Itching relief for my 10 months old?

[hm4912]

Hi, my daughter has had mild eczema/dry skin since birth, we have been docs multiple times and nothing seemed to clear it. We are being referred but could take a while - in the meantime does anyone have any suggestions to stop the itching? She literally tears at her chest and shoulder whenever she gets the chance and they are all cut and grazed. Have put socks on her hands but this is still aggravating the area. I am dreading the warmer weather as fear we won’t be able to let her wear short sleeves due to how bad she is scratching!

A gp may be able to prescribe piriton syrup to help with itching (it can be bought for age 1+)
What creams have you tried?

Try eliminating dust mites

excema is usually an allergic reaction to something and dust mites are a common cause.

If you eliminate the cause you wont need to treat it

other options are switching to different hypoallergenic laundry detergents/bathing soaps/dont wear any wool or let her wear wool or use products with lanolin in them dont use any perfume or aftershave near her or hold her when wearing it. If you have pets try keeping them away and see if it clears/lessens

Thanks - how would we eliminate dust mites?

Its the dust mites and their poo you need to eliminate

i would start with a trial to see if it helps..and then if it does you can go all in.

First put an encasement on dc mattress and your mattress if they come in bed with you. Also pillows and duvet. You just put sheets etc over the top. If you dont want to buy them (on amazon) start with bin bags and use packing tape to seal the ends..but they do rustle!

Then take away all fuzzy friends (stuffed animals and dolls) you can and hide them for 2 weeks

Then dont let dc on the sofa, carpet or cushions. You want to not have dc touch anything soft furnishing like that you arent washing weekly

If this helps, the long term solutions involve buying a steamer to steam clean soft furnishings, carpets and curtains (and then hoover them) and putting all bedding and stuffed animals in a wash, tumble dry, wash, tumble dry cycle fortnightly. The tumble dryer heat kills the mites and the wash cycle gets rid of the poop. The good mattress and bedding encasements are then worth investing in.

We invested in some happy skin vests, body suits and baby gros for our daughter. Pricey but they made a difference. You might be worth looking for 2nd hand ones on vinted.

My son has had mild eczema since birth and it sometimes flares up so it’s quite bad. It used to be everywhere including his cheeks which would bleed and weep. We were prescribed Hydromol cream which can also be added to bath water. It’s really thick but not greasy like some. He’s also prescribed Hydrocortisone steroid cream 1% which we use sparingly and when it’s bad. It clears it and stops the itching immediately. I believe it’s prescription only - have you tried this?

We find my sons eczema is worse in winter when in and out between artificially heated rooms and cold air outside, and improves in summer.

Hi @hm4912

Have you ever tried aproderm?

We tried loads of different things with my now 4 year old and the final cream was this.

The results were life changing over night. I cried tears of joy in the morning.

X

Has the gp prescribed a steriod/hydro cortisone type cream? People always sugget different moisturiser creams but sounds like you need something stronger

My 5 month old has had eczema for the last 3 months. It got severe and was on steroid cream eumovolate for all over his body even on his face but it just kept coming back. We tried changing his milk to cmpa but it made no difference.

Well I’ve just found the cause, today I used ready milk for all his bottles instead of powder. His eczema is disappearing, this evening his tummy was white skin coloured, the last 2 months it has been an angry red. I already know hard water affected him as his eczema was always worse after a bath but I didn’t think drinking hard water would affect him. I honestly can’t believe it and want to shout it from the rooftops.

From now on I will be using bottled water to make all his bottles.

If your daughter is formula fed please try this!

We have had loads of problems with rashes and sore eyes in our family. I managed to track it down to fragranced laundry products and air fresheners. Seems that these can have allot of irritants that especially effect sensitive children and adults. Its hard to go fragrance free these days but it massively helped. Hope this was useful and she is feeling better.

The only washing powder my dd could tolerate was non bio persil powder. Even the fairy non bio set her skin off because it was too scented. My sil used to give us hand me downs and it would flare up after wearing anything handed down and not rewashed. You can try a bag of oats in the bath water. And we also found double base the best emollient. Others didn't help. This is still how we manage it and rarely need to use the steroid cream.

My son was like this. Everyone we saw said the eczema looked quite mild and basically shooed us away like we were worrying unnecessarily. But he clawed at his skin constantly especially when clothes removed/bath time etc. We tried every different emollient, changing diet, removing dust mites, special washing powder, hydrocortisone, piriton, nothing worked.

In the end after months of stress we saw a private paediatric dermatologist who proscribed elidel. It solved the problem instantly. I wept in relief that day. Apparently his immune response was worse than it needed to be to the mild eczema and that was what we needed to block. Not sure whether you could get it without prescription though. Good luck.

www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-22383/elidel-topical/details