Eczema - 2 yo covered head to toe. What should I do?

[neolara]

My 2 yo dd had an allergic reaction to nuts about 2 weeks ago. Rash, swelling and hives that disappeared with piraton. About 48 hours later she was covered head to toe in eczema. Normally she has some eczema but this is clearly different as it is all over her body as opposed to isolated patches. (About 6 months ago she had a similar allergic reaction to raw tomatoes.)

As soon as the eczema started to develop (12 hours or so after the initial reaction) I applied betnavate. When I saw the GP, 36 hours after the reaction, she said to stop steroids and apply epaderm. Twelve hours after that the eczema had gone beserk so I ignored the GP's advice and started to reapply betnavate. I applied the betnavate in total for 6 days, as well as giving epaderm 2 or 3 times a day. DD has now been "off" steroids for about 4 days and she is covered, head to toe, in eczema. It looks pretty bad to me. Normally at this point I'd be giving steroids but I've just completed a run of nearly a week.

So, what do you think I should do? Obviously I need to go back to see the GP (appointment booked for thursday) but in the meantime should I carry on with epaderm and / or steroids. DD is scratching a lot and saying it hurts. She also has big bags under her eyes which makes me wonder if I should be giving her anti-histermine still. Any ideas would be great.

bump

Gosh how difficult. IMO GPs have no idea and under/ badly advise steroid use- you need to use it to get her eczema under control.

Also try posting on the allergies board.
Hope it gets better for her soon

Not a solution but my daughters eczema always responds well to oat baths. (put porridge oats into a clean sock/popsock and put in warm bath, the water will go milky) it seems to take the anger out of the skin. Good luck. Lx

Thank you for your replied. Oats sounds interesting, but unfortunately my dd was completely freaked out when I put oilatum into the bath because it turned the water milky. She refused to get in the bath for a week afterwards! Not sure I want to risk that again. I'll post in allergies and see if anyone else has any other ideas.

Go back to the GP - (preferably a different GP!). She needs steroid creams to bring it under control, and possibly antibiotics if there are any areas of infection. You should keep on with the steroids twice a day until her skin is completely clear and then tail off their use (i.e. go from twice a day to once a day then every other day). You should also be moisturizing her skin all over her body several times a day, and at night if she wakes up, (at different times to the steroids because the moisturiser will reduce the efficacy of the steroids). You may need to experiment to find the best moisturizer - we found Aveeno worked best. When DS2 was this bad, we were getting through 3 big tubs of Aveeno a week (on prescription)!

Even after she has finished the steroids, you should carry on with the moisturising - aiming for her to be the slimiest toddler anywhere.

Treat any recurrences with more steroids (prob hydrocorisone rather than betnovate, which is very strong).

I would avoid all baths for a few days to let her skin rest.

If these things don't work, she should be referred to a hospital dermatologist as an emergency to be treated with a short course oral steroids, and probably antibiotics as well.

I will also post this in allergies...