Excema - how should I treat it?

[AngieL]

My 15 mo daughter has got quite a lot of excema at the moment. She has got a large patch on the side of her face near her eye and it has become infected. She has an immune deficiency and the doctor has now given her oral antibiotics.

He hasn't really told me how I should be treating the excema though and it is weeping and bleeding. Do I put any cream or anything on - I can't use the hydrocortisone at the moment. Should I cover it up, to stop dd scratching it?

Any advice would be great. TIA.

Is it similar to tacrolimus?

My son got eczema at about 10 months when he started having small amounts of cows milk (he was breastfed until 12 months). As his cows milk consumption increased his eczema got worse. We used SK cream & Weleda calendua cream which helped but didn't eliminate the eczema. Since swapping the cows milk for goats milk (goats cheese, butter & yoghurt too), the eczema has all but disappeared. I switched him back temporarily to cows milk to see if it really was the cause and sure enough it came back. Apparently goats milk is much easier to digest. It's definitely the best thing we could have done, tackle the cause not the symptoms! I know it doesn't taste as good but my 13 month old doesn't seem to complain!

can someone please educate me on this wet wrapping for the eczema? i am currently using aqueos cream as soap and E45 afterwards it seems to be helping a tiny wee bit although my daughter's skin really is looking rough. she is scratching all the time. someone please help.

poopsy (what a name!), I would lay off the E45, my daughter always reacted badly to it. You need a very benign emollient. I can only recommend the one that I use (non-prescrip, v cheap from the chemist) called Cetomacrogol, I think I've mentioned it on here before. I'm sure there are others, but E45 is fairly well known to cause sensitivity in many exczema suffers. I'd say the same about Oilatum as well, in case you are using that...

Poopsy, I second that. E45 can be very irritating on sore skin. We wet wrapped ds for nearly a year. First a nurse came to our house to show us, there is also a video I think. We used mild steroid (hydrocortisone) with 50/50 (emulsyfying oitment and parafin combined, very runny and greasy) for the dry but not inflamed bits. My heart goes out to you, I found it exhausting. There is a website here www.wetwraps.co.uk/. Sorry, cant do a link right now.

Please feel free to ask any further questions. And good luck, I hope it helps.

wet wrapping- ask your HV to show you how to do it- or refer you to someone who can. We were shown in the hospital. You will need to get the tubifast bandages on prescription as they are very expensive (and although they are washed and reused they do tend to disintigrate). We wet wrapped DS1 for quite a few months and it really helped him. Their skin is so lovely and soft in the morning! We carried on wet wrapping just with emollient even after weaning of steroids- as it was very soothing.

DS1 doesn't really have much eczema anymore. Although I still tend to slap a bit of diprobase on him most nights after his bath.

Diprobase cream is brilliant, the only thing taht worked and canesten HC on the very inflamed bits like back of knees and elbows, under chiln where worse from dribbling etc. Cleared up in couple of days and stayed away

heya, i'm new to this board. both my kids have ezcema, dd1 is now 3 years old and dd2 is 9months old. the eldest ezcema is always getting out of control, even tho i spend at least 2 hours a day bathing her and applying creams, not including the night time applications as well. the babies ezcema is more or less under control but at the moment she doesnt scratch and thats when the problems start.

we cant use e45 as dd1 is allergic to lanolin, so right now we are using balneum bath additive, fucidin H (she is getting over an infection), dermol 500 lotion and diprobase. we're getting referred back to hertford to see the consultant as i want to wet wrap her at night to try and combat the night time itching.
i think the baby sleeps better than she does.

we have also used (wait for it)
eurcin
aquous cream
oilatum plus bath addictive
oilatum cream
eumavate
hydrocortisone 1%, .5% and .1%
diprobase ointment
fucibet
steroid tablets
(plus about 10 other treatments that had little or no effect)

Misdee - sorry to hear your story Ds was really bad at 6 months, but grew out of it. He still gets dry patches, which we treat with Unguentum Merck and 0.5% steroid ointment (in the more stubborn areas). It must be really hard for you, but you sound like you have the right attitude towards it. My ds was not as bad as your two, and I was near a nervous breakdown!

The scratching does the most damage doesn't it. I used to have to put ds' arms in splints at night, before he could roll, otherwise he used to have red raw cheeks.

Misdee, we have been through the same. Ds is now 3 and has a little eczema but it is very easy to control now (touch wood). It is so distressing and exhausting to care for a child with severe eczema. Have you been referred to Great Ormond St? We eventually were as wet-wrapping was doing no good and ds literally spent all day sitting on the floor and scratching. He was skinny, bald and unhappy, it was so heartbreaking. When we saw Dr Atherton at GOS he prescribed prednisolone oral steroids. They do have side effects so you have to weigh this up with the side effects of bad eczema. We gave ds the prednisolone and within 3 days his skin was improving. It took a year to wean him off the drug (if you do it too quickly the eczema can come back) but he has been off it now for 6 months and his eczema has not resurfaced apart from a few little patches that come and go. We are so glad we saw Dr Atherton, our local hospital seemed disinterested and useless in dealing with severe eczema.

Misdee, as I said, wet-wrapping ceased to help. It did provide some initial relief and made ds skin less itchy. I do know that it can really help some sufferers and the wrapping is enough to keep things under control. I hope it works for you, good luck.

we have used the steroid tablets for short courses before. (the little pink ones that dissolve), the longest she was on them was for a month, starting at 2 tablets weaning down to half, and it worked a treat. we had a good summer last year with only one infection and almost normal skin. this year i know its going to be bad as nothing is working at the moment, and hasnt been for months really.
i know wet wrapping might not work, but i'm willing to give anything a shot to try and get us all a good nights sleep.

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My son has suffered with moderate excema since he was about 3 months old, sometimes he's fine, sometimes his body is covered. We've tried various moisturers - E45, Unguentum Merck, Cetraben but have found the good old plain aqueous cream to be the best. We've also used different steroids - Fuciben, Hydrocortisone and another I can't remember the name of! We've tried bath oils which made it worse and coal tar soap which didn't help that much either. I am at my wits end with my GP who just keeps prescribing creams that help for a day or two and then it returns with a vengance, plus they don't seem to hand out much advice either. In fact, last time I went, he looked at my son for about 10 seconds before he prescribed something.

So-! As a last resort we have started taking ds to a Chinese Herbalist who says he should be able to 'cure' our son. We were incredibly skeptical to start with, my a friend of my sister's had a son who had chronic excema from head to foot. Basically she took him to be treated with Chinese medicine and within 3 months he was cured (and months later, still is), so I decided it was worth a try. We are still in the very early stages, my son has just been having tiny amounts to check for reactions, but today his dosage has been upped slightly so I'll let you know if it works for us! The downside is that is involves him having to drink a small amount of foul tasting liquid although it can be masked in squash/juice.

Finally, a word of warning - when using tubs of aqeous cream, I've been advised to use a clean spoon to get the amount of cream out for each application. If you dip your fingers in and apply it to the excema, and then dip your fingers straight back into the cream, the bacteria from the excema will multiply in the tub very easily (as it is water based) which renders it useless.

Susanb, we tried Chinese medicine, unfortunately it didnt work for ds but it worked brilliantly with a friends toddler. Good luck wiht it. One word of warning, Chinese medicine prescribed by unqualified or unscrupulous (sp?) can contain steroids and can damage the liver. We went to a practitioner who handles referrals from Great Ormond St so we were quite satisfied with her credentials but there are some charlatans out there.

Thank you all for your responses. We have tried various creams and my husband believes all the creams and ointments only work for a while before the body gets used to them and stops working. Also has anyone ever tried the camphor cream from Adcock Ingram, this worked for a while too. Our concern is to reduce the itching, it is causing a lot of damage to her skin.

To relieve the itching- wet wrap- it is incredibly soothing. You can just wet wrap with emollients (ie no steroids). They sleep all night without scratching. When ds1 was bad I used to wet wrap during the day sometimes as well.

bunny2 thanks for the advice.

The practitioner we've gone too was recommended and also is registered (I've checked!). I did spend a long time looking up the pros and cons before trying it but have to say that in one visit, the practitioner spent more time asking about my son's condition and checking him over than all of the time spent by my doctor over the last 3 years (and we are also paying a minimal amount for his treatment as the costs are subsidised).

I to a point remain skeptical but was at my wits end with my GP. Also, he has started my son on a very low dose of medicine to check for side effects and is very gradually increasing it.
Sorry to hear it didn't work for your son.

My dd (7 mo.) has mild excema. When I visited our paediatrician in the usa last month she said that if it got bad she recommended a new cream that she says has been working miracles for bad cases of excema in her patients. It's called Elidel and the active ingredient is 1% pimecrolimus. I don't know if it's available in the uk (perhaps with a different name), but it's worth trying to track it down. She was super enthusiastic about it and doesn't normally prescribe drugs willy nilly.

Somebody below recommended Kamillosan - I tried this recently for a small patch of eczema which had appeared on my ds' chin, and found it excellent. And he really liked the feel and smell of it too - he rubbed it in himself instead of the usual struggle we have applying cream.

For washing powder - Surcare was the best we found (available at Sainsburys).

Flaxseed oil in the diet is great for skin problems - buy it from your health food shop, keep it in the fridge, and mix into food when cooked (you can't use it for cooking with as this destroys the nutritional value).

Kamilosan used to contain peanut oil, I am notsure if it still does but worth checking out.

Pimecromilus is available here as is tacromilus, both quite similar I think. Unfortunately tacromilus is very hard to get as it is so expensive (£80 a tube). We have had it from GOSH on private prescription but have been told our local health authority (Dorset) have it blacklisted, I suspect due to the cost. Therefore we cannot get a prescription for it even thoug it has been prescribed in the past. I think pimecromilus may be the same case.

Email Elena- [email protected] for free samples they are giving them away free at the moment!

Is this thread of any help, too?:

Other subjects: Did you know it's best to bathe babies in water alone?

i dont know if this is been suggested but try putting sea salt in the bath water,its worked wonders with my dd,also her ezcema always disappears when she`s been in the sea so worth a try

Sea salt is very cleansing so it can help mildly infected eczema. The salt also helps speed the healing process. we too have used it on ds with some success. However, if the skin is very broken and sore, salt water can sting badly so I would experiment with caution.