Eczema or however you spell it - please someone tell me about it.

[Boco]

dd2 is three, she's just been diagnosed with asthma - and has quite suddenly developed really bad eczema to go with it.

Started just in the usual arm creases, but since a couple of days ago is everywhere and keeps having sudden flare ups - put her to bed sobbing as her whole back was bright red and raw and she couldn't stop scratching.

The eczema on her arms was infected and weeping so dr has given us fucillin H, plus hydrocortisone for the rest, plus an aqueous bath wash.

Is there anything to avoid or anything that might help, is really nasty - today on her face too, round her eyes and I feel horrid as don't know how to relieve the itching.

have you changed your washing powder/fabric softener?

Try switching to Surcare or Ecover - horribly expensive but can be worth it. Also think about doing an extra rinse on each wash to get rid of any traces.

Aveeno cream is really good - you can get it on prescription. My dd had a horrendous outbreak round her mouth and chin (provoked by lots of dribbling!) - and we put a layer of Aveeno on 3x a day fro about 3 weeks and she is back to her perfect baby sking again.

i really feel for your dd2 - I have it too and it is so itchy and makes you feel horrid. The hot weather won't be helping much (I woke up scratching my pinkie last night - i made it bleed )

You'll get lots of tips on here - but I found that I went through a lot of different lotions and potions until I found something that worked.

I do use ecover and don't use fabric softener - but I do wonder if something like that has changed that I can't put my finger on as it seems so sudden.

Will look out for Aveeno, thank you.

My DS and I have eczema he is 2YO and was born covered in it.

Aqueious is great and fucidinH is okay for a bit but my DS skin used to flare up as soon as I finished it! Was a right pain. Best thing I found for round the eyes was a cold wet facecloth, sounds daft but saves putting creams near there eyes and does cool the itch I used to have to wrap cold wet banages round my arms when they got weepy and infected. I had to put Aqueious all over my DS 3x a day to keep his skin from drying out too so this is obviously important. And things like soap powder baby wipes all matter so be careful with that. Surcare is fab. The heat won't be helping it tends to get worse and stingy if her arms are weepy
the sweat will sting it like mad! Obv suncream si a biggy at the moment too look out for a specially formulated one suitable for eczema.

Like Meep said you'll get loads of tips but everything works differently on other people.

I fond this website very useful I don't know if you've been on it

hope this is of some use

oooh poor thing. I think the heat makes the whole thing worse as my DD is also in misery with both the asthma and eczema atm. Recently the consultant at the asthma clinic has given her antihistamine medicine, which we give her during such flare-ups and it seems to do the trick. Even sunblock is setting her off now, everything except the E45 one.
Meep is spot on it is pretty much a case of trying all kinds of everything til you come across something that works. I have three DC and they are all good with different things, which pretty much proves the point that different things work for different people.

DS1 we use Aqueous cream, absolute pennies for a huge pot.
DS2 - doesn't suffer as badly with eczema, but we only use Halos n' Horns products on all of them as he does react to stuff with "nasties" in, esp shampoo.
DD - the worst of the lot at the mo - oh, by the way all three have a dairy intolerance to a greater or lesser degree, and we find that Goats Milk helps their skin no end...to drink it instead of cows i mean not umm bathe in it like Cleopatra or whoever (no that was asses milk. Never mind!)
Back to DD. E45 cream, plain water in bath [sounds EEeeee but it's a necessity] sometimes use oilatum junior bath, prob twice a week or three times when itchy like now.
Cotton clothes, non-bio washing powder, NO conditioner (makes it much worse) including bedding towels and everything. Sounds like a PITA but now more a way of life in our house

Halos 'n' Horns for anyone who hasn't already met their stuff

As others have said, the thing with eczema is that different things work for different people. So it's really a case of trying various things until you find the combination that has the best effect.

For DS, who has had it since he was 8 weeks, it's Oilatum in the bath, Doublebase as an emollient and hydrocortisone cream and Betnovate for the red bits. Plus non-bio washing liquid, no fabric softener and only 100% cotton clothing. His flares up in the heat so we try to keep him as cool as possible.

Aqueous cream is not generally recommended as those with eczema have a high chance of being allergic to it. Similarly anything with lanolin in, like E45. But some people are fine with it.

Eczema is sometimes (but not always) made worse by diet, particularly dairy and/or egg. (My DS is allergic to egg and has a mild skin reaction to cows' milk.) If you are going to do an exclusion diet, though, it needs to be done properly and under the supervision of a dietician.

Wet wrapping can also help with severe flare-ups -- ask your GP. In fact the best thing you can do is ask for a referral to a specialist; ime GPs know very little about eczema beyond 'put some Epaderm on it'.

Boco: I've suffered from eczema for years, and have seen several specialists.

Basic skincare (until you find out what's setting her off):

• Don't wash her with soap at all. When you wash her hands, use moisturiser or an eczema wash.

• Don't let her touch washing up liquid/shampoo.

-Everytime you wash her make sure you moisturise her generously afterwards (including hand-washes).

• (I'm sure you do this anyway but...) Make sure she only has natural fabrics against her skin, both during the day and at night.

• Wrt the steroid cream and the moisturiser, leave a gap between applying them, preferably of about an hour. The moisturer will weaken the effect of the steroid cream otherwise.

My DS is also prone (he's 16 months), but I just look after his skin as I look after my own, and so far so good.

Good luck, and I hope your DD has a comfortable night tonight.

I've copied and pasted your entire post, booboo and stuck it on my 'notepad'. fantastic advice. We have a whole tactical discussion going with nursery, where they are trying to stop DD using the soap (at my request) but she's a bit of a bggr for it, and also the green/blue/whatever coloured paper hand towels completely wreck all our family's skin, so she has a couple of terry nappies for this, but as the paper towels are a big novelty then she won't leave them alone either. The poor nursery staff are absolute angels, but DD is winning atm

For some strange reason I can't post on this thread, so I'll try doing it in little chunks.

I use Filetti washing powder for ds's clothes. Make sure that you wash any new clothes before wearing, I used a pair of pants straight from the pack and poor ds had a flare up on his bum and willy.

Don't use any soap or bath products except for specialist products like Oilatum or Aveeno bath oil. You may find the aqueous wash doesn't help or makes it worse, it doesn't work for everyone and didn't help ds at all. You could also try using porridge oats in the bath (put them in an old sock or muslin) as it's very soothing.

I buy Aveeno products for ds from www.soft-skin.co.uk/cgi-bin/cp-app.pl?usr=51F3983116&rnd=3904260&rrc=N&affl=&cip=79.73.5.11&act=&aff =&pg=cat&ref=EZ or the bath oil is quite widely available in pharmacies. The Aveeno anti-itch cream is very useful and I use the Aveeno Intense Relief overnight cream as a moisturiser twice a day (unfortunately it's been out of stock for ages).

Have you been using sunblock? DS often has a bad reaction to that, this year even the Aveeno sun-screen caused a reaction so we are using Sun Sense roll-on toddler milk and it's fine so far. Have you been to a swimming pool, perhaps she's reacting to the water? Or else she could be reacting to her bedding, you could try washing her duvet and putting an allery undersheet over her mattress.

I hope she's feeling better soon.

Oh thank you everyone, loads of good advice and links there - will read it all again now!

We went swimming on friday and everything much worse afterwards - she has swimming lessons every friday so not sure what to do about that.

It was worse after her bath, so wonder if the emmolient made it worse after all. Will watch the soap and shampoos too.

What do you do if they wake crying in the night? I can't put on more hydrocortisone - i'd been putting on sudocrem just to try and sooth it but not sure if this is wrong.

Chlorine makes DS flare up too

For night-time scratching, your GP might prescribe Vallergan or Phenergan to help break the itch/scratch cycle. We used to use Piriton or Medised when it was really affecting DS at night.

hiya

do you put on a cream b4 swimming i use doublebase on my ds b4 swimmin
also when you get it cleared us halo n horns products they are great, they do a bath product a shower gel and shampoo and even toothpaste. and they are fun for the lo's without the nasties
good luck.

Ooh actually I have some vallergan prescribed to her about a year ago when she had an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin and had really bad urticaria for days. Will try that in the night, thank you.

I find painkillers are good for night-time itching/pain (Calpol/Neurofen). Medised is also helpful as it has anti-histimine and paracetamol. I find half the recommended dose is fine for Medised, otherwise ds is a bit dopey the next morning.

what is doublebase?
Will definitely look into the halos and horns stuff. Usually use dr bronner that has no nasties - but just regular shampoos so will definitely change that.

Doublebase is an emoillient, it's available over the counter but you have to ask for it as it's never on the shelves (don't know why).

you could also try just a basic emulysifying ointment slatered on all over her before swimming, it acts like a barrier.

i found what works well with infection is dermol 500 lotion, its really good. unfortnatly dd1 is now allergic to it, so i have a couple of bottles left, unopened in my bathroom. still in date. they can be bought OTC as well, but are £12 a bottle. are you local to me at all (herts), as quite willing to give you a couple to try.

it could literally be the whole heat/hayfever/allery thing all kicking in at once, poor love. dd's are very bad atm with all atopic stuff.

Thanks for the offer misdee, I have some of that dermol for myself as have unexplained rash - did use some on the weepy bits.

Do your dds have asthma too? I know they're linked but do they tend to be bad at the same time? Dd always prone to croup, but this is proper wheezing - she's a right mess poor little thing.

dd1+2 have asthma, eczema, allergies, hayfever

dd3 has eczema and allergies.

summer is the worst time for them.

We saw a specialist with ds a couple of years ago & we seem to have his under control now. Trick, as everyone seems to be saying, is to keep skin moisturised to prevent problems in the first place.

ds gets bad on hot days, when he gets sweaty. We reckon on bathing to ensure we get rid of sweat, then aqueous cream slathered on afterwards. Another preventative is to rub Zeasorb powder on limbs to prevent him staying damp & sweaty during the day. We do also have steroid cream for flare ups, which we use sparingly at first sign of trouble & it now nips things in the bud, rather than leaving it to get really bad/infected.

Good luck.

double base is vey good, much easier to use than epaderm.
try getting pyjamas with mittens sewn on (from Cotton comfort) that way she can't damage skin so badly at night.
You could ask for a referral to an immunologist, if you know what she's allergic to it's easier to try and do something about it. Let's hope your dd grows out of it, lots of children do.

try SOS cream from an independant health shop.

www.barefoot-botanicals.com/shop/sos-skin-rescue.asp

I have used it previously on babies with excellent results including a 3 month old baby the gp sent to me because he couldn't prescribe anything as the child was too young