Is It Eczema? - Kiefer,OK

I have been using apricot scrub on my son instead of soap since he was a newborn to counter his sensitive skins proneness to break out in eczema. After loosing the soap I hardly had to do anything else. Ocasionally due to heat I would have to use hydrocortizone cream with aloe to clear it up. My pediatrician diagnosed him with eczema when he was two months old & prescribed, recomended a whole slew of stuff before I found this simple solution.

My daughter used to get little rough bumpy patches of skin. We used aquaphor(sp?) that we had gotten from the hospital when she was born and it went away.

That is a posible; my son as it real bad and he is now 6 y.o. He has had it since he was 4 months; the doctor recommened to me that hydrocortisone and apply it twice a day. Since you have a little one Do Not Get The 1% cream, get the .5%. If that doesn't work, then call you childs doctor, they might have to get you a prescription. That is what happened to my son when he got older.

Hope the baby feels better,
N.

Hey J.,

I recently took my daughter to her pcp about her little pinkish dry patches. Sometimes hers look like little ring worms or something. But, we don't have a cat. So, I took her in. Sure enough, the doc said it is classic eczema. He told me I could try over the counter hydrocortizone, but went ahead and rx me a higher dose to try when she has a bad flare up. My daughter is almost 16 months old, so I have no idea about using it on a 7 month old. But, I have found that Aquaphor works the best on my daughter and really helps her not have to use any medicaion. The key is to get the lotion on her skin as soon as you can after a bath. In fact, I sit my daughter on her towel on the toilet and pat her dry and put it on right there before I ever go to her room to get her dressed. Also, my doc told me that 10 min. in a daily bath will help the dryness and then put the lotion on right after. It helps my daughter. Also, put it on in the morning or at night, whenever you don't give her a bath. I try to put it on twice a day. The Aquaphor is expensive, but it works. I know it is totally safe for babies of all ages. Also, don't use bubble bath or anything like that. I also wait until her bath is almost over to wash her down and her hair because sitting in the soapy water can dry the skin out more. And Johnson&Johnson drys my daughters skin out. I use Aveeno wash. Hope that helps you! Have a great week.

My children also have something that the doctor thinks might be eczema and we have tried hydrocortozone cream and other stuff lotions, soaps whatever.
The only thing I have found that helps is a body balm and body bar from natures beauty bar, I loved it so much I started selling it
You can check out the website at www.naturesbeautybar.com If you decide to order let me know I have a few specials going on.
Have a great day.
P.

My son has exzema off and on. It first popped up when he was 2 mos. We went to the Pediatrician as my son was scratching so bad, his skin was being scratched off. Pedi. said they may have to try different things until they figure out what works. We first tried Aristocort and it worked.

Whenever I feel bumps starting to come up, I use it and it prevents the exzema from rearing it's ugly head. You might also try staying away from scented products or things with unnecessary additives like chamomille, or lavendar, etc.

Hope this helps.

My grandson had those symptoms too and his pediatrician prescribed an ADULT medicine for exzema and I emailed the company and they said they had not tested it on children and they said they would not advise it being used on children and definately not on babies!! grrr...always investigate ALL meds prescribed for your babies and children before giving it to them. What I used on his skin is Aveeno or any brand of natural colloidal oatmeal lotion. When you bathe your son, use a very mild soap, we use Johnson's head-to-toe Baby Wash in the pump bottle for hair and body (no tears). After rinsing him off, don't dry him with a towel, rubbing will irritate the skin, set him on a towel and let the excess water drain off and then apply the lotion to his skin allowing it to mix with the water to hold in moisture. Wait a few minutes to let the skin absorb it before dressing him...or let him just wear a diaper when possible. The less something is rubbing against his skin the better. If your son has patches in places where his skin creases, try putting cotton gauze loosely over that area until it heals. Also, don't use any chlorine bleach when washing his clothes or bedding. Try to dress him in 100% cotton clothing when possible or put a cotton undershirt on under his clothes...cotton lets the skin breathe and will help alot. Anything with spandex in it or 100% polyester is not good for dry skin because it doesn't let the skin breathe. I hope this helps.

I would recommend that you do take your child to the doc...which ever one. My daughter has this problem also and her pcp perscribed a topical lotion that I put on it and it is much much better. Ot os call Elidel. Good Luck. Also a good PCP in tulsa is Dr. Scott Cyrus, and his Nurse Practioner. They are wonderful and ar located in the South Crest Doc Building.

J.,

What you are describing sounds like what my daughter has. Our pediatician calls it a pre-eczema allergic reaction. Anytime we see red bumps and dry patches I break out the vasaline and cortizone cream. The cortizone is to keep her from scratching then I slather her in vasaline over the top. At night we put her in long sleeved PJs and pants to keep her from scratching in her sleep. The doctor also recomended that we use dove shower soap for sensitive skin and wash her hair last just before getting out of the tub. She said that sitting in soapy water would irritate the skin. Bubble baths are also not a good idea when her skin is patchy.

Kids with allergies or whos parents are prone to allergies are more likely to get this skin condition. Everyone in my family has allergies and so does my husband so we have been looking for things she might react to since day one. Both of my brothers kids did the same thing as babies. Whatever you do don't let them scratch so much that they break the skin it starts a cycle that is hard to stop and requires more medication to get under control.

I would ask your pediatrician for advice, but before a child reaches one year they usually don't refer you to an allergist. I was able to get a precription grade 1% hydrocortizone cream from our daughters doctor it works better than over the counter creams.

Best wishes,
J.

It sounds like eczema. Your pediatrician should be able to diagnose it or send you to a dermatologist. To make your son more comfortable wash his clothes in Dreft, avoid soaps and try Cetaphil cleanser instead, dress him in cool, soft cotton clothes. A good moisturizer is Aquaphor, it is greasy, but if applied after a bath and right before hopping into bed, it holds in moisture quite well and the greasiness is gone by morning. Often eczema is caused by food allergies or contact with substances on the skin. With your pediatricians okay you might try a trial run without milk products if you child is currently using a milk-based formula, for starters. There are other high allergen food triggers that you can discuss with your pediatrician, especially if you have recently begun trying new foods with your son.
Hope some of this helps. My 5 month old has eczema, but after removing milk and peanuts from my diet (she exclusively nurses) her skin has cleared up almost totally.

I have Eczema & so does my 4 year old son.. It sounds like eczema to me but you should take him to his pediatrician to confirm it .Keep his skin clean and use very a gental fragrance-free baby bath wash . Aveeno has some great fragrance-free oatmeal lotions & baths , ive been using their products for years on my eczema and I use them on my little boy also. Sometimes bath soaps & laundry soap can set off eczema . You might need to start using a fragrance-free laundry soap when washing his laundry. But keeping his skin clean and applying fragrance-free oatmeal lotion on his skin will help it a lot....I don't know if your baby is taking a antihistamine for his allergies but if not ask his doctor about it. Antihistamine's usually keep the skin from itching as much...

J.-

I see that a few mom's recommended Cetaphil. I took my 3-month-old son to the doctor yesterday for an infection he's been fighting that he just can't get over. While we were there, the pediatrician looked at these red, rough spots Konner has on his body. He said it is ezcema (my 8-year-old still battles with it). He told me to get Cetaphil and use it on him. I went to Wal-Mart and found the Equate brand and for a bottle of the cleansing lotion and the Equate brand lotion to go along with it, cost less than the Cetaphil brand cleansing lotion!!! I used it today for the first time with him and I also changed his detergent to Dreft (I was using All Baby) and only after one use, I noticed a huge change in the spots!!!

Also, my doctor told me to make sure to keep socks on him because it retains the moisture around the feet and the spots won't go there. He also told me that if it goes untreated, it can turn into ringworms.

The Cetaphil goes on like lotion and you can either wipe it off with water and a soft cloth (be careful the baby will feel like a little fish) or just wiped off with a dry cloth.

Good luck!!

Hi J.!

I didn't take time to read through all your responses, so maybe you've gotten this advice already. Our 3 year old has been suffering from eczema (moderate - severe) since he was 2 months old. We did the steriod creams, protopic, oatmeal baths, scent-free/dye-free soaps, etc etc. What has helped the most is the chiropractor. We've had him in for 5 treatments and his skin is the clearest it's been in ages! If you aren't comfortable with that, I would recommend a dermatologist. They are up on the newest techniques and medicines. This is another awesome treatment from a dermatologist from the University of Iowa: http://www.uihealthcare.com/topics/medicaldepartments/ped...

Good luck!

our son had bumpy areas, I asked hos doctor, he told me that baby soap dries his skin out to much, we use caress on him,
You might see about a natural baby soap, Our son is 30 months old

B.

My son went through a phase of rashes which the dermatologist said were just because he has sensitive skin. The derm. suggested using a non-detergent soap like Cetaphil and never-ever using a lotion with lanolin in it (Cetaphil makes a lotion, too, although we've had great luck with a new line of sensitive skin products by Suave!). Oh, yeah, and corn starch-based baby powders can cause yeast infections on the skin, causing itchy, red rashes. Plus, my sister-in-law discovered that her daughter was allergic to something in most diaper creams--just imagine how awful she felt! Here she had been really slathering Ella to protect her from that terrible rash, but really she'd been making it worse. Poor dear. Anyway, if you're worried about your PCP not helping, an allergist may be able to help. Before you get him in, though, changing to Cetaphil and similar products won't hurt (except your pocketbook), and they may help. Good luck!

you really don't want to treat anything on your own, unless you are sure wht it is........ medicating somthing wrong can make it worse. go to the doctor and let a professional tell you what it is........its not safe trying to play doctor you could do more harm than help.

My oldest son who is five now began getting patches of Eczema when he was about 2 months old. The doctors prescribed creams, ointments, and the wet sleeper treatment (Lord help me if anybody asked me to do that again!). It just kept getting worse. I actually was threatened by his daycare of child neglect because it wasn't going away and they didn't think I was doing his skin regimen at home. Oh were they wrong it consumed our lives. The main thing I've learned about all the treatments is that if it works for you it probably won't work for us and what works for us may very well not work for you. The doctors kept trying to get his Eczema under control and telling me "consistancy is key" I was tired of people thinking I wasn't doing it right. This is how our lives went until he was 4 years old. As he got older it did ease up a bit. For Christmas I came back to Oklahoma for a visit and stayed with a friend of mine. My son slept on a pallet on the bedroom floor in the room with us and when we first got there his skin was under control. The next morning he was itchy even though we had given him benadryl and by that night he had open wounds. It just came to me maybe all this is the result of an allergy...Nobody had ever told me that was possible. Once we got home to Denver I asked his doctor about my concern and she said yes it could be. We had him allergy tested even though they don't like to do that when they are that young. I only found out they can also find allergies from a blood test several months ago. He is allergic to Peanut Butter (deathly), Milk, Soy, Eggs, and Cats. I'm sure he has more allergies but out of the ones they tested him for he is allergic to all but one, Wheat.

WE USED ELIDEL UNTIL A STUDY SHOWED A HIGH RATE OF SKIN CANCER IN CHILDREN WHO WERE CURENTLY USING ELIDEL.

It amazes me how hard it was to convince doctors and other people that the problem that needed to be solved was not how his skin looked but what was making him itch. For a while they gave him a syrup to curb his itching but it didn't work.

Now we have an Epi Pen for his peanut butter allergy and he seems to be outgrowing his Eczema a little. However, now he does have allergy induced Asthma for which we use the Albuterol syrup for attacks and singulair for prevention.

Over the past five years I have found that Aveeno products for Eczema work pretty well, especially the Oatmeal bath powder. Cetaphil WASH is good (Not the loation burns his skin though)We buy the equate off brand but it is such a gentle face wash that you don't even have to rinse it off them. Hours later my little one was still so soft compared to how rough his skin was before. You can get it in the face wash section of Wal-Mart. I only use the precription stuff when he has open wounds because of the side effects.

Your saying these patches are mainly in creases of his skin so its probably heat that is affecting him the most. Here are some other tips.

First try avoiding the following things one at a time to try to find out if he is allergic to any of them. These are items children are commonly allergic to. Since he is under a year old I know the milk thing will be hard if you are using formula but look around. If you are nursing than you just need to avoid these things.
1. Lactose
2. Soy
3. Wheat
4. Egg
5. Peanuts
6. Cats
7. Dogs
8. Shelfish

If the above doesn't work then join the club and live by the list below!!!

1. Use Dreft to wash his cloths.
2. Do not use dryer sheets.
3. Do not let him get sweaty.
4. Keep his nails very short and smooth.
5. Try your best to keep his hands covered at night or put him in those thin cotton sleepers that cover his whole body and make sure to keep the house at a cooler temp.
6. Soak him in Oatmeal Bath for 10 to 15 minutes twice a day.
7. Apply over the counter 1% hydrocortozone ointment to problem areas first within 5 minutes of bath.
8. Apply Vaciline to the rest of his body to hold in the moisture then dress him.
9. Baythe him using the off brand of Cetaphil face wash. I can not stress enough how awesome this stuff is.
10. Aquaphor is also good insted of Vaciline.

My son had got a horrible dry skin patch on his leg and his arm, We went to the doctor over and over and they kept giving us cream after cream and telling us to buy stuff over the counter and a year later he still had it.
They finally diagnosed it as eczema and gave him yet another cream that did NOTHING!
Eczema can be frustrating but from my experience they wont diagnose it unless it is everywhere.
Well anyways after a year of trying to figure out what to do I was introduced to a product called Renew Intensive Skin Therapy. It is from the company that I now work with and I had ordered it on my first order, used it on his skin for 3 days and the dry spots went away and havent came back I use the lotion on everyday after his bath and it has worked better than anything that has ever been given to us to use.
My suggestion would be to take him to the doctor, Refuse to leave till they diagnose him and make sure you keep his skin moist with lotion.
Hope I was helpful in some way

Target sells some over the counter eczema cream. We use it on our daughter because she has it. It works much better then any of the prescritions we have been given. Eczema is very very dry skin. Anything water based will make it worse. Watch out for water based lotion (J & J pink bottle lotion water based). The only problem we have found with the otc cream is it gets on EVERYTHING!!!! We use it right before bed and put her in long sleaves and long pants and socks. Think helps keep it close to her skin and prevents it from making every thing yucky. Look for it in the baby section it is in a blue and green bottle. Since it will not hurt your baby if that is not what it is, it would be a good test. When our daughter had hers we were told it was either ringworm or eczema. The doctor gave us a prescrip. and siad if it works it is eczema if not call me in a week and we will treat her for ringworm. Thankfully it was eczema and now we can treat it with minanal out breaks. When ever we notice she is a little dry we put the lotion on her and she is fine. She love to put lotion on herself so she uses what ever she finds. Now that we have it under control we do use some of the water based lotions but in very small quanities. Then we put the other lotion on her that night. We just want her to feel she is part of it.

I can't really help you with your exact case, but I would like to warn you of something. We ended up taking our daughter to The Allergy Clinic of Tulsa for cronic hives. I just want you to not make the same mistake we did. ASK HOW MUCH IT WILL COST BEFORE YOU LET THEM TOUCH YOUR CHILD! On a sick visit to the pediatrician we were used to paying our insurance co-pay at her pediatricians office and then maybe recieving some sort of small bill that insurance didn't cover (like $35 or something). Well, let me say this, insurance covered paying any blood that her pediatrician drew, but it didn't pay hardly anything for the blood the Allergy Clinic drew. Plus all the tests run on the blood were done in two different places and we got billed from both. As we all know, it is cheaper for blood tests to be run outsourced versus the dr. office. Well, the office ran some of them and they outsourced some of them. Our bill was more than $1000.00 for maybe a 45 min. visit and we got absolutely no diagnosis other than....well, she should outgrow it. I know there isn't a price on your babies health, mine either, but it would be nice to know beforehand how much it is going to cost and if all the tests need to be done. Luckily, my child did outgrow it less than 3 months later. Good luck to you and your baby.

J.,
My daughter had eczema from the time she was one month old. What you are describing sounds like how she started. Hers got so bad (I thought she just had dry skin) that she actually had sores that were weeping. There are several non-steroidal medicines for eczema. I only remember the name of one though and it is called Elidel, which they don't like to prescribe for under one yr olds, but...my daughters was so bad they went ahead and gave it to her when she was 4 months old. After just 3 applications her skin was 90% better.
Also, I don't know what kind of soap you use, but I found that Aveeno was great for her skin. When she itched I would put a cool wash rag and that would help. Also, when she got hot it would make the eczema flair up.
Good Luck

My daughter, who will be 3 next month, has it. Her ped said she will probably have it off and on until she's 6. At 6 years old, she could continue to have it for the rest of her life, or it could clear up. We tried different baby eczema treatments, and none of them helped much. Her ped suggested Aquaphor ointment, and that helped a lot. We recently went to a dermatologist for an unrelated issue, and he examined her eczema and suggested trying 1% hydrocortisone ointment. It's working about like the Aquaphor, so I suggest trying whichever is cheaper. Something about it being an ointment helps lock in the moisture. Change in seasons also affects it. Hope this helps!

Sadly, I consider myself an expert on eczema...my daughter, who is now 14 mos. has suffered from severe eczema since she was about 4 mos. we pretty much have it under control now, which is good. but yes, if it is appearing in creases, i.e. elbows and knees, those are very common locations for eczema to appear. like you child, my daughter had it all over her face, very, very badly. a combination of things have seemed to work (without the use of eledil, i might ad, which is supposed to have this "black box" scary cancer warning).

first, we only use dove soap when washing her; the plain, unscented bar. anything with perfume or scent seemed to make it flair up, and this included any of the johnson and johnson lavender, etc. this no-scent thing goes as well for the detergent. stay away from dreft or anything that smells. instead, use all free and clear ot something like that.

next, as soon as bathtime is done, when the skin is still damp, apply cetaphil lotion all over the body, paying special attention to the areas that are red.

we ended up having to go to a dermatologist, but this was because her pediatrician just kept telling us to "put vaseline on it" and it got weepy and crusty and started to scar. the dermatologist gave us a prescription for this ointment called desonide. it works really well, it is very mild, and we onlt have to use it if she flares up, which by now is rare.

ok, not here's the kicker. eczema usually has more than one cause, which is why it's so hard to beat. we found that milk also gives her a reaction. she has to drink soy milk and have no yogurt.

so...good luck! please feel free to email me if you have any more questions. i know that eczema is an uphill battle, and there were times where i felt that the pediatrician didn't see the severity of it. (we have a new doc now, and she was the one who suggested the dairy allergy). but be persistant, and know that this is actually something that your baby may outgrow, too.