I have been meaning to write a post and update the blog with what we have been dealing with lately but honestly it’s been changing almost week to week that I didn’t really know where to start. Things are much more under control now so I thought I would post about our last 8 months and what has worked and what hasn’t worked in trying to help keep Nash’s eczema. Nash has has bad cradle cap, flaky skin, rashes and weeping sores since he was only a few weeks old. It took months to finally get his skin to finally calm down and we are now on a great regimen of taking one bath a day, sometimes with vinegar, then putting on one layer of a topical steroid oil, using a bit of a steroid cream on the worst areas and then doing a layer of lotion on top. Right now his hands and chin are the worst. His hands because I don’t put the steroids on them for fear he will put them in his mouth and his chin because it’s constantly wet. We have him on a dairy free diet because from all of our testing, trial and errors we believe that casein or dairy are aggravating his eczema but that has not been confirmed. We still have lots to learn but I love reading stories of what worked for others dealing with eczema so I wanted to share what is currently working for us. Although we have tried lots of different lotions, steroids, diet and formula changes etc… I am always open to other ideas of things that have worked for other people – so please share!
A list of what we have tried:
– Neocate formula – didn’t notice his skin was better and he really fought drinking this formula.
– Nutramigen – Took this formula well but it didn’t seem to clear up his skin at all.
– Soy formula – This is what we have just recently switched Nash to. He has only been on it for about two weeks so now we will start to decrease the topical steroid applications to see if the soy formula is helping.
– Wet wraps – when Nash’s skin was infected and really bad we ould wet wrap him at night and that did really help.
– Creams that we have tried: No more Xema, Cetaphil, Vanicream, Aquaphor, Cerave, Coconut Oil, Olive oil
– Medications we have tried – Dermasmooth & Westcort. Both of these steroids help and Nash’s skin still flares up even if we forget to put his derma smooth on for one day. We would love if we didn’t have to rely so heavily on a topical steroid but right now that is all that is keeping it under control.
– Allergy testing – we have tested Nash (only a skin test) for the top 8 allergens and he didn’t seem to react to any of them…which is great….but given that his brother is so highly allergic to a few foods we still wonder if it isn’t some food that is triggering his eczema.
Here are a bunch of pictures of what Nash’s skin has looked like over the last 8 months.
food allergies + a toddler 