Our lad is 7 months old and is breaking out with some pretty bad eczema. Ever since he left the breast a month back and moved onto powdered milk and food. The doctor doesn’t want to presribe any medication other than emoliants, so I’m looking for any ideas / recommendations that mums and dads might have experience with that can calm down eczema in a wee fella.
Both me and my wife have had eczema issues all our lives, esp me, so I guess it’s no surprise that the wee man is following suit. Although it started when he switched to food, it actually looks more like a contact problem. It’s on his trunk and squared off with his nappy, he has none on his limbs or nappy region. We’re in Scotland, so the cold wet weather probably doesn’t help - eczema outbreaks I have are always worse in winter.
If I recall, when I was young and my eczema was acting up the parents used over the counter anti-itch creams and made me wear long sleeves and stuff so I couldn’t physically get at my skin to scratch it.
Sounds like the doc is starting with minimal intervention rather than going to high-powered medications right off the bat. That’s not necessarily a bad approach, but if it doesn’t get better ask about being more aggressive in regards to the problem.
Also, have the child checked for food allergies. Those can trigger eczema and they aren’t always to the “common allergens”. See an allergist about this if you can.
Our youngest had pretty severe eczema. Long story short, it was allergies. Once we figured that out it cleared up fairly quick. Took two doctors and a life-threatening exposure to peanut butter to find the problem. No idea if this is relevant to your case, but there you go.
My son’s eczema was quite severe as an infant. Can be quite frustrating to get to the root of it. Tried a number of ointments fruitlessly when he was at that age. We ultimately discovered his eczema was primarily triggered by food allergies.
I’ll throw out some ideas and I hope you find some relief for him soon.
His skin may be irritated by your laundry soap. Perhaps wash his clothes separately in a mild detergent that is dye and scent free. Also look into what you are using for soap for his skin and hair. I use 100% olive oil soap for my son.
I put the synthetic fibers away and dressed my son in cotton only fabrics for a time to see if it had an effect.
Put a tablespoon of flax seed meal or add Udo’s oil to your son’s food. I use flax seed meal. Both are commonly mentioned as a homeopathic way to help improve eczema.
I’d be wary of introducing new foods at this time. Rather I’d consider with doctor’s support to systematically eliminate a food from your son’s diet at a time and see after two weeks if your son’s skin condition is improved. Milk can be a culprit. I do not know if there are soy based formulas or non-soy/milk formulas like Nutramigen in Scotland.
I would also look into seeing an allergist for testing.
As for topical cream, I currently use olive oil. I also used steroid cream sparingly. At that young age, I had cotton mitts on his hands to help prevent him from bloody-ing himself and the bed up during the night.
To add more info which might be misleading (and echoing Magdalena’s recommendation to see an allergist asap)
Soy, tomatoes, eggs & nuts were my sons primary allergies. He outgrew them all, but a lot of the formula was soy based. I don’t think there was much egg or nut exposure before 12 months, but maybe some egg with breads and cakes and the like. If you can do it without endangering your sons health, try to eliminate soy. 7 months… Still on a bottle? I don’t remember. Anyway, maybe some hippie type health food stuff or just read labels real close until you can get to a doctor.
Ointments and creams don’t help at all with an allergic reaction. If you have some free time you might surf around http://www.foodallergy.org/ to find more info. I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.
You folks over the pond don’t do peanut butter like we do over here, do you? I’d certainly avoid nuts of any kind with a child under a year, but it seems everything in the states has soy in it. Could be wheat allergy, I think that’s a problem with some people (Ian doesn’t have it, so I know little about wheat/gluten probs). Not knowing what your boy eats or what is common in your neck of the woods, I’m just throwing out what we found.
Again, our doctors didn’t try very hard, just kind of wrote it off as eczema and handed us another cream to put on him. Really pissed me off when we found the cause, food allergies can be lethal and they never even suggested it might be a problem. So I guess I’m saying you should fight with the GP to get to an allergist (if that’s the way your health system works. We needed a referral, couldn’t just waltz in to a specialist).
Hi - I’m in scotland too funnily enough and have the same problem. My son’s eczema started in much the same ways as yours. Along the trunk and coincided with the switch to formula. He’s now 5 and sad to say, his condition has spread despite our best efforts. Removing dairy, soya, soap etc etc. Even the emolliant creams prescribed by the doctor aggravate his condition so watch out! We’re heading to hospital next month for allergy testing. If that doesn’t answer our questions then we’re just going to have to hope he grows out if it.
The only thing we haven’t tried is olive oil…will do that tomorrow.
When my kids were little, goats milk was the thing everybody said would work wonders - not as a substitute for anything - just as a supplement to the diet.
Ours had it (and still does at this time of year) and the only thing that helped is being consistent with whatever creme we were using. You have to grease him up at least twice a day until there is no sign of it at all.
My oldest son had eczema pretty bad when he was an infant/toddler. One thing that worked to soothe his skin was a bath with oatmeal ad cornstarch. It’s very gentle, but took away most of his itching. (Plus it’s cheaper than the OTC creams and such.)
Snuggle fabric softener and Gain laundry detergent make me break out in big itchy patches, mostly on my stomach. It’s horrible. When I moved out on my own and was doing laundry for myself, I was buying different detergents, whatever was on sale, and suddenly my eczema, which had been under control since early childhood, was back. Seems Mom neglected to tell me that the reason she always used Tide wasn’t because she liked the smell or anything - it was for my skin!
If his rash is mostly where his skin is covered in clothes, that would be my first guess. There are some fragrance-free hypoallergenic fabric detergents out there, maybe they’re worth a try.
Oatmeal, cornstarch and milk baths, we rotated those for my boy when he was little. In fact, adding powdered milk to his bath sort of thrilled him, I continued those until 5 or 6, each day he’d pick a food coloring for me to add a drop or two.
Good news is mine outgrew it too. Less than rosy news is that skin problems, allergies and respiratory disorders are linked, has he had any infectious asthma issues or anything like that?
My son has it. No allergies, just really dry skin that can lead to eczema.
When he was a baby we only bathed him about once a week - warm water, not hot. Hot is drying. Water is drying, and hot water more so. Babies don’t really get much dirtier than you can clean up with a washcloth anyway.
When it is bad, we use a 1% hydrocortozone cream - do not do this with an infant until you talk to your doctor. He had various prescriptions at around two - three, this has worked as well as any of them.
I used an OTC goop called Resinol. It worked better than anything else, including prescriptions. You may not be able to find it at WalMart. I usually had to ask the pharmacists.
Many thanks all for the replies - very helpful and a lot of ideas to think about. We’ve got in some super mild laundry powder and washed all of his vests in that, we’ll see if that makes a difference as a first step.
If changing washing detergents doesn’t help, are you using woollen vests (singlets) on your little bloke? Sometimes the wool itself (even though it’s a natural fibre) can set off allergic reactions in susceptible people.
Our daughter had this when she was an infant - four or five.
What really helped was:
Sunlight ( nekkid time in the kiddie pool in the summer was the best thing evar.)
goat’s milk to drink.(Which is surprising hard to find hear in the US except in little cans. In Germany (we have cousins there.) you can buy boxes of it.
coconut oil rubbed on skin as a moisturizer. Available in the baking section of every grocrey store.
Washing her stuff without any laundry soap at all or doing a second rinse in the washing machine.
Is he using disposable nappies, or cloth nappies not washed by you (like, by a laundry service?) I ask because if there’s a clear line where it stops by the nappy, I’d look at the laundry soap/softener his clothes are being washed in first. While most babies do just fine with regular detergent, some of them are sensitive to specific additives, dyes or perfumes, so you might have to do a bit of experimenting to find it - or rule it out as a cause.
I’d also get that kid on an allergen detection diet, STAT. The timing of it popping up just when you stopped breastfeeding is just too suspicious. Take him all the way back to formula; if it doesn’t go away, try a different formula or, with his doctor’s okay, goat’s milk or almond milk. If the formula seems okay, then give him one food, and that one food only (well, plus the formula) for a whole week or even two. No symptoms? Add on another food. Take your time! He’s not really going to care if he has a varied diet at this age, and it’s a whole lot easier to test him like this at 7 months than at 3 years, when he’s going to have opinions and friends offering him other options!
One of my friends found that using plain old zinc creme and a body suit (so he couldn’t scratch) worked wonders. This was after things got so bad that his doctors thought he might be allergic to sunlight.