge difference to his eczema.... be careful though as all that cream makes them very slippery!

My son's excema seems to have a mind of its own!
But swimming does not seem to really affect it - it maybe makes his skin a little drier, so extra cream that evening.

We went on holiday the other week and swam every day, and his skin was probably better than average.

my son, now 4 has suffered from childhood excema, worse on inner elbows and backs of knees and wrists since a few months old. It had seemed to have almost gone prior to the summer but has now come back. swimming seems to make it flare up. we went this afternoon for swim class and his arms were bright red and blotchy afterwards, poor little thing. I think
the chlorine/detergent levels must be slightly different according to when they last emptied pool? I dont know it seemed particularly bad today. He has also recently started getting raised little spots - like large goose bumps on his lower arms and a lot more blotchy skin lately. I was beginning to think food allergy/intolerance but I really dont wan!t to even think about it (minefield that it is).

I think with all these creams you have to use them for a while and also vary them to see any results.