Eczma is driving me mad!!

[Jadeypie]

Can any parents with children that suffer or has suffered with eczma give me some tips to bloody keep sane??

My baby is 7 months old and we have been battling this awful skin condition for the last 3 months and wow its the most heartbreaking thing I've ever had to deal with. I never understood eczma or realised how awful it is untill now.

Im constantly battling with gps, different treatment plans that keep failing and waiting for referrals i feel like im going mental with it all.

Any tips would be very grateful xxx

Poor thing. I hope you have a restful weekend

I got the it's infant eczema for many months when my son was a baby, it was actually egg and dairy allergy, and the eczema was part of the allergic condition. He did go into anaphylaxis at 8 months, when he had a tiny bit of dairy and the rest was history. Maybe keep a food diary and see if there is any connection to the flare ups. My son's allergy was being initially triggered via my breast milk, after I had eaten the allergen.

I have recently developed horrible eczema on my hands. I have narrowed it down to possibly citrus and definitely hydroxycitronellal, which is in just about every perfumed shampoo,conditioner, bodywash, washing powder etc. In currently using green people stuff and kin kind stuff. Washing clothes in soap nuts, with pure sandlewood oil. I feel so sorry for any baby with this awful condition.

It doesn't help now but most grown out of it by 24 months. What area are you? Hard water really aggravates eczema, washing leaves residue of emollient or soap on skin from scum layer. Laundry doesn't rinse clean in hard water. As pp said get a carbon filter on drinking water, better still reverse osmosis to remove metals.
Check fastenings on clothes, nickel is a really aggressive trigger so no metal anything near skin.
Queens hospital Nottingham Dr Hewel Williams has done extensive testing, strong steroids cream for shorter period more successful than weaker for longer time. He also did the hard water blind test. There are different steroids dermavate, betnovate etc and all serve different purpose. Also creams must be applied without rubbing and same direction as hair growth, not against it.
The only non steroids cream I have seen work is Calmurid by galderma on prescription, don't use generic urea cream. Don't use on broken skin as it will smart but deeply moisturising.
Depending on your area you may be able to trial a water softener for 60 days, for some it clears up totally.
Join your local eczema society as they have been through it and lots of young families that can short cut you to what worked for them.
Old fashioned antihistamine piriton really calms it down and is drowsy so sleep better but maybe too young ask your GP.
If you have friends in USA Walgreens do a triple A cream antiseptic, analgesic and antibiotic, it cost a few dollars and helps deal with the bacteria on the skin and reduces itch.
Xx

Yeah it’s evil. I’ve had it for 30 years and it has caused me no end of pain. There is no cure but there are things that help.

My main one - Dead Sea salt in their bath. I know this sounds like nonsense but 28 years into my life with eczema I started doing it and my eczema is the clearest its ever been. Same thing happens when I swim in the sea (which is where I got the idea). I add half a cup to every bath.

One thing to remember is that eczema comes in multiple form. One is allergic eczema which has a trigger. The other is chronic eczema which is genetic. People spend a lot of time looking for the ‘cause’ when the cause may be their genes (as mine is).

My son had awful eczema when he was the same age. We did actually ask the GP to refer us to a dermatologist as all the usual (child farm, dermol 500 etc) made it worse.
What worked was using steroid cream on the really bad bits, which I hated doing. Then using hydromol ointment which has been the saviour. We use it on the irritated skin and also in the bath as a cleaner. Also use Surcare washing detergent. Son is 5 now and we we still use hydromol (on prescription for a huge tub) and Surcare and he rarely gets a flare up these days.

Honestly the only thing that even helps me as an adult is figuring out the allergies. Even things like the prescriptions I am given can end up making it worse because they contain an inactive ingredient that is an allergen.

I had eczema all my life and at about age 40 I cut out dairy after having tried everything else. I was desperate for it to work. A couple of months later… I still had it. It took well over a year for it to disappear and never come back again. Until I went on holiday and had cheese, only to get an outbreak. Did the same the following year, got another outbreak. I’ve not eaten dairy since and have never had another outbreak. That’s just my story, relayed to make the point that if you cut out dairy and think it’s making no difference, maybe you just haven’t given it enough time.

I feel your pain, it’s very challenging and one of my adult DC suffered as a small child. As a pp said, hard water really exacerbates eczema and when we moved house to softer water we saw a huge improvement. I also endorse the pp suggestion of salt in bath water , I think the brand we used was Tidmans although it’s so long ago I’m not sure if it’s still around.

Black seed oil!
Thats it.

My baby had uncontrolled eczema at this age too (it started at 2 weeks but really flared up between 4-7 months). We saw a dermatologist who prescribed Elidel and that was great for getting the eczema under control without steroids. Especially because my baby has facial eczema so I was very concerned about the amount of steroid he was having. We were also prescribed paste bandages for stubborn patches on his limbs which helped. We found egg to be a trigger but he still has baked egg twice a week to avoid a worsening of the allergy. We do like warm baths daily with an emollient. Wash clothes with non bio and an extra rinse. All cotton clothing and no synthetic or wool fabrics. We tried all the emollients and really struggled to find out that worked, in the end the dermatology nurse recommended cerave and that worked for us. We used scratch sleeves and also a cozeecoo at night to avoid touching the facial eczema. Hypoallergenic mattress and bamboo sheets. We apply emollient 8-10 times a day, even when the skin is clear. No baby wipes are used, only water. We use hypoallergenic hand soap for ourselves. We used steroids as directed by the dermatologist but followed a plan to stop using them and move onto the Elidel which worked well. We are currently tapering off the Elidel slowly. Hope that helps, it is really awful when your baby has had eczema. I hope your little ones skin improves soon. Our baby had a near constant flare up between January and may this year and I thought it would never end, but it did start to improve and we are in a much better place now, so there is definitely hope!