To not have a clue what to do about my DD’s eczema

[Yellowpolkadot]

Dd (1 year) has been having an awful time with her eczema. It is mainly over her shoulders and happier bag but it is raw and weeping. We’ve been to the gp several times and have been given two different steroid (one with antibiotics and one with antifungal) to try to calm it down but they don’t seem to be working. DD is clearly really uncomfortable and tries to scratch at it and sometimes over night manages to make it bleed. We moisturise her 4-5 times a day and have been applying steroids and giving Piriton as prescribed.

We are back at the doctors tomorrow, but I’m just wondering if anyone has any suggestions, anything I can buy or ask the doctor for to help her as she is miserable 😢

With my son his face was so sore he looked like he'd been in a fire.

I made sure I kept seeing the same Dr each time I had an appointment. He would give me a cream to try and then tell me when to come back (every couple of weeks I think it was). He said they had to try themselves before he could refer me to the dermatologist.

Then got to see dermatologist and I got 5 different creams.

3 were a steroid ladder of different strength creams
An everyday moisturiser
A bath solution

But they worked :)

Just wanted to second Epaderm as suggested by a pp. You need the ointment not the cream. Brilliant stuff!

That sounds awful OP, I would keep on at the GP to test for allergies and a referral to a dermatologist. My DD had eczema at that age, we had steroid cream and bath emollient prescribed. Steroid cream bleached her skin badly though, so I stopped using it, just moisturised her religiously with palmers cocoa butter and stopped using any sort of bubble bath/soap/shampoo and it did eventually clear up. Oatmeal baths also helped to soothe the itching before bed - might be worth a try if you haven't already.

Instead of focusing on treating the symptoms, try and find the cause. It may be more than 1 thing, possibly a mixture of dietary and environmentalal triggers.

The best way to work out any dietary allergies is an exclusion diet, but that needs to be overseen by a dietician.

My DS's face looked like he'd been burned too - I read somewhere that bananas might make eczema worse and I cut them out of his diet - bingo - within a couple of weeks it had improved massively. Worth a try. In fact he had an appointment at the hospital and by the time the appointment came round his skin was almost clear

Have you looked up the benefits of organic Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother in it?
Please do, you may be amazed with the benefits of this for so many different ailments.

The thing that really helped break the cycle for us was not suing any washing powder for a couple of months. We used soap nuts and eco balls. Plus Aveeno several times a day.
When we started with washing powder again, always do an extra rinse.
There is a huge link with diet - switch the bottle over a couple of weeks gradually changing the ratio of milk to nut or oat milk.

A dermatologist once saved me from terrible eczema as a child. He prescribed acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) in a pretty basic cream base that the chemist mixed. It worked like magic. After two weeks all the eczema was completely gone. I'd been back and forth to the GP for over a year prior to that and they had exhausted every steroid/antifungal treatment going, to no effect. Oddly a patch of eczema reappeared when I was traveling some 15 years later. I mixed in a crushed aspirin with some moisturiser and only needed to apply it twice before it disappeared again. I do remember the dermatologist sighing as my mum explained what treatments the GP had prescribed. He explained steroids are really the wrong approach to take with eczema but that they had become very popular. He said they hijack the skin's own defences which makes the skin's response weaker over time. As I understand it, the aspirin works as a mild irritant to the skin which prompts it to fight back. This was back in the early 90s. The aspirin will be absorbed through the skin so important to check with your Dr that aspirin is safe for your DD before going down this route. Good luck OP!

acetylsalicylic acid

I would try different non dairy calcium enriched milks. Eg oat milk is an option.

If you think it’s the cows milk, if I were you I’d try and remove it from my child’s diet (use other alternatives to get the calcium).

Both my dcs were unable to have cows milk and we did this. They’re 9&7 now, and can have dairy products. We just avoid cows milk (I did speak to the doctor and dieticians about it).

@Yellowpolkadot my daughter was the same, face, nappy area, worst around the waistband, armpits and feet, the only thing I used that helped was Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream, I bathed her in plain water, applied that, it was like a miracle, honestly. Smells like coal tar soap, looks like brown Vaseline, works like a charm!
I'd completely pack the steroid cream in, the withdrawal for the skin can be as bad as the eczema itself.
My daughter is 8 now and still if she has a flare up will come for some "stinky cream" for her patches!

You’ve had lots of ideas already but my DS has flare ups when he’s eaten egg or tomato’s. Could you keep a food diary and work out what causes flare ups?

For DS, Aveeno was great and we also used Burt's Bees Baby Bubble Bath and Shampoo. These helped hugely xxxx

Oh I also use Ecover non-bio wash liquid

Try coating it in sudacream, it got rid of mine and my childrens.
I’m not sure it can cure your problem, but maybe a little bit of relief!

Sudacrem is the only thing that works for on DDs eczema. I put a really thick coating on at nap time and bed time and it helps massively. It heals up the rawness completely after a couple of days and just leaves little patches of dry skin.

Ahh all the food suggestions are her favourite foods! She loves yogurts, bananas, omelettes, tomato 🙈 ah well we will see what advice we get in the morning. Will ask about different creams and see what the gp suggests in terms of diet. Thank you all so much!

My DS had severe eczema and after 3 years of trial and error we seem to have a system that works. It's all so frustratingly personal though so not everything might work
100% cotton clothes and bedding to help body temperature.
Extra rinse on all clothes, and wash after one wear
Hoover beds and floors daily
Short tepid showers and emollient on within 3mins after to lock in moisture
Water filter to take chlorine out/reduce staph.
Scratch mits at night to reduce damage
But if allergies are involved you'll need more help. There's the obvious ones like dairy, wheat, dust, pollen but also check out 'the itchy dozen' for interest. Steroid creams have their place in controlling it but use sparingly as theyre often misused and I say that as someone who had to go through the he'll of TSW from overuse when I was younger in the 80s.
Hope your DD gets some relief, often people think it's just 'a bit of dry skin' but it's bloody exhausting and quite cruel at times. Good luck

Just wanted to second Epaderm as suggested by a pp. You need the ointment not the cream. Brilliant stuff

Contrary to this advice, we found Epaderm ointment to be the most aggravating thing on my dd's skin. We had to wean her off all paraffin based creams/ointments before her skin got better. Her eczema was caused by dairy and egg allergy, so once we worked that out and removed it from her diet her skin healed. We rarely use any moisturiser at all and her skin is totally clear of eczema.

The only thing that works with mine is no soap, shampoo etc. baths once per week maximum, otherwise a wet flannel. no lotions/cremes except steroids if really bad. no polyester clothes, only cotton.

I'm so sorry. It's awful. My 10yo has had this since 6 weeks and my 6yo suffers too. We've been to a dietician, numerous consultants and tried all that's available. We followed the Dr Aron routine for about 6 months which seemed to work but was expensive and hard for us to keep up at the time. We did find scratchsleeves worked for us, look into those? My eldest wore them to bed for many years. We also used dermasilk, and skinnies clothing to wet wrap.

I've reverently discovered that my own eczema is heavily triggered by coconut, eating and applying. I'm 38 and until now I had no clue. It really was causing so many problems. Maybe look into that, if she's eating a lot with coconut in.

Good luck.

@BiffNChips We too found problems with heavy petroleum based products. They caused intense itching. I am the same.

I found every single cream the dr prescribed made it worse

We use a'kin fragrance free body moisturiser

Switch to a vegan shampoo such as faith in nature .

Use ecover washing powder and softener

Cut out dairy if that makes mo difference then cut out soya too as many who react to dairy also react to soya

Go for soft and seam free with clothes. No frills no lace trims etc

Keeping cool is vital as getting too hit makes it worse.

Recommend green people sunscreen.

Become a label reader

Oh and it's sometimes hard but be tough/particular on hand washing. We are prone to infections and there's nothing fun about trying to shift mrsa. I know my two will scratch because I too have that intensity, instead of saying 'don't scratch' which is the most frustrating thing anyone can say, I tell them that they're scratching (we don't always realise) and to make sure their hands and nails are clean. It's awful but they won't stop, so it's minimising further problems.

On scratching, I was once told by a dermatologist that scratching is a reflex, like blinking. To try to understand scratching you could imagine you're trying hard not to blink but just can't do it. You may be mildly aware but you can't stop. Then imagine someone tells you to stop over and over again day in, day out. That's what it's like for a lot of eczema sufferers.

Go to this website for help and advice www.eczema.org

I have eczema and am nearly 50. When I was a child my mum had to wash me with cream. Often eczema creams aren’t suitable for everyone. I am allergic to lanolin now and wasn’t before. I can’t use bath emolients anymore.

Blankie knows their stuff.
Hydrocortisone really isn’t a strong steroid. It’s the weakest. You need to look into the “ladder” mentioned earlier.
Emollient is trial and error. I use diprobase and kids use Dermol. LOTS. Slather it on. Repeatedly.

I agree a proper dermatology appointment is what you need. They’ll suggest looking into food intolerances if they think it’s necessary.

If it makes you feel any better about trialling cutting out foods, your dd is rapidly approaching an age where all previous favourite foods are treated with great suspicion and outright refusal - it’s a toddlers prerogative you know