Cradle cap- ongoing saga

[lockdownpregnancy]

Soooooooo my babies cradle cap is now beyond horrific! He's clawing at it all the time so we have him in a love to dream swaddle bag so he can't scratch his head when he's asleep and I now can't do anything around the house when he's awake as I'm on guard for his clawing at his head (mittens don't work)
I was prescribed anti fungal cream by the doctors last week and 4 days in my babies head is beyond horrific!
The photo attached shows his left side of his forehead last week and now and the right side, last week and now.
I'm currently waiting for a call back from the doctor as I think there is something else going on with his skin besides cradle cap. I could literally cry!
Anyone else ever had their babies suffer this bad? 😭😭😭

In our son's case, it was a dairy intolerance that was aggravating his cradle cap. I removed all dairy from my diet, left the cradle cap alone for a few weeks & then gently removed it all using the olive oil method. It never returned after that!

How awful for you, you poor thing.

I would also consider whether it’s an allergy. I’d speak to your doctor about that possibility. Is he breastfed? If so you might want to try an elimination diet. If formula fed he may need a dairy-free or allergy friendly formula.

Dentinox is the best thing I found but it wasn't that bad, the part on the forehead looks quite sore

Well I've just spoken to the doctor (again!!!!) and we are now switching to an anti biotic cream, an antihistamine to ease the itch and olive oil at night time to soften the scales.
I don't think it's an allergy as he pooping is perfectly fine. If it wasn't I'd suspect just that, but we shall see. If this doesn't work I'll be asking for allergy tests.
As long as the soreness and inflammation goes down I don't care if he has a crusty head. I can live with that.
What a nightmare! My poor baby boy! 😭😭

My sons was like that and my doctor said it may be a dairy intolerance. It improved GREATLY when I removed dairy.

People mistakenly think that allergies always present as diarrhoea and so if baby is having normal nappies then he can’t have an allergy.

When the doctor told me to consider a dairy intolerance it was based on nothing but my son’s awful cradle cap and some patches of dry skin on his face.

Just something to consider...

My daughters was like this too. It was also a dairy intolerance. She had the dry skin patches too

My friends dd was clawing at her skin and crying. Itchy, itchy icthy.

Her nappies were fine.

She pretty much camped out at the GP until he referred her to a paediatrician, after nothing they suggested worked.

Paed suggested that mum cut out dairy. (ebf baby) Mum did and it all cleared up.
Turns out she was severely allergic to milk and egg. One drop of milk on her hand and her hand swelled up!

But on the positive side, she grew out of that almost completely between age 4 and 6

DS had this, health visitor gave Hydramol to use instead of soap along with mild hydrocortisone cream. Cleared it up in a couple of weeks.

Thank you @ThornAmongstRoses I will remember what you've said and if there is no improvement after a week then I'll be speaking to the doctor again about allergies.
If I do change his milk, do I literally just change it immediately?
I know this sounds stupid (and I'm aware that my baby is not a dog) but when I've changed my dogs food it has to be done gradually. Is that the same with formula?

My Dsis had this as a baby and it was CMPA and the only sign was her skin.

My DS had similar cradle cap and very dry skin all over, his is Ichthyosis

With formula feeding your baby will just switch automatically onto the dairy free formula. Some babies really dislike it though so it can be difficult but don’t worry about that unless it’s a situation you have to face.

They say with allergies they can either affect the digestive system and cause symptoms like diarrhoea, vomiting, poor weight gain etc, or they can present via skin complaints, as you can see from different posts on here.

I saw 4 doctors about my babies cradle
Cap and skin and they kept telling me it was baby eczema and kept prescribing creams, but thankfully the 5th doctor said about the CMPA.

I was breastfeeding but he prescribed me 10 tins of dairy free formula there and then.

There is no ‘test’ as such to ascertain if there is an allergy, unless the baby in question has an anaphylactic reaction.

The removal of dairy from the baby’s diet for 6 weeks and observing for positive changes in the baby’s symptoms is what will confirm the diagnosis.

My son was 9 weeks old when the CMPA was initially suggested and he was ultimately allergic to dairy until he 2.5 years old.

Cmpa is the likely culprit. Cmpa.symptoms vary and it doesn't necessarily impact nappies. Allergy tests also won't pick up non-ige allergies which cause this type of skin issue so all you can do is try to exclude dairy and see if it improves.

Poor baby, one of my boys suffered with it spreading down his forehead and he is my only child with asthma. I think we were prescribed a cream, but I also swapped to dentinox cradle cap shampoo and that helped... But don't leave it on too long as it can irritate the skin if left on for more than a minute or so in the bath. My midwife also said I could try coconut oil instead of olive oil as olive oil never seemed to help and was so runny. Hope he gets some relief from it soon

Any reason you want to wait for allergy tests rather than immediately switching to dairy free?

Any reason you want to wait for allergy tests rather than immediately switching to dairy free?

Definitely something to consider OP. As I said before the allergy tests only check for anaphylactic reactions - which you know your baby doesn’t already have.

With my son he was referred for testing for anaphylaxis allergy (don’t really understand why) but by the time his appointment came round he was about 10 months old. So between CMPA first being suggested (and me acting on it) and getting the testing was 8 months. It won’t be a quick process if your doctor goes down this route so it really wouldn’t be appropriate to keep giving a baby milk/food that he’s likely allergic to for such a long period of time.

Thank you so much everyone. Your posts have been very informative and helpful.
@SatsumasOrClementines I'm going to wait a week to see if this new cream and antihistamine will work before we try the next thing.
My DH agrees with me. We've got give this option a try before we do anything else.

Another thing I want to add is our DS (he's 4 months on Friday btw) has been on Colief and we started to wean him off it late November and then stopped it all together last week. His cradle cap started shortly after we started weaning it off and then it got more and more worse as time went on and even more so when we stopped it all together last week. Whether it's just a coincidence I don't know, as he's never shown any sign of being uncomfortable, or having issues with his milk.

Is there an intolerance/allergy test we can pay for privately as there is categorically now way we will get this checked via the NHS with the pandemic? My friends daughter is suffering and has done so for the last 4 months and she's on a 12 week waiting list as of now to even be given an appointment let alone to actually be seen!

You can pay for private allergy testing but honestly, it's pretty pointless at this stage.

There are two forms of allergy. Ige, which is anaphylaxis type responses (swelling, hives, breathing difficulties) and non-ige reactions which are delayed and mainly affect skin and stomach. The latter cannot be detected by allergy test. The test for this type of allergy is exclusion of the suspected allergen and wait to see if symptoms go, then trial the allergen and if symptoms return you have confirmed the allergy. You may want someone in a white coat to give you a definite answer but it's simply not possible for non-ige allergies, you just have to try exclusion and see.

So if I change milk do I go dairy free or lactose free?

My LO has struggled with it but not to that extent, poor little man. I know you’ve probably tried all the oils but I found baby oil cleared it up much better than olive oil, olive oil didn’t seem to do much for my baby

Thank you @Sls668 we have tried baby oil but it just made it worse, so did coconut oil. Olive oil is the only oil that doesn't bother him more

It’s dairy free, not lactose free. A lot of people get these mixed up.

Lactose is a sugar in the milk.
When people have allergies to dairy it’s the protein in the milk they can’t tolerate.

It’s called CMPA - Cow’s milk protein allergy.

Lactose intolerance can occur in some infants but it is very rare.

@ThornAmongstRoses I've just googled dairy free formula and my god the cost! 😳😳😳
Me and DH have good jobs but my
DS is having 8oz bottles, 5 times a day so we really can't afford to cover the cost.
I may buy a carton and see what happens abs if it clears up I may go back to the doctor abs tell them and then get them to put it on prescription.
Would that be worth a try?

The doctor should give you a prescription for it. It can take up to 3-4 weeks for the protein to clear from your baby’s system (and improve symptoms) which equates to a lot of formula for you to pay out for if you are waiting to see a difference before approaching the doctor.

Trial the creams so you can say you’ve tried, and then if they don’t tell your GP you want to trial some dairy free formula and it’s their duty to provide you with some.

Thank you @ThornAmongstRoses
I'll give it a week and then I'll be back on the phone if there is no improvement.
Thank you all so much for tour input 💙

Just to say my dd (5 months) has CMPA - we paid to see a private paediatrician- he did a zoom call, took a detailed history & diagnosed it there and then, prescribing dairy free formula. We had to pay for the first batch as it was a private consultation, but then all repeats are done through the GP and it is free.

All the dairy free formulas are usually prescription only. I would try and get a GP appt to run through symptoms, or failing that, if you can afford it, an appointment with private paediatrician. It cost us £120 and made such a difference to little dd.