Advice please before paediatric dermatologist app...

[Rose138]

Hello all,

My son is 6 months old and at 2 months I decided to take him to the doctors as I didn't think he had just dry skin. I've always had eczema myself so recognised it. Our doctor confirmed that he had eczema. To cut a long story short it got worst over the months and now my son has bath emollient, can't use any baby toiletries and the strength of his steroid cream has been increased by our doctor three times. She referred us to a dermatologist quite early on but we've waited months for the appointment.

The appointment is on Monday. I have taken photos over the months to show our sons eczema at it's best and worst. They will of of course examine our son. Our doctor told us to tell them that she wants our son to be reviewed every 3 months by them- she told me not to let them 'fob us off'. In reflection I should've queried this further as I don't know what to expect...if they suggest a certain treatment how am I to know if it is the right thing or not?
So I'm looking for any advice or experience you have of treatment for babies with severe eczema?

Our son also still has cradle cap which I know is common but our doctor thinks that it is a mixture of his eczema as it is very sore and bleeds sometimes and patches do look more like eczema. Will the paediatric dermatologist advise/prescribe for his cradle cap too or his eczema alone?

Thank you so much in advance.x

Hopefully the Dr should show you how to treat, and how to step up and down the steroids as necessary, and def to review. They may do scrapings to test for infection and ask about family history and poss recommend trying different formula/you cutting things out of you diet.

IME the specialist made a massive difference and once we had finally brought his flare up under control (from 3m to 6m) he's never had one so bad since and at 10 now grown out completely unless he gets ill

Was the eczema that bad at 2/12? Just that our local allergy paediatrician reckons that 90% of significant eczema starting in the first 3/12 is down to dairy allergy...

Thank you codandchipstwice that's really helpful info.

Nocoolnamesleft- no it wasn't as severe, I just recognised some of the patches as eczema. My husband thought I was overreacting! I was concerned about dairy when we started to wean him at 5 months but fortunately he's fine with dairy.

Xxx

It could still be food related. My DD gets eczema from peas/beans, dairy and a variety of vegetables.

Yes, did had food related eczema but dairy fine, he would also get hives from tomatoes in foods (do you know how many jarred baby foods don't have tomatoes in? About 3!)

He now has some pretty severe random good allergies but all related to off the scale hay fever and pollen allergy, pretty rare

Yes you are right it could be. We introduce foods gradually and watch carefully for any flare ups. However from two to five months his eczema spread to more places ect before we weaned him. I have always had eczema, it's within my family and my husbands family there is some history too. Xxx

Codandchipstwice- I can only imagine how difficult that was finding things without! That must be very worrying with severe random food allergies. I always worry as you just never know! Could be a common food allergy but like you say, can be rare. Xxx

Equally though at his age it wSnt food related it was just not very well managed as the GP had given us such bad advice in using the steroids we were inadvertently making it worse. It helped us hugely when we just accepted we may not know what was causing his eczema and just cracked on with treating his flares, you could literally drive yourself insane trying to work out triggers at that age.

Good luck

Very true!

Like you say, the most important thing to us now is being able to control his flares and manage it the best we can for him. Xxx

Our dermatologist gave us different creams for different areas and different flare ups. We had a whole routine involving bath products, steroids and emollients and how to use them and when. It worked a treat. DS was five months old and within a week his skin had changed. We were also referred to the allergy team as he has a dairy allergy which caused the eczema.

Thank you so much!

If prescribed creams ect by the dermatologist, do you get a prescription from them, collect from the chemist then when you need more put in a repeat prescription to your doctor or can you only get it through the dermatologist?

Thank you! X

I went back to my GP and they looked at the prescription and whatever paperwork we had, put the medication on their system and said to set up a repeat service with the pharmacy. You should get the first lot from the hospital pharmacy though.

Thank you so much! X