5yo DS eczema - can't get out of terrible flare up.

[hedgehoggle]

My DS's eczema is currently awful and has been bad since the start of summer. I'm struggling so much with the stress of creaming him multiple times a day, as he completely hates it. We have been to the doctors many times and had:

Oilatum
Epimax
Hydrocortisone
Eumovate
Zeroderm

The epimax he seemed to have a reaction to - he went from having eczema on arms and legs to all over his body at that point. AHH!! We just cannot get through this flare. He screamed when we tried Lush dream cream, which I know some people have great results with. We currently do coconut oil, as it's one of the only things he can stand, plus MooGoo. Before the flare, MooGoo was always the go to cream. We have a weekend regime of Eumovate on the weekend as prescribed by doctors.

Got a doctor's appointment on Wednesday. Going to push AGAIN for dermatology referral and not take no for an answer. I also think I'll raise antibiotics as he has a lot of scabby bits from scratching - could an infection be why we can't clear the flare?

Anyone got any ideas what to ask for/raise? So desperate for him - his skin is making him miserable.

I suffered with eczema for years and after a bad spell of reflux and heartburn as an adult I cut dairy out of my diet and I’ve barely had a flake of eczema since! I also suffer from hayfever and now take antihistamines daily from the start of april until November.
also try changing your washing powder. My mum swears by fairy because she believes the marketing hype about it being suitable for baby skin but also complains about how dry and itchy her skin is and it drives mine insane!

@Notsleepinghelp so when you did the Eumovate, was it all over the body? As his eczema is all over. God it's bloody awful!

I totally understand. I sometimes feel guilty that we’ve not done the ‘eliminate everything’ approach you often see on Facebook / social media, but I’ve read a lot and accepted that eczema is eczema and for us, a big trigger is changes in temperature.

We don’t even have a family history so it’s quite hard to accept really.

I remind myself she has good skin days and bad skin days without changing anything in her diet or environment and try not to go insane trying to find a ‘root’ cause.

Another thing though that has seemed to have helped a bit are these probiotics:

https://www.optibacprobiotics.com/uk/product/for-babies-children-90-sachets?gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20819089632&gbraid=0AAAAAD0H4Lz8SVq6x0DmiX4a7TvuYAtBn&gclid=CjwKCAjwx-zHBhBhEiwA7Kjq61CLEmJe316RIkfl1BrQqBABwSSs4MNbAtU-9bPpbu0f7aExxxuEURoCiMwQAvD_BwE

Pretty much! It was on his entire chest, tummy, arms and legs. The doctor advised that you have to go in hard with steroids and then gradually retreat. Don’t just stop steroids cold turkey because the eczema will come back worse.

@Mushroo I've been thinking about the probiotic route. So hard because there's just SO MUCH stuff you can do, it feels overwhelming.

Push for a paediatric dermatologist referral. You need to get it under control. We set wrapped my daughter from about 18 months to 9 years every single day and sometimes twice a day. She would often be wet wrapped under school uniform. We followed the 3 minute rule so evening bath with emollient, pat dry and within 3 minutes entire body had emollient ( white soft paraffin wax) with any extra medicated ointments needed. Always intent never creams. Always non bio washing powder and no perfumes at all in house on any body. No fabric softener. Always dressed in organic cotton. She’s 26 and mostly grown out of it but still uses moogoo

Betnovate worked for us. Strong but needed way less. Hes 7 now and only bad on hands/ dry skin in winter. Used to be utterly terrible.

I would avoid oilatum. My dd was prescribed if for a bit and she always hated it in the bath. I thought I'd use it up as she just hated it and it STUNG so badly. It made my skin so raw too.

You need a stronger steroid. That is a mild one. You need to push for the GP to refer you to a dermatologist

you need to give him pro biotics to help his gut a look at zinc. my daughter was really bad with eczema since 4 months old we have tried all the creams and nine really worked until we sorted her guts out also look at vitamin A aswell.

Dd had eczema as a child, used stronger and stronger steroids and was also prescribed protopic. Unfortunately this led to topical steroid withdrawal. Please google TSW and also the charity ITSAN has really helpful information (their Facebook page is a mine of information and there’s another FB page called “TSA caregivers rock” which is for parents. It may be that your little one is now reacting to the steroids themselves - the fact that the rash is all over his body and no longer just on the usual elbow and knee creases is one of the clues. If I had my time again I would not use any steroids, nor protopic (which is linked to skin cancer and is very very strong- with a black box warning in many countries). Zinc oxide (the active ingredient in sudocrem) is helpful for the very inflamed stage.
We saw about 7 dermatologists over the years and learnt the hard way. Dd has now been steroid free for 3 years and skin is so much better than when on all the creams!

Good luck, it’s so miserable for you all as a family. I found I couldn’t sleep because I was staying awake listening out for scratching.

I expect OP that all of these responses have been overwhelming. There’s just no easy answer. I would say that washing powder/soap can be a trigger. We only use Ecover. Any change is a trigger.

I hope you find a solution.

I highly recommend Happyskin. It saved me so many GP appointments and dermatologist appointments. One thing I highly recommend is to stop using Paraffin based creams (these are all the creams you've listed) including oil based creams too. Happyskin sell a cream alongside their garments and the combination is a dream combo. My little one sleeps so much better, itches less and flare up's are near to none now. www.happy-skin.com - Check them out

@MEIMUM1310 can I ask why you say stop using paraffin/oil based cream? I don't like them, my goal is to get his skin to a place where we can transition back to our old "normal" cream of MooGoo. But currently his skin is so dry it stings

We've had great results this week using betnovate(?). But I am anticipating these results will disappear once we finish our course ...

I've got him some kefir in the hopes it'll work some magic!

Watch this https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNd3Josau/ . It helped me understand a lot about the skin and why paraffins and oils should be avoided for damaged skin barrier/eczema

@hedgehoggle have a look into red light therapy as well as that is good fie eczema.

Do some research into dupixent.

My daughter had terrible eczema and has started having Dupixent autoimmune injections twice a month and her skin is almost completely eczema free.

We had a good 5 + years of messing around with creams and none of the actually ever worked.

My daughter's skin was worse in the summer too: she's allergic to grass, pollen and birch trees. Which excaberated the eczema