Advice on How to Find the Source of Excema in 16 Month Old

I have a friend who's child also had very bad Eczema and they had great luck with Nature's Paradise baby products. Here is the link. They also feature a testimonial about eczema. Added plus, it is all natural and organic! I use it for my son also but he hasn't had eczema but I love it!
http://www.naturesparadiseorganics.com/google34de###-###-....

Here is a link to folk remedies to cure eczema. This website if amazing to cure almost anything. I have used it several times and has success everytime!
http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/eczema.html#ACV

Raw milk will also make a big difference. We drink Organic Pastures.

Good Luck!

2 moms found this helpful

HI, I would encourage you to watch.. www.sharethecause.com/live.

Excema is a toxic body burden issue. The skin is the largest detox organ and children are born carrying over 200+ toxins from in utero. (see study done by Environmental Working Group and the Red Cross- umbilical cord study.. www.ewg.org) If you want my help... you can link me via the website info request. L. Medina .. Nutritional Consultant

Right around my sons 1st birthday her started developing eczema. Her doctor said it may be due to a foor allergy. So we started stopping different food groups that are prone to allergies, eggs, nuts, diary, and wheat. We found out it is wheat. When he eats it he gets horrible eczema but when we remove it from his diet he completely clears up. Have you tried removing allergy prone foods? Take her off each group for a minium of two weeks and see if that helps. Good Luck!

You need to call the dermatologist back and let him/her know that the ointment hasn't worked, and that things are worse. Maybe it was a misdiagnosis, and the next RX will clear it up, and maybe it's an allergy and you need a referral to an allergy specialist. Either way, you need to make them figure it out.

Hi J.,

I was introduced to a yound girl that had this problem for several years and was on so many different drugs to mask the problem.

When the family looked at the water they were bathing the child in and drinking and changed just that the skin started to clear up. There are a lot of chemicals in our water today and any time you are exposed to chemicals they run through the blood stream and go to the kidneys and liver to be filtered then it shows up on the face or body.

Then they added some nutrients and better nutrition and the little girl started to not just look better but she felt better.

If you would like more info let me know.

Have a great day.

N. Marie

I hate to tell you this, but sometimes that cream is the ONLY thing that zaps the eczema. I've lived with it on and off all my life. My daughter got it and outgrew it, but my son has it, just like Mom... and like grandma, too... so in my case, it is genetic. Fortunately, for us, it is not bad... usually a dose or two of the cream zaps it and we can go back to using Lubriderm and it goes away. I use Lubriderm for my regular lotion, it's not greasy, has no scent and actually keeps the eczema under control. I get outbreaks when I'm stressed. You might try a diet journal and see if your daughter has flare-ups around certain foods, rotate each food in and out of her diet when she's not having a outbreak and see if triggers an outbreak.... I have had it go away for a few years only to return and have to get a new tube of the cream (and there are several, some stronger than others, my guess is that you got the weakest, what they usually start with). So you might try using the cream to get rid of it and then see if you can "control or reduce" it with Lubriderm... use it everyday, after baths, etc. (be religious!) and use the pink (extra dry) or blue(normal to dry) bottle, not the oats brown and green oats kind--that kind is greasy and doesn't work as well. Good luck! Costco has a two bottle pack with a travel bottle and those bottles are bigger than what you'd get at Target or Walmart and cost a little less than what you'd pay for two bottles. :)

My whole family is rash/eczema prone. For sure get rid of any scented products even it's labelled for baby. Johnson and Johnson products make me itch just thinking about them... Go to Whole Foods and buy their laundry detergent (Trader Joes' is also great and cheaper sometimes). California Baby keeps my boys scalp from breaking out. Another trigger that I have found is citrus juice. OJ makes scaly dinosaur skin for both of them. You might also try mixing the aquaphor with some lotrimin or the like. Anti-fungal cream sometimes does the trick, especially in damp areas. It doesn't present like a typical eczema to rash, you might check in with the derm again.

J.,
If you live near a Rite Aid store, they have a little in-house magazine - I don't remember the name of it - that I always fine near the pharmacy - it is the same size as a Reader's Digest magazine. The issue I was reading last week had an article in it about a Country Western singer that had been dealing with excema since childhood. You may find the article interesting.

Also, consider that allergies - both food and environmental - may be part of the problem.

Best wishes - J.

Hi J., now I know what is cause of excema in my baby's case, but the life is impossible to stay away from so many plesant, normal, healty foods. We have found some great way to stay away from abnormal diet, almost no restriction, and have life. It's simple, safe for baby nutritional formula. It's easier to reach me on the phone.
###-###-####. A. Bofinger.

Hi there-
I have had to deal with this with all 3 of my children! The older 2 grew out of it by age 5, so there is hope on the horizon. I did the following: dye and fragrance free detergent, no fabric softener (although they do have dye/fragrance free downy now), baby shampoo only with no dye (my son was very sensitive to RED dyes), no soap at all, bathing only a couple times a week. I tried the cortizone, aquaphor, cetaphil etc, but found that it didn't really help. With my youngest who is now 2, doing all of the above didn't help all of it. I found that taking her off of dairy milk (she is on soy) and eliminating citrus helped a TON. Her doc was fine with both of those choices. she can eat all other dairy without causing a flare. Beware when summer hits and you have to use sunscreen and possibly be in chlorine- I found that these really made it worse, but I never found an alternative. we just made the best of it for the summer months.
good luck!!

Hi, I don't know about finding the source for the excema, don't really think you can do that, I just know that I had it when I was young and my daughter has it still, mostly on the knees, ankles and my brother has it so must be hereditary, and the medicine that the Drs give out don't usually seem to help much. I found that you need to keep the areas dry, so if on feet don't wear socks, and also found that sun exposure helps dry it out and that cholrine (sp?) also helped to dry it out. It gets very itchy, I would scratching it in my sleep and that would make it spread. It seemed to go away in the summer when I was out in the sun and swimming at the local pool. But being that this is a 16 month old girl don't know if any of this helps, but do know very important to keep it dry

Aquaphor and Cetaphil are both made with mineral oil/petrolatum/Vaseline. Maybe that doesn't agree with her? Try coconut oil (Look in the section of Whole Foods or other health food store where cooking oils are. Coconut oil is a solid at room temp, but will melt easily in your hand for rubbing into skin. Very healing stuff & antimicrobial as well.

Hi there, This sounds so frustrating and I am sorry. I do think that Jennifer Y's advice was very good-I think that you need another opinion to make sure the diagnosis of eczema is correct. Eczema is not a catch all term for rashes, but is a condition (something akin to asthma, say) that one is born with (usually) and flares up under various conditions or with certain triggers I think that learning to recognize the triggers is the key to getting any control of eczema)...I don't have it but TWICE have had experiences with MD's misdiagnosing a rash as excema..Using steroids is a big deal, and you need to make sure they are doing something to justify continuing them. Other rashes (such as the one I had which was caused by ringworm) are made much much worse by steroids! Anyway, best of luck with getting some good answers to this and helping your little one.

I have a 1 year old that has had extremely bad excema since he was 1 month. It's so frustrating and I can understand what you are going through. Finding the "triggers" can be so difficult. For my son, animal dander is one. If someone is wearing perfume and he's close, he'll break out. Also, I believe he might have a problem with petroleum based products (which is what the topical steriod is made with). Obviously, we are still trying to figure it all out but it takes some much time since there can be many different things.

We are in the process of switching from laundry "detergent" to Laundry soap. I've read many things about the foaming agent in detergents that are irritating. They are also in all the "foaming" products like shampoo, dishwashing detergents, etc.

We just started using California Baby "super sensitive" products for bath time. So far, it's been great. They also have a sunblock that's for super sensitive kids that we bought.

Another thing I've read to have a filter on your house or on your shower head. There are so many chemicals in our water. I know it seems a little extreme but I'm sure you understand that as a mother, you'll try anything to make it go away.

And of course another good thing is to go green on all your cleaning supplies in your home. I've done hours upon hours of research on the web trying to find out everything I can do but I'm sure there is so much more.

J.,

Is there a history of hypothyroidism in either side of your daughter's family? There is some evidence that low thyroid function is a possible source of eczema. I know that we don't normally think of toddlers in terms of thyroid function, but there may be a genetic predisposition to it. Make sure that you do some research to educate yourself on what questions to ask your pediatrician - you may also want to provide him/her with some good information about hypothyroidism as most physicians are not very knowledgeable about the proper blood tests needed for an appropriate evaluation. Hope this helps!

Hello J.!
Raw milk will more than likely clear things up!!! Go to www.organicpastures.com or just call the owner at 1-800-raw-milk. His name is Mark. They actually ship their milk all over and I believe it is Leanne Rhimes (country music singer) who uses it to heal her VERY bad excema!!!
Good Luck!
Buy the way raw milk tastes great!! Even my son who is lactose intolerent will drink it and tolerate it without bad tummy pains!!

a friend had a similar issue and it turned out to be a wheat allergy... try cutting wheat from her diet (and yours, if you're breastfeeding) and see what happens.

good luck!

Hi J.,

my baby has exzema, and 5 month ago it was really bad, he had red spots every where. So here what we did (with our doctor advise) NO BATH for 5-6 weeks, helped so good!!! And using Aquaphor all the time. We used also the Cortizon on his red spots. After he started look better, we use Cetaphil CREAM. And also we found out he has a reaction after he eats baby rice cereal we stoped that. But the biggest help for us was to stopp bath fo 6 weeks!!! Now I give him bath once a week no longer then 5 min and than Cetapgil on his body. We don't use anything at all. No cleanser for his bath NO wash clothes. Just sit in the water for 5 min, done!!!! I started use some Aveeno creamy cleanser just for his hair.

God bless,
N.

J.,
A friend of mine's daughter has had excema for 6 years and on the arrival of a new baby they decided to wrap their mattress ( they all sleep together in a CA King). They wrapped it with the type of plastic that is recommended by reseachers out of NZ for preventing SIDS. Almost immediately the excema went away.

Here is the link to the wrapping info
http://www.stopsidsnow.com/SuccessOfMattressWrapping.html

I don't know if it was a fluke but I do know our mattresses off gas for a long time and we spend half our lives at that age asleep on them!

C.

Did the initial break out follow vaccinations? Children often react to the egg or other proteins found in vaccines. I have not read any other responses, but the most common allergens that kids react to are dairy, wheat (gluten is found in other grains too), eggs and soy. I would take her off at least those four for 3 weeks and then start back one at a time with a week in between introductions to see if any of the foods cause a reaction.

Take her back to the doctor...

Hi J.,

Sorry this is going on - I can empathize with your frustration and concern.

I'd check and be sure that this isn't erythema multiforme. Our daughter has experienced EM 3 times so far (first time was as a baby younger than your daughter and was triggered as a reaction to a penicillin-type antibiotic, then nothing till this past summer when she was 3.5 yrs). It was widespread, red, and didn't itch. EM doesn't really respond to meds in our experience, but has to fade on its own. Steroid creams can help with repairing the skin as it heals, but it takes quite some time for the shadows of the marks to fade (they will though). It's important to find out if EM could be the problem, because it can become very serious if it spreads to involve the lips, mouth, eyes/eyelids, or if the rash starts to blister up or skin is sloughing off.

This past summer, she had two outbreaks two weeks apart - the first just on her upper arms, the second on all the rest of her body that wasn't affected the first time. She did have one on her lip and also had her first cold sore (fortunately we caught it right away and treated it, and it didn't get bad). Together with our doctor, we figured out that the EM was triggered by exposure to the oral herpes virus (I have cold sores from time to time) - that is one known trigger for EM.

I don't know without seeing your daughter's rash if it could be EM, but I wanted to share our experience and advise you to perhaps get a 2nd opinion and keep a close check on what's happening with your baby's skin (which I'm sure you already are).

Let us know what happens...
God bless,

S. M.

Hi J., I think my 8 month old son has eczema and it hasn't officially be diagnosed yet since it's only been two weeks. My mother in law is a nutritionist and just sent me some recent scientific case studies of how probiotics can help eczema. Here's a excerpt: "Lactobacilli GG reduces the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms and gut permeability in patients with atopic dermatitis, and administration of probiotics reduces the frequency and severity of atopic eczema ..." I'm not sure yet where to find Lactobacilli GG but my mother in law said that Danactive might have it. On a old fashioned tip: When my uncle had eczema as a 1 year old, my grandmother wrapped oatmeal in cheese cloth and swished it around in the bath water for about 2 weeks and his eczema went away. Hopefully one or both of these might help your daughter and my son.

I'm sorry I know how frustrated your feeling. My daughter has eczema. It sounds like you may need a second opinion and to see an allergist. And like you said steroid are not the healthiest option. I took my daughter to the doctor, dermatologist, and an allergist and I don't treat it with steroids. I treat it with her diet & environment, and she's doing a lot better. It started right around her turning 1yrs old. I have read that vaccinations may have caused eczema, as well as other health issues. My next step is to take her to a homeopathic practitioner. Good luck!

Hello J.,

My daughter has had boughts of excema, though not as severe as it seems your daughter has. I decided not to take the steroid cream route, as I've heard that it seldom works sufficiently. I read a few articles and heard personal accounts of success from removing dairy from her diet. I took her off of cow's milk and yogurt, but have kept giving her cheese. It has worked great so far. She still breaks out occasionally due to the cheese and other foods she eats that contain dairy products. For those small break outs I use Arbonne International's Skin Conditioning Oil from their FC 5 product line. That oil alone completely heals the excema rash and when I use it proactively, stops the break outs. A friend of mine who has a severe case of excema, (thick, scaley, and red patches mostly on her elbows, knees and the backs of her knees) uses this oil as well with tremendous success!! The worst areas of her excema are reduced to less than half of what they were in less than a week of using the oil. I found out about this oil when I started my business with Arbonne last March. I purchased this oil to use it on my husbands hands. This was before I took my daughter off dairy, and the excema was horribly right behind her ears. She scratched at it constantly and was in pain. I put the oil on it in desperation, hoping it would at least calm the itch for her. The next evening I saw that it was almost completely gone!! I'm a firm believer now. I hope my suggestions have helped. I'd be more than happy to give you more information about the oil if you're interested.

Have a wonderful day, J.

M. Santsche
Independent Consultant, Arbonne
#17555428

My son was diagnosed with eczema as a baby as well. He reacted to any perfumes or dyes in soaps / detergents. We had to switch to perfume free / dye free laundry soap. And skip all fabric softeners. That goes for the whole family, not just the baby's clothing. Touching MY bedding or clothing would set my son's skin off. We also changed hand / bath soap to Dove sensitive skin unscented bar soap. Read ALL labels.

Hypo-allergenic works for the majority of people, but it still sets him off.

My son was this age when we couldn't find the source of his rash. They didn't know what it was and so they sent us to an allergist. The allergist said excema from food allergies. He did the test where they poked his back with all kinds of different things so see which he would react to. At first it was really bad. If he ate watermellon in the same 14 days as he ate pork then he couldn't eat pork but if he stayed away from watermellon then he could eat pork. This was just one thing out of like 100. He gave us a list of things to stay away from and we took them all out of his diet. Then slowly and I mean really slowly we added one at a time back in. We ended up with a list of about 12 things he couldn't have. It's also best to look at the things he could have instead of focusing on the things he couldn't have. We also did the tepid baths, cetaphil, aquaphor so keep that up. It's not easy but you get used to reading food labels and being vigilant about his diet. My son is now 9 and has grown out of all but 2 of those 12 things he couldn't eat at 16 months. At about age 6 it really started to get better so hang in there and good luck!

Hi Jen,
My son too had a small rash when he was just three months old that the doctor said was excema. He recommended the Aquaphor as well and after a day and a half my son's rash turned bumpy and red, very angry looking and had spread to his whole body including his face! A couple of family members told me that when their child had excema they used a little bit of hydrocortizone ointment and it cleared it up right away. So I stopped using the aquaphor because it didn't seem to be helping and seemed to actually make it worse. As soon as I washed the aquaphor off and applied the hydrocortizone the rash seemed to calm down, a few hours later and it was already subsiding, and eventually was gone!
Ever since then, any time my son gets a little flare up of the rash I just put the hydrocortozone on it once and it's gone. My son is now 7 months and rarely breaks out anymore.
I know that doctors and moms swear by the aquaphor but for some reason I think my son just has a bad reaction to it and maybe that is what happend to your daughter as well. The hydrocortozone worked fabulous and immediately so I strongly recommend it! I know how hard it is to see your child with that rash...best of luck and hope my advice helps.

G. (first time Mom of baby MJ)

Hi J.

Be on the look out, when something says fragrance free, often they have used CHEMICALS to make it that way.. what you want are products free of chemicals completely. In addition, Rather than a short bath, try a sponge bath so that your child is not completely in water (our water system has a lot of chlorine in it) and hence, whether you are using tepid water or cool, the chlorine is still in it and can cause the skin to dry out.... Lastly, will your child take water? I would try giving her more (filtered) water to help her body regulate itself more efficiently.
There is a good FREE website called dr.mercola.com
many many articles on eczema and natural cures.

good luck to you!!

Are there any new shampoos, shower soaps, hand soaps, laundry soaps, hand lotions, perfumes, bubble baths, showers/baths that are warmer than usual, or long sleeves/ long pants on when it has been too warm? Do you throughly rinse her off with clean water even when only the smallest amount of soap has been used in the bath tub?

My daughter's exema reacts to ANY perfumes in the above listed products, and gets particularly bad if she gets too warm or sweaty.

J.,

I know the frustrating feeling of not knowing and how do I make it better. My daughter had eczema around 1 month. Her doctor perscribed Desonide 0.05% Lotion. It seems to come out more with the weather change and the sun. I apply 2 times a day. I also use Aveeno (eczema) lotion.

It doesnt really sound like eczema since it spread all through the body. My daughter broke out like that once but it was a reaction to an imunization shot. Has she had any shots lately? If no, I would take her back to the doctor's and have them look her over again.

Good Luck!!
T.

I would go back to the dermatologist. If it has gotten worse and spread since you saw the dermatologist, they might prescribe a short term oral steroid, or they may have a better idea of how to pursue different treatment since the rash is more widespread and different in appearance.

I would strongly advise taking her to an allergist instead. It's likely that she has a food or animal allergy. The best course to getting a definite answer is through blood work (it's not as bad as it sounds).

Our daughter had a bad rash on her face when she was much younger. It started out just around her mouth then spread to both cheeks and chin, so covered quite a lot of area on her face except nose and forehead.

We saw 3 different pediatricians and they said it was due to drooling. We got totally generic answers. Use aquaphor regularly, here's a prescrition for steriod ointment, etc.

We finally went to a pediatrician that practices more holistic medicine, and she suggested trying to find the cause of the eczema rather than just addressing the symptoms. We ended up changing her milk formula and switched to all natural laundry detergents, dryer sheets and bath/lotion products. That seemed to do the trick, since her rash went away soon after.

Good luck!