18 month old with ezcema - any none steriod treatments?

[RuthT]

My friends baby has just started to get ezcema again having had it last time as a wee one. does anyone have any experience of this.

Can you offer any advice generally and in particular about treatments other than steriods.

Aveeno cream's very good.

treatment doesn have to involve steriods.
use an emollient in the bath never use soap, we use hydromol
use a mosturiser like epaderm/alveno put it on as often as you can.
and rule out the chance of the eczema being caused by an allergy to washing powder food etc.
Steroid should be considered if the eczema is really bothering her. if not try the other things first.
Am sure ther are a few homeopaths on mn that could give you advice...

aveeno, thanks hunker, god dam typing is crap tonight!

Just wondering why no steroids? The sort given for eczema are very safe and children are given tiny doses. And they are effective. Steroids got a bad name when bodybuilders abused anabolic steroids but it's not the same stuff at all and certainly doesn't have the same side effects.

DS1 gets tiny patches (as do I) on his legs and when it flares up, I use a bit of hydrocortisone on it till it's just dry and not red again - then he gets Aveeno. Agree that steroids for eczema the kindest thing to use IMO and IME.

My my Dd was a baby she had ezcema and still gets the occasional dry patch now. I washed her using aqueous cream (you can get big tubs from Boots etc for about £2, it makes them slippy in the bath so be careful. Once out of the bath and dry I would apply more aqeous cream, it worked really well. My Dr told me it is impossible to overdose on aqeuous cream (using it not eating it!) so I always have a tub at hand now even though mine are now 8 and 12.

Fiveaday, thin it was VVVQV who was telling aqueous vream can actually irritate eczema, is this true vicki?
diprobase/epaderm is better

Yes, according to my gp - studies have shown aqueous cream to aggravate eczma rather than help it.

Just to agree with edam - I had eczema as a child, and remember the itching as being absolutely awful. I had hydrocortisone cream, which my Mum applied sparingly to the sore patches and it helped it heal so quickly. I've not (as far as I'm aware!) suffered any consequence from using the steroid cream.

Aquaeous cream stings my eczema.

look at diet: consider excluding cows milk for a few weeks (can get almost everything goaty from waitrose: butter, milk, cream and cheese, and most of it from sainsburys too)....if ds doesn't have cows milk, he doesn't have eczema, when he does, it flares...that simple.

aqueous cream has helped my ds but always makes me really itchy. I also can't stand anything with lanolin in it. You can also try putting some oats in a scrunched up teatowel and giving it a squeeze in the bath

Can't recommend Aveeno cream highly enough. 2 of my offspring had terrible eczema, and it really helps. Aqueous cream, E45 etc made them much worse.

I have read that the effects of untreated eczema are worse than the ones of the corticoids. Using them is fine as long as you use them in the correct dose which is not too much not too little, her GP can get the illustrated info for dossage if he/she bothers to find it.

The best bath product we have found is called Emolytar, you can get it in Ireland and Spain but it is not available here. This product combined with aveeno or Eucerin 10% urea makes DS's eczema patches and flares disapear after 4 uses. Only downside is that DS ends up smelling like a BBQ :)

have been using elidel cream, very effective, is the only thing that will clear up ezcema on dd's face. can only get it on prescription, google it there's a web site.

DD has eczema

Aqueous cream made it worse. Pharmacist says it's something to do with a preservative in it.

Oilatum bath emollient good. Also good was Diprobase.

We avoided steroid creams for ages as I'd read about thinning skin, stunted growth, etc. But consultant dermatologist persuaded us to try wet wrap bandaging using steroid creams and moisturisers. In the end I was amazed at how quickly they cleared it up and felt quite bad we'd "made her suffer" for so long. Best course of action we found was to treat flare-ups with steroid for a few days then switch to slapping on moisturiser to prevent further episodes.

If you can stand it, 50/50 liquid paraffin/white soft paraffin is excellent, but very messy.

Oh and without doubt absolutely best of all was removing dairy from her diet. She has other symptoms with dairy foods as well as the eczema (vomiting, swollen, itchy eyes and mouth) and all disappeared on a dairy-free diet.

I agree with removing all dairy...I had infantile eczema and my mother put me on a strict dairy free diet until I was old enough to rebel! An unpleasant vivid memory - warm goat's milk on cornflakes on a winter's morning - bleugh! It worked a treat though.

Epaderm is also a fantastic emollient. It is emulsifying wax BP 30%w/w and yellow soft paraffin BP 30%w/w.

Gillian, this one is far less messy than the 50/50 liquid/soft paraffin.

Gillian glad your drmatologist convinced you about the steroids, the amount absorbed in the blood stream is no where near enought to cause the side effects you are talking about. Those side effects would be a consideration in long term oral steroid therapy but cetrainly not a 2% cream application.

Livvysmum, is your DD older than 2 years?

Elidel (as well as Tacrolimus) is a very powerful medicine, and has to be left as a last resource. Not saying this to undermine you, DS used it for a good few months, but because their use in under two's has been severely questioned after some studies showed it may contribute to skin cancer.

The worrying bit of it is that they realised about the cancer link just 2 years after it was released to the market. There was a thread about this sometime in 2005. I stoped using it more or less at the same time, when the dermatologist refused point blank to prescribe more for DS. One of the things that I find a bit worrying was doctors prescribing it without making the parents aware of damaging interactions with medicines as commonly used as ibuprofen.

Although that was 2 yrs ago, so maybe things are different, or new research has come through since the date, especially in trial results for under 2s, as the medicine was released without being tested in young children.

So, if your children are younger than 2 years old, please check again with your dermatologists. :)