Eczema in exclusively breastfed 12 week old baby.

[belgo]

Ds is now 12 weeks old, and a very happy, strong, lovely little boy.

The only problem is he has eczema over much of his body, forehead, behind his ears, shoulders, armpits, elbows, back, and legs. My GP gave me a referrel to the hospital where they have diagnosed allergic eczema and have told me to cut out cow milk produce from my diet.

This is what confuses me: they carried out some skin prick tests on ds and they all came back negetive to allergies, but they still seem to think that he could be allergic to cow's milk. If I cut out cow's milk, does that also include all dairy produce, including butter, biscuits made with butter, milk chocolate, pizza with cheese etc?

I personally think the eczema is caused by washing powder (he often lies on his front and that would explain the eczema on his forehead) and have changed to a recommended washing powder.

Any advice would be welcome!

My DS had terrible eczema due to a cow milk allergy. If you are cutting it out, you need to be rigid (I mean really really really strict) for 2 weeks to get the 'footprint' out of your body.

I will post more later, gotta go, school run calls

Try changing the washing powder first- if no improvement after a few weeks(it may take a few washes to get rid of residual powder) try the dairy free, and yes it does mean all aspects of your diet. I did for dd1 and ds1 and it was the only thing that improved their skin. WHen weaning a little later on, go really slowly too and introduce one food group at a time-tedious but worth it.

I would also question the reliability of skin prick testing on such a small child- in our aarea they don't do them until the child is 2 as their immune response isn't particularly well developed. Just a thought.

HTH- totally sympathetic.

yes please do OneLieIn

M44- the skin prick test was awful - they did it on his back and I had to hold him totally flat for 20 minutes to stop the drops of solution running into each other - ver hard to do as he can lift his head and shoulders up and was screaming the whole time.

his forehead has already improved since I changed wasing powder.

What about nuts and spicy foods in my diet? Could they have an effect?

um- there shouldn't have been drops to run into each other- once the skin is pricked they should wipe away the excess liquid for this very reason. Poor you- that must have been very traumatic.

My dd1 had terrible excema from birth and se was exclusively breastfed to 6 months. I did all sorts to try and stop it. I cut out dairy from both our diets for 18 months- she still had it but Ithought it helped for awhile although looking back I don't think it did.

It takes 6-8 weeks for the milk to leave your system, or so I was told, this also allows for occasional slip ups until you find everything that has mil;k in it (sausages being one you'd never expect)

The only thing that I found that helped was dust management in the house. REhome any pets, hoover every day, change beds every 3 days. I got rid of the carpets and curtains from the house and have wood floors and blinds as I found that this helps.

She still has excema but nowhere near as bad as she was. Its hard going managing the excema with all the creams and meds you'll get. You'll also find that one thing works now but will stop working. Everyone will have a magic cure for you and everyone will swear by certain creams but you just have to try them out for yourself. For my dd it's the Aveeno cream that works but I know of others where tyhis doesn't work.

Join the excema society- they've been a lifeline to me x

The washing powder lead is a good one. If your baby has eczema or sensitive skin, you could try changing all your household cleaning products to hypoallergenic ecological ones eg Starwax.

M44 - it was traumatic - I nearly cried. And then they took blood from his hand, which was just awful.

Pixiefish- dh has a dust mite allergy but he doesn't have eczema, it makes his nose run. We don't have carpets or indoor pets for this reason.

I bought Aveeno cream but his eczema almost immediately became a lot worse - could he be allergic to aveeno cream?

I wills tick to the creams they have given me from the hospital.

Bonsoir - thanks for the link, I will check it out.

Agree with pixiefish about cures and creams- it is a question of perseverence until you find the right cream/ointment. For us-dd1 uses aveeno for ds1 the only thing we can use is diprobase ointment- creams are a no- any steroids have to come in ointment form too. Also give new creams/ointments a good go- don't stop after a week- at least a month unless there is an obvious flare up. Also most children will sensitise to bath products- so we don't use anything in the bath-oilatum and balneum are no use because of this.

I've been using balneum - shall I not use that then? I only bath him every two or three days anyway.

Lots of eczema sufferers hate balneum.

Do you massage your DS all over after the bath with a hydrating cream? Trixéra by Avène (in any Belgian pharmacy) is brilliant stuff.

With my DD I found that the Oilatum in the bath just gives her a sore bottom and so I just have plain water.

Try and get a referral to the paediatric dermatologist - GPs IME are really scared to use treatment that will make a difference (i.e. steroids) and will fanny around the problem for ages, while your DC is distressed and scratching and drawing blood etc. The Paed Derm we saw was fantastic, really supportive, but I had to push for an emergency appointment, otherwise it was a 6 month wait

Good luck

I've used balneum myself as I have dry skin (but not eczema). The hospital prescribed some sort of very thick hydrating cream that had to be made up by the pharmacist- the pharmacist told me to come back in two hours to pick it up - I said no way was I going to drag three children out in the snow to come back for it (I live up a hill and it's very hard to push the pram up it in the snow) - and strangly enough the pharmacist found a pot of it already made .

I've never heard of trixera, but I have heard of avene.

Avène is a brilliant brand for eczema and atopic skin and Trixéra is one of the brand's star products. Ask your local friendly pharmacist

angelene - we were lucky enough to get him an appointment yesterday with the peadiatrician - my GP had to insist on an emergency appointment.

My ds suffered terrible excema at this age- I had forgotten the extent of it til I was looking over the pictures I took in the summer and he is literally covered He is 7 months old now and mainly it has calmed right down though he still has very very dry skin. I couldn't get any information about wether I should try cutting different things out of my diet, the consensus from hvs and my GP alike was that it couldn't possibly be anything liek that I have a fab friend who works in Lush and having tried about 3 different creams and lotions on prescription which made no difference I am now a total convert to Dream Cream and Dream Wash. Yuo can go in and ask for tiny samples. I couldn't believe the difference it made. It's no consolation at the mo, I know I was despairing, but it hopefully will ge better in time x

Thank you littlelamb

Hi. One thing to be careful of when trying creams is that if they think he could have cows milk allergy, some creams use milk (either protein or fat) in them. Also, some children with cows milk allergy are also allergic to soya (similar proteins) and diprobase uses soya in the formulation. For us, DS1 had severe eczema but once we discovered he had an egg allergy and cut all egg out of his diet, the eczema cleared up nicely and now (aged 3.9) only comes back when he is ill. DS2 (7.5 months) also has severe eczema and so far the only thing that helps him is hydrocortisone cream. His eczema is also allergy related and I've had to cut all dairy out of my diet - even just one little slip up over christmas from me eating a small piece of milk chocolate resulted in him being covered with a blistery rash

Please don't be afraid to ask your GP for different creams. I was amazed to find that most GPs prescribe aqueous cream and in fact many people are sensitive to this. They just have a list of (probably more expensive!) creams they can try too, if you keep asking.

Also please be careful if you exclude anything from your diet. I strictly excluded dairy products after my ds was diagnosed with a severe allergy - under supervision of his consultant and a dietician - and they gave me a high dose of calcium tablets so neither of us suffered from that.

Good luck - and also remember that the majority of infant eczema does ease a bit around 12 months.

That interesting about cutting out dairy produce. I think I will first use the special washing powder and see how he goes with that. It's mindboggling the thought of cutting out all dairy produce from my diet, I'll do that if I have to, but I'd rather not.

When he was one month old I used a children's shampoo in his hair for the first time, and since then he's had a very flaky scalp, and I'm sure the shampoo was the cause.

Littlelamb - my idiot lovely hv also told me that DS2's eczema could not possibly be related to anything in my diet. However, we got a referal to an allergy consultant who said that this is the most common reason for eczema in exclusively BF babies...

Well Academicmum the Paediatric Dermatologist told me that my diet was highly unlikely to be the cause of my daughter's eczema.

What is an 'allergy consultant'?

Hi Angelene - not sure of the proper title "Consultant Allergist" or something like that. A consultant whose specialisation is allergies.

Sorry, didn't mean to sound abrasive. There is a lot of quackery around eczema which irritates me no end. But as the advice we both received shows, there's a lot of unknowns as well.