toddler with dry red patches on chin and cheeks - what's the cause?

[PintandChips]

took him to see dr who said deffo not eczema... have a nutritionist friend who says cut out dairy and wheat, which i have cut out enormously (never has either at home)... nursery have noticed that it gets worse after eating bread and think it might be yeast intolerance? also gets terrible after chocolate, and the cold seems to exacerbate it.

he's nearly 2.5yo and it's a new thing, started about 2 months ago. He sometimes says it is sore, and he licks it often... it's mostly on his chin but has a small patch on his cheek.

i sort of recall seeing a lot of small children with the same thing, but i can't find anything about it googling.

Dr gave me some cream with hydrocortisone in it, but DS goes mental when i try to apply it, and also i'm not really into the idea of relying on it...

any advice, suggestions?

With DS it seemed to be just dry skin caused by exposure to cold/wind etc. So long as I remember to moisturise him twice a day it seems to keep it under control. I've used E45, Eumocream and plain aqueous cream which all work fine.

DITTO above.

DS has this. IMO due to cold wind/cold air which is drying. Use emollients firsts rather than Steroids . Ds's normally goes away with a few days of oilatum/aqueous.

You could try a weather barrier cream too, my DS has very weather sensitive skin.

I have recently tried (in up to -10 degrees)weleda weather cream - I found this a bit too vasaline-like (the DC were reflective in the snow pics) but seemed to work and Avent magic cream which was great, may be a little perfumed for V sensitive - DS has ezcema and allergies but can tolerate it.

my dd2 has had this since Novemner - very dry and scaley but not exactly a rash. I think it is weather related ( also too much central heating) and I find the waitrose bottom butter very good.

ok,am going to try a cream if i can get him to tolerate me putting it on - he hates being fiddled with!

donnie, it's not really a rash, more just scaley red skin.

but it DOES appear to worsen after the foods mentioned, when he's indoors in the warm. it's very apparent.

i'll see how it goes with the cream.

I let DS have a bit of cream to rub on his hands/my face/wherever which keeps him occupied while I do the deed. Obviously wouldn't do this with steriod cream though!

DD always gets this with dairy - she's had a big intolerance to it all her life tho (2.0)

Just a thought and I hope I'm wrong, but GPs aren't always as up to speed on diagnosing eczema as you might think.

My friend's little boy spent about two months being treated for ringworm (eczema, having been ruled out) before another GP realised it was, in fact, eczema. And all that time the poor baby's skin was getting worse.

My little boy has it too, and his cheeks, chin, and forehead dry out and get irritated very quickly if he doesn't have lashings of moisturiser daily. He's also affected by heat - I can see the patches start to come up in an overheated room.

My DS has a red mouth and chin right now but this is due to his nose running in the cold and him scrubbing it with his sleeve. SO lots of vaselene at bedtime should shift it.
I think a lot of DC have this chapping of the face in this kind of weather though.