DD has molluscum. Any advice??

[puffybear]

DD, age 3, has had molluscum for a few weeks but now it seems to be getting worse, more itchy and inflamed than before and spreading as well. I did some reading on the internet and the best course of action seemed to be to let it run its course. Anyone else's DC had this; any advice from anyone?

let it runs its course.

some people swear by elizabeth arden 8 hour cream i think.

I am currently using Zymaderm on dd's molluscum - it seems to have stopped the smaller ones from developing but havent seen a dramatic improvement in the larger ones yet - have only been using it for about 10 days though.

My ds's both had it. 8-12 months and it disappears overnight.

my ds had it for 9 months and dd for almost a year. One day it is there and the next it is gone! just let it run its course

Thanks people, confirmed what I thought. FairyTale...have never been one for spending £££s on lotions and potions, however, after what you said I may invest in some 8 Hour cream for DD and I to share - it may help her molluscum and I will transformed into a vision of loveliness .

for what it's worth, here is my experience: DD2 and DD3 had molluscum at ages 5 & 4-ish. The general idea was to just leave it to go away on its own, but it seemed to be lasting for ever and ever and DD2 in particular was v. self conscious about it when wearing a leotard (ballet lessons).

My GP printed out some information, and left me to make my own decision. On the print out, it deed indeed confirm that you can just leave it to run its course. It also said that you could squeeze the spots out, and that would 'shock' them into dying out. I decided to give that a go, being very very careful to use a separate piece of damp cotton wool on each spot after squeezing, to blot the blood that came out (the middle bits or 'plugs' - yuk - of the spots are VERY infectious) and flushing each bit of cotton wool down the loo and washing my hands after EVERY spot-squeeze.

This took quite a while as the girls would only let me do 3 or 4 a day! But I began to notice that every spot that i treated in this way completely cleared up and vanished completely! I would do this again, definitely.

N.B. their spots were across their backs,shoulders etc. if they had been somewhere more sensitive, e.g., on face etc. I doubt i would have been brave enough!

Didn't it hurt to squeeze them?

My GP said we could but he strongly recommended we didn't. DS had this for months and then they just disappeared too.

I let dd scratch hers (had only had them for a few weeks and were very localised - inside of one elbow) they got infected and then disappeared. My gp told me that they are virus that is undected by our immune system until it gets infected, once infected the immune system notices it and gets rid of the virus.

If you have several patches of spots then each patch may need to get infected before they disappear. My dd caught them off her best friend (I assume) at school who has had them for years (2 or 3 now) she had loads on her face they then got infected and then rapidly went - not sure if they have all gone everywhere though.

Milliways - yes it did hurt them. But they were keen to get rid of the spots and very aware of them (DD3 was doing self-portraits at school, including funny marks around top half: when questioned, she would say 'that's my molluscum')!

But they were keen to submit themselves to the squeeze! I seem to remember hysterical screaming and running around in between squeezes, which became completely tongue in cheek - i think they quite enjoyed the drama. And, as I say, I kept it to a few goes per night. They could soon see that it was working, because the spots would disappear and not leave any mark/scar whatsoever.

Cargirl saying about her DD scratching them, reminds me of my DDs scratching theirs too, and drawing blood in the process. That made me worry about scarring. I remember thinking that if they were doing that, anyway, then what difference would it make to just squeeze them.

But, it's horses for courses!

My ds's had them on their backs. I think they got them from swimming as the changing facilities at their lessons were not kept clean inbetween groups of children. They didn't know they had them until my mum began inspecting thier backs every time she came round saying 'Have those horrible things not gone yet?' She seemed to think it was some sort of leprosy and thought my GP was neglecting them by just leaving them. Of course, once she pointed them out they began scratching them. Didn't scar tho' thank goodness.

my daughter was diagnosed almost five yrs ago she went through the freezing, aldara cream, and duofilm. everytime we thinks it has left her a hundren more bumps shows up. none of these are inflamed just white pearly bumps. the buning is so painful and heartbreaking that now i am considering the silver treatment. her twin has it as well. i feel helpless for them and its startint to affest their self esteem.

Here is the reference to the study about silver nitrate treatment of molluscum - cure rate 97.7% with no scarring or side effects sounded pretty good to me

www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1525-1470.1999.00104.x

And here is what I used on my 3 year old

www.trycare.co.uk/chiropodists/Shop/product_detail.asp?ID=214

You dip a stick in water, shake off any excess, and touch it to the exact middle of the bump for about 10-20seconds (too long and the skin will get red and itchy for a bit)

The bump goes black in the middle and disappears over the next week or so.

I treated about 15 bumps at a time, which was as long as she could stay still, and waited until they were gone before doing the next lot. I used two or three sticks at each session - they flake quite quickly.

Mostly my daughter found this totally painless - there were perhaps 5 or 6 out of 75 bumps where she found that the silver nitrate stung, maybe because there was a nerve ending right at the middle of the bump.

The box of sticks cost about £12 and there was enough over for four or five of my friends when their children got it.

Some of these cases sound much more severe than dd's - I would say she has around 20 bumps mainly on the right side of her torso and her right inner arm, however there are a couple that seem to get regularly inflamed and bleed if they catch on something.
assw4 - did your GP recommend the silver nitrate treatment?

No, my gp said all you could do was wait or have them painfully burned off - I stumbled across the treatment study and thought it had to be worth trying as an alternative to the continuing disfigerement that she hated or giving her pain.

It was totally effective and only treated bumps cleared, so I don't think she just happened to develop the immunity at the same time.