Eczema not going away!

[Anonymous]

Our 8 month old DD has had eczema since around 4 months or so. It started to get bad around 5 months, but we were able to contain it with lotions. Then around 6 months, she had a topical reaction to some egg on my DH's hands. We got worried, took her to the ER and the allergist. She had a positive blood and scratch test to egg, but a negative blood and scratch test to dairy/soy/dust/dogs/cats. Her eczema got REAL bad after the egg, and we had to give her a ton of benadryl, zyrtec and topical cortisone. The allergist said that I should eat eggs (and dairy and soy) because we don't want to inadvertently create an allergy if our baby is unable to process an allergen. I should also mention that our baby has no other sign of a food allergy: no spit up, no reflux, no mucus or blood in poop, no family history of allergies. And the allergist thought that the pattern of redness on our baby looked a lot more like regular eczema, not allergy related eczema.

But since I had read so much about giving up dairy, I gave it up. I was vegan for about seven weeks and it didn't really seem to make a difference in her skin. I didn't give up soy but I also didn't eat a lot of soy on a daily basis.

We have tried EVERYTHING at this point and I am really at a loss as to what to do. Here is a run down of what we've done:

1) We used all free and clear from day 1 of her birth (My DH has sensitive skin so we were prepared)
2) Started out using California Baby Super Sensitive wash, but then transitioned to little to no soap, now we're using cetaphil restoraderm
3) DD had a bad reaction to aquaphor, so we stopped
4) We used vaseline
5) Now we're using an alba organic unpetroleum jelly
6) We use cerave often
7) Cetaphil restoraderm lotion makes her skin soft but it burns if she's red in certain spots
8) We've tried a Chinese herb mixture called yin care, which she liked but it made her super dry
9) We've used 2.5% cortisone ointment and 1% cortisone cream. It makes the redness go away, but then it comes right back. It has also caused a lot of pigmentation
10) We've tried epsom salt baths
11) We haven't tried bleach baths, but our DD goes to the pool with our babysitter several times during the week
12) We put our DD in the natural hot springs (not too hot) for mineral protection
13) We're trying this cream called Meta Care that has Neem oil in it
14) When she was really little, we were using a California Baby massage oil

NOTHING seems to be working and we're really at a loss as to what we should do. Anyone have any additional ideas? Argh.

[Anonymous]

why don't you take her to a dermatologist for a quick visit? My daughter had eczema on her arms, legs, and face when she was younger, and we just slathered her in hydrocortizone (prescription strength) and aquaphor in the morn, at night, after bath, etc. Her skin looks great now, but we occasionally still have outbreaks (so we always have a scrip for hydrocortizone), and we do continue to regular lather her up with Aquaphor.

[Anonymous]

Oops, sorry, I missed the 2.5% on your list of "tries." Have you gone to a derm yet?

[Anonymous]

have u tried california baby calendula cream? It cured my extremely bad excema but it did take some time and constant applications.

It is good to do all natural remedies. I would not use something like Cetaphil or Aquaphor bc of the chemicals in those products. They are only going to aggregate excema.

[Anonymous]

Do you use an occlusive ointment like Aquaphor or Vaseline (or whatever you are currently using) right after bathing?

Our pedi told us to bath our son twice a day, no soaps of any sort. Just a 5 minute dip in lukewarm water. Then grease him up with Aquaphor. I found that if I tried to use the Aquaphor at any other time when his skin was bone dry, it did nothing. It needed the residual moisture of the bath to seal in to work.

That's just a thought, but I would follow up with a dermatologist to see what's going on. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I think you need a dermatologist and a steroid cream to really get rid of it. I understand wanting to stay away from strong medications on an infant, believe me, but my 3 month old had such terrible eczema that we had to do it.

It's better to use a little bit of stronger medicine to get it under control than to have the eczema go on and on. My DD needed two rounds of oral antibiotics because her skin was broken and infected.

I also went on an elimination diet but didn't see any noticeable difference.

We use Locoid and triamcinolone. After we started the 2nd stronger steroid (triamcinolone), her skin cleared the next day! Now, if we see a red spot, we can keep it under control and prevent it from getting worse by using the Locoid.

[Anonymous]

California Baby Calendula cream also worked for my son when he had eczema, though it wasn't as bad as your daughter's. However, they recently reformulated the product so that it doesn't have as much calendula in it and has more irritants.

Have you tried colloidal oatmeal baths? Lately I have had a good response to my own eczema by using Aveeno Eczema Defense Cream.
http://www.drugstore.com/aveeno-baby-eczema-therapy-moisturizing-cream-fragrance-free/qxp302854?catid=182484

[Anonymous]

i use plain lanolin nipple cream on my own eczema--have you tried that?

[Anonymous]

We've tried what seems like everything too!

In fact we stopped bathing with Cetaphil (except for the bottom area) and did every-other-day baths with aquaphor + 1% HC 2x per day. That seemed to do the trick for awhile. Ever since the hot weather returned, however, its been hard to control!

[Anonymous]

Our derm gave us Epiceram. Worked like a charm when nothing else did. It's a barrier cream, and I couldn't find any information that said it had adverse effects. (We had none.) It's pricey, so the coupon on its website helps.

http://www.epiceram-us.com/

[Anonymous]

Try elmiminating wheat from both diets and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

OP I feel your pain. My DD is 14 months and we have been dealing with eczema since she was about 3 months old. have seen allergist (she's allergic to everything we tested for) and dermatologist. We have rx steroid creams to try to keep the eczema under control and use zyrtec and attarax as needed to help her sleep. I have tried all kinds of lotions and creams. Some that people swear by (Vanicream) actually make the eczema worse, so you just have to find what works best for your DD. Lotions can be bad on broken skin because it stings. We use aquaphor and it seems to help.

DD is taking fish oil (which I do think helps) and probiotics. Since DD tested positive for dust mites and cat, we have dust mite cover on her mattress and an air purifier. I don't know if either has helped. We just got a filter for the bath to remove chlorine. So confusing because bleach baths are supposed to be helpful, but I have heard chlorine is a trigger for some.

It is very frustrating to deal with and so hard to watch your little one suffer. Nights are the worst for us, but it is getting better. I hope you find something that works. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all your advice. We have an appointment with a pediatric dermatologist but his first appointment availability is in September! Our pediatrician is trying to see if he can squeeze us in early but I think all the ped practices are full right now since kids are not in school. In the meantime, I thought I would post on here to see if anyone has any ideas that I haven't thought about. A good friend of mine is a dermatologist and she suggested that we use a stronger steroid (Protopic) but it has a black box warning that it causes cancer if it is ingested. How is a baby not going to ingest something that is on its hands (or feet)!?

Our pediatrician said that the ped derm will probably recommend bleach baths followed by vinegar baths, a stronger steroid and then restoraderm. Has anyone tried this? This is Dr. Silverman's regiment. How does it work?

1) Aquaphor- Our DD reacted really badly to aquaphor and my derm friend said that a lot of babies have bad reaction to lanolin in aquaphor. We switched to vaseline and that worked better but we didn't think it was very hydrating. So now we're using an alba unpetroleum jelly and that seems to be working pretty well. We use a lotion and then we trap the lotion with the alba jelly. It doesn't get rid of the redness but it is relatively hydrating.

2) Calendula- I wasn't so sure about the California Baby calendula cream because it had a lot of essential oils and I worried about the fragrance from the oils. Instead, I bought a boiron calendula gel that is straight calendula. It made our baby even redder so I stopped that. (For those of you who haven't tried calendula, it looks pretty much like aloe vera so I don't think it was very moisturizing)

3) We were using a squirt bottle to spray her with water and then using vaseline. That might work well.

4) Gluten- I'm a vegetarian so its super hard to cut things out of my diet for extended periods of time. I thought about cutting gluten out, but I'm also trying to limit dairy and soy and eggs (just in case) so it would be super hard to cut all of that and gluten at the same time. I'm also not convinced that its allergy related, though I would cut it out if I knew that was the cause.

5) Omega 3s and Probiotics- I forgot to mention that I have been taking a daily omega 3 since I found out I was pregnancy (and pretty much everyday since then) and we were giving our DD an oral probiotic for months and it didn't have any effect.

I would love additional thoughts! We're kinda desperate here!

[Anonymous]

OP, you are already doing/have done many of the recommendations, so pls know you are trying your best. Only other ideas I can add are: agree on twice a day water only (no soap, not even the soap-free cleaners) baths, which should be lukewarm not warm, and add a capful of mineral oil to the bath. Literally the minute DC is out of the bath, barely pat dry and then coat, and I mean coat, his little body with whatever cream works best for your DC (we have always had best success with aquafor baby ointment, or the alba unpetroleum you mentioned - it has to be an ointment for my DC, creams don't lock in the bath moisture enough, although his allergist said that we should switch to cream in the summer, but the eczema would always flare when we tried that). Also if you are not already doing this, 100% cotton clothes - especially make sure pj's are all cotton. We also use an air purifier in DC's room. I think you should take DC to an allergist, not a derm dr. Last, You may also want to keep a food log and see if you can find a trigger. GL.

[Anonymous]

Go to a pediatric dermatologist. Do not waste your time with a regular dermatologist. We saw one for our daughter and wish we had gone earlier!

Our dd has/had bad eczema on her cheexks for months and the only thing that worked was the steroid. The pediatric dermatologist gave us a no steroid prescription cream to use for flare ups. He also told us to put aquaphone on the face before every bottle and meal. The aquaphor acts as a barrier. Aquaphor never worked to get rid of the flare ups, but it definitely has helped prevent them! We were just treatingface flareups before. But prevention is really the biggest battle.

Hope this info is helpful. Good luck Op!