Baby eczema keeps spreading

[Rachelfraine995]

My daughter has had eczema since about 3 weeks old which we thought was a milk allergy as she had other symptoms like diarrhoea and reflux so we switched to lactose free milk which just made her constipated and now we are on aptamil pepti 2 and I am really struggling to keep on top of her eczema. All her other symptoms have gone so I’m pretty sure is was cows milk but her eczema just keeps spreading and spreading and I can tell she’s really itchy all the time :(
she’s nearly 7 months now and she’s just not a happy baby and I don’t know what else to do :(

Poor baby- id definitely see the GP for that just in case it’s something else or they can recommend something topical

You need to go to the GP, DD had eczema like that and we were prescribed various moisturising creams, and when it was bad like that, hydrocortisone cream with very specific instructions on how to use it, and how much.

Poor baby! I do think GPs are generally not brilliant at dealing with this. My son (who also had CMPA) had terrible eczema, but because I was a pro from having it myself we managed to keep it under control. What are you bathing her in? The best thing to do is make sure that you are using an emollient in the bath (hydromol for example) and then drying baby thoroughly and quickly once out and applying her eczema cream quickly.

We’ve been prescribed strong steroid creams but been told to only use for a couple days and stop, but once we have stopped using it it comes back worse and in other areas so I’m reluctant to keep using it

And yeah we were using emollient for bath time but was advised to stop and we have ointment for her for night time aswell but just nothing seems to work! I’m booking an appointment with gp again tomorrow but they just don’t really seem interested in getting to the cause of it 🙄 and we’ve been referred to dermatology but the waiting lists are like 12 months plus!

Is your baby formula fed? If so use bottled water for his bottles and/or ready milk. I have just worked out drinking hard water has caused my 5 month old baby’s severe eczema. He was given strong steroids for everywhere including his face and it just kept coming back. One day on ready milk only and his tummy and face are skin coloured again- it’s been angry red for the last 3 months. His dry patches are disappearing.

We already bathed him in bottled water as realised he was always worse after a bath but didn’t think about him drinking it. I’m actually ecstatic right now. I had no idea hard water could be so harmful.

I don't think a couple days of steroid is going to be enough for that, unfortunately. DD2 was prescribed a medium-strength steroid, but we had to use it for 1-2 weeks, then taper it off, gradually increasing the length of time between applications. The explanation from both the GP and the dermatologist was that no, steroid cream isn't ideal for skin, but ongoing eczema does a lot more damage, so better to get on top of it. Now we are on top of it and I catch flares early, we rarely need steroid cream and if we do, a day or two usually does the trick.

Why did they say they wanted you to stop the emollient in the bath? That's pretty standard for eczema. Perhaps try a different emollient? It's quite individual what works. How often are you bathing her? You also only mention a cream for nighttime – once a day seems very infrequent for bad eczema. DD2 gets full body cream twice a day and any problem areas get done every nappy change, and that's not an extreme schedule.