Eczema

[Kmitchz]

Hi all, I'm new here and at my wits end, hoping someone can help.

I have a three year old daughter who suffers badly from eczema, especially at night. The back of her neck and arms, she claws at in bed, and we are woken 8-9 times a night from her crying from making herself bleed by scratching to apply cream and mop up blood.

We have the following creams, eumovate and betnovate steroid and then diprobase and Epiderm, nothing is working!

The health visitor gave us a garment to put under her night clothes to try and stop her scratching but she just pulled the sleeves up to scratch, and then developed heat rash as she was too hot in it. She's also said she thinks it's habit and we have to try and break the scratching habit, but how! We've tried coverig her hands but it doesn't work

I really don't know what to do, she's in so much pain and we've only just been referred so have up to 8 months on the waiting list

X

Hi Kmitchz, so sorry to here your story, please look at my current thread for my 12yr old DD. I too am changing blood stained sheets everyday, it is very stressful. I have just bought mattress and pillow covers for anti dust mite, blitzed her bedroom for dust and am trying to keep it cooler and more airy. I am going to try the ecover washing powder next and perhaps the aveeno cream, maybe cut out dairy. There's so many factors. Good luck with your DD

How and when are you applying the creams firstly? Don't use the steroids and emollients at the same time and moisturise moisturise moisturise as often as you can. What do you use in the bath and wash clothes in? Have you got any Piriton? You can give that at night to stop the scratching.

We apply the steroid twice a day and the emollient throughout the day and night.

I've just been woken up to her screaming, went into her room and she's now pulled down her pyjama bottoms and destroyed her legs from bottom to ankle.

We use the epiderm in the bath

The creams from the Dr did nothing for my DS and some of them made his skin worse.

I bathe him in water now and nothing else.

We have to use completely fragrance free laundry detergent- surecare, Ecover zero, soap nut. Sometimes hot water wash needed to get the emollients off and kill dust mites.

Aveeno worked ok for us but I find Shea Butter like Shealife better.

Probiotic helps massively for DS.

Omega oil supplements help.

Also working out the trigger. One of his is humidity so have to monitor humidity of house in winter and sleep with heating off. Have had to use a humidifier before. I saw at the ped allergy clinic that humidity is very impt.

Also food allergies can trigger his.

Has your GP referred you to see a specialist?

We've just been referred but the waiting list is 6-12 months, and we cannot afford to go private which is a shame.

We took her off dairy and wheat but neither saw a change.

The house we live in is damp, we try and keep it as ventilated as possible and have her bedroom window open at night. We are moving in the next 4 months, but the house we are moving too is not ready yet and I fear the damp may be contributing to her eczema.

We have turned the radiator off in her room to keep it cool, and put in a bowl of boiling water on her shelf to take away from the dry heat, but nothing seems to work, and it just seems to be getting progressively worse.

My mother has ordered some bio skin junior cream which apparently is a miracle, but I remain skeptical as nothing yet has worked

Dd has eczema.

none of the creams worked from.the drs. none. They sit on the skin and make it worse.

We use products that are SLS and parabans free and the difference is amazing

How can the waiting list be so long? Are you in the uk?

The NHS has an 18 week wait from referral, and if you can't be seen within this time the hospital must look for another way.

Can you afford a one off appointment with a paediatric dermatologist? We did this when the GP refused to treat DS's eczema. We then went back to the GP afterwards and got an NHS referral. Best money we spent.

Yeah in the UK. I don't think it's being taken seriously as HV thinks it's attention seeking scratching and learnt behaviour.

I'll look into a one off appointment, but when I looked before it was £150 and I can't spare that at the moment in one chunk. But I can save it up, hopefully. I'll try to attach a picture of her arm, which is now worse after last night, and now all over her

Thank you for all your replies by the way c

The HV isn't totally wrong. when dd gets herself worked up she will start scratching. not sure if it's fir attention or because she gets hot but habit does come into it sometimes.

but saying that, that looks terrible and it can't go on. has anyone suggested allergy testing?

That looks awful OP. I would get on to the gp for more treatment and an urgent referral. And then the hospital for any cancellations.,she can't go on with skin like that.

Who's told you the wait is 6-12 months??

HV said its a long waiting list and minimum is 6 months.

I understand the learnt behaviour but, as my little one is the same, if she's hot or in a temper it worsens, however at night I've seen her be flat out and claw at her skin- which is where the problem comes in, the sleep scratching. We can get through the day with her not scratching as we remind her 'remember we don't scratch' when we see her trying too, and it works fine. But it's the slew scratching

Yes dd used to bloody the sheets in her sleep

the fragile skin also means that when she's had things like impetigo it's spread so fast and really almost "eaten" her skin on affected areas.

We found going dairy free helped as well as switched to all vegan hypoallergenic skin care and shampoo products.

I wish there was something I could suggest to raise the money for a private appointment time. The idea of having to wait so long with your dd being in so much discomfort is just awful.

Well the wait isn't allowed to be six months, the NHS say 18 weeks. Go get some Piriton from the gp to help her sleep, it's perfectly fine to give to stop her scratching. We gave it to DS when he was a baby. Have you tried bathing with oats and using Aveeno cream? Lots of people rave about it. Do they still do wet wraps these days? I remember doing them as a student nurse. I think you need to go back to your gp and be a bit more demanding in the meantime OP. It's not acceptable that her skin is left in that condition.

I wonder if you need a stronger steroid too. It's better to use a stronger one over a shorter time frame. We have different steroids for different bits of DS. Have you tried oilatum in the bath?

My son has eczema and was given an urgent referral. We saw the GP two weeks ago, his appointment with a dermatologist is on April 22nd. Can you ask for an urgent referral?

The HV is off this week but after reading all that I will be requesting an urgent referral for sure. We tried oilatum when she was a baby, but it didn't seem to work but we are going to Give it another go. We used aveeno which didn't work but Today I platered her in it to see if it works as we haven't tried it for so long. We tried oats I think when she was very small, might be worth a try again. I might make an appointment with the gp as we usually only deal with the health visitor

We found Dr organics vitamin e sunflower bath oil (for scars and stretchmarks) better than oilatum.

When I was younger for years my mum used oilatum bath oil on me, but little did she know that it contained parfum=perfume which is the worst thing to include in skin products for people with exsema.
She only noticed this when I screamed at her!
thankfully though, there was a un-perfumed version (why the hell they didn't give it to me in the first place, god knows!?)
It worked for a few years, but them got discontinued, which left me struggling to find an alternative for a month.
then I found tea tree oil in Hollands and barretts which is fantastic for both exsema/psoriasis and stops my skin flaring up for 3 days.
the reason for this is because it's a great anti-septic and the smell is aromatherapic too!

hope this helps, it took me a while to get my skin under control too, due to bad advice.

Forget the Hv. Go to the gp and ask for a referral to the dermotology team. Hv are not medically trained are they? You need to go the gp.

Thanks everyone. I'll phone doctors to get an appointment. I'm looking at her now and it seems to have lost that 'angry' look, but only 5 more hours until bedtime, when it all starts again.

Hopefully we will get a better outcome from the gp

HV are nurses. Although some are very good, some are quite out of date.

Good idea to see the GP, the health visitor isn't really for this kind of thing.

Our HV is usually brilliant, and has helped me through a lot, but this issue just isn't being resolved, and isn't improving. Thank you all so much for your replies, I will try all your suggestions. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who is/has struggled with this.