Reaction to water?

[prettycandles]

Dd has patches of what I think is eczema on her face, and they are multiplying. In the morning there is often nothing visible, but if you look closely the skin looks wrong and it feels wrong to the touch. The patches get more obvious during the day and are always at their worst after her bath or swimming. Could the water be causing it?

aquaeous cream might be worth a go, someone else might offer you a little more advive ..

Thanks, Piffleoffagus. Before, after or during bath/swim?

Bump?

ds just developed patches of eczema on his face for the first time, it was previously on his neck, behind his knees etc. It took me ages to work out that it was because he is now eating his cereal (with cows milk) himself, and therefore dribbling and spilling alot of the milk around his mouth and this was causing it. I still let him have the cereal but make very sure to clean it off immediately and use aqueous cream straight away and it really helps him. have you changed her diet atall?

I don't think it's the water itself but the substances/minerals in it, or the clorine they put in the swimming pool. Try to use some emollient in the bath (Oilatum or aquaeous cream) and cover her in emollient after bath/swimming. The reason the patches seem worse during the day may be the heat or the fact that your DD is more active. DS eczema patches are considerably better at night when he is sleeping, unless the room gets a bit hot.

Good luck

I've been moisturising her face regularly, especially after the pool, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. The best of all was when I got confused while creaming my face, and put my Olay night cream on her by mistake! That was the one time the patches completely disappeared, appart from their texture. Is there something that I could put on her face before putting her in water?

My ds (7.5mos)has mild eczema which started on his face and I have found that only bathing him 1x or 2x a week has made a huge difference. I really delayed taking him swimming for fear of how his skin would be but he was OK. I did put the cream I was using at the time on him beforehand (a homeopathic one) but I did find him a bit slippery. After the swim I tried to shower him as best I could and then slapped on more cream while his skin was damp.

My ds is dairy sensitive - if milk touches his skin it goes red and covered in hives - we were referred to a dietician so he's off dairy for the time being and so am I (b/fing).

I'm fairly new to mnet and to the eczema arena and whilst I can't really comment on your Dd, I do know that water is just one of many factors that affect Ds. So not water alone. I see Ds eczema as an inside-out condition with some external factors aggravating it.

I started off using aquaeous cream as an emollient which was OK for a while then it started to aggravate the eczema. Some people react to it, some don't. The advice I was given by mnetters was that often finding the right emollient for you was real trial and error affair. For us, all the lotions and potions with paraffin derivatives have aggravated ds. I'm currently using Aveeno which is great for ds; it's oatmeal based. An old-fashioned remedy is to put oats in a sock and put that in the bath, then use it like a sponge. I do this and ds skin is no longer red after coming out of the bath. Aveeno also do an oat based powder that can be added to the bath. Ds has always been a 'hot' baby (I was always frantically taking his temp and he never had one) and I keep him really cool and have his bath water really quite tepid which doesn't seem to bother him. HTH

Other emollients to consider are Diprobase and Unguentum, for extreeme cases Eucerin and Lipikar Baume. At the heigh of DS eczema we were applying Aqueous cream, or diprobase every hour with Euserin and Lipikar it was just on every nappy change (out of the nappy are of course).

D's skin will be really bad if we miss a bath (he has medicated baths), his eczema was really bad so a dip into clorinated water (swimming pool) was completely out of our minds. But then, he had severe eczema...

I used to have a dreadful chlorine allergy as a child & teenager (thankfully outgrown it now). Obviously avoiding swimming pools isn't too hard but I remember visiting relatives who lived in an area with heavily chlorinated tap water and being totally covered in nasty eczema after a week of daily showers. You could install a mains water filter, we got one now which dh found on screwfix (screwfix.com or something) for something like £30 and installed it himself - seemed straightforward, dh is no plumber.

I'm off to screwfix to get one !!!

prettycandles, I would experiment with differenct creams. Also, someone somewhere said that it's really important to put the cream on immediately after bathing as that's when the pores are still open (from the warm water) and help get the cream into the skin. Also, make sure your dd is well rinsed off in a warm shower directly after swimming and apply cream directly after the shower. Aveeno cream works really really well on my dd.

SofiaAmes or Portree... where do I get Aveeno cream from?? Also, as the holiday season is approaching could anyone recommend a suntan lotion that does not aggrivate eczema too much??

Any pharmacy should carry it. I got mine at the supermarket pharmacy (behind the counter). I use an american suntan lotion that's hypo-allergenic and for children. The most important thing to look for is PABA-free. Try to get something that's for children and goo dfor allergies. Try a bit on a piece of skin while your child is under your observation and make sure that it doesn't give her a rash. However, I have found that sunshine seems to help my dd's eczema, so I prefer having her in the sun with lotion on rather than covered up, or in the shade.

JPM, Aveeno is also available on prescription. I bought mine from Boots, in the special skin care section where they merchandise oilatum etc. I haven't asked the doctor for a script yet but will do as I go through a tube a week at least. Or I'll get the HV to write a script.

It's interesting that people find that chlorine agravates eczema. When she was little my sister had chronic eczema on her hands, related to some very severe food intolerances, and nothing cleared it or eased it except for steroids. Then we went for a long weekend break to a hotel with a swimming pool that was open 24h, and after 4 days of being constantly in and out of the pool, her hands were completely clear, bar some scarring and thickening. For the next few years we found that if she kept to her diet and swam once or twice a week, her hands stayed clear - the scarring and thickening all gone - if she missed a few sessions at the pool then the eczema returned. We always assumed that it was the chlorine that helped her!

I'm reluctant to put stuff in the bath, as it's only dd's face that is affected and I bath both children together. I think I'll try the oats in a sock though.

Dd used to vomit whenever she had uncooked fridge-milk (ie regular cows'. Over the last month or two I've been weaning her off the breast, mostly she gets SMA Progress when I skip a feed, but she's been having small amounts of fridge-milk as well. There has been no vomitting, but I wonder whether the eczema is connected? To check whether it is comnnected do I have to cut out the SMA, cheese and goat's yogurt as well?

Probably the clorine acted as a desinfectant and having just two sessions per week prevented the skin to be damaged. Swimming pools in beach resorts use, many times, water that is very salty (from the sea? or sometimes nearby mineral springs? )So that may be a cause. If when you enter to the swimming pool area you can smell the chlorine that will be probably too much for sensitive skin.

I don't think any bath oil will cause a problem to non-eczema children sharing the bath, if anything it may save you the hassle of applying cream afterwards

Not sure about the milk though

When my daughter had bad exema, I tried everything then one day the helth visitor gave my a small tube of Doublebase cream which a rep had given her, it was fantastic so now I get a massive tub of it on prescription from gp, You dont rub it in, you stroke it on for best results, my gp said put it on like you are stroking a cat, it really works

I tried aqueous cream yesterday. Wasn't entirely sure how to go about it, so I smeared some on dd's face before putting her in the bath, and smeared more on each time it got washed off - probably about 4 applications in total! (But what do you do about drying - surely the towels must get really greasy and manky very quickly? I dried her face with a muslin.)

Result - fantastic! Not a mark on her!

Did the same with this morning's wash - I have to wash her because she gets very enthusiastic with her food - and no eczema again!

Thankyou thankyou thankyou

Then after lunch (we were out of the house) I used a baby-wipe on her face and she looks like she's been in a punch-up...red blotches and lumps . So now I know. How am I going to clean her up when we're out in future?

You could try a washable wipe either dampened or with a bit of aqueous cream (can carry them in a little tupperware).
(We use the indispensable 'posset cloths' for ds (who gets 'excema like' patches with water and nearly anything else on his skin) )...strangely I get a reaction to aqueous cream so can't use it on ds
Best decision we made was to stop bathing him every day - just the occasional shower with no gels/creams/shampoo and his skin got much better.

Hi bb. I didn't know that your ds had eczema.

I did just that today, a prefold with aqueous cream in a little pot, and madame ate as nicely as you could imagine - barely a speck anywhere other than her mouth!

To quote an advert ' He doesn't..just lovely soft skin'...........but only because it's under control
Glad to hear dd's skin is clearing up...and I won't be alone with the face wiping cotton cloths when we next meet.

I found a better way! A barely damp washable wipe (yes, I do use them from time to time ) with a blob of aqueous cream in the corner, folded over with the cream squidged into the fabric. The whole thing popped into a sandwich bag. Hey presto, one aqueous wipe - wipe on with one corner, wipe off excess with another, no faff or messing about with pots. Easypeasy. Why didn't I tell you this last night?

hi, can anyone tell me if their little one ever itches their "little man", my little boy whos 3 does it all the time hes out of nappies now but i cant think what is causing it! Its a little red looking!!

hi, can anyone tell me if their little one ever itches their "little man", my little boy whos 3 does it all the time hes out of nappies now but i cant think what is causing it! Its a little red looking!!