Yesterday we went into the doc and found out that Charlie has dermatitis (eczema). What a bummer, my heart hurts for him. I was really hopeful that he'd skip this area of my gene pool. He's got quite a little flare up going and I'm doing everything I know how to do to help it calm down.
What is dermatitis?
Inflammation of the top layers of skin where babies (through puberty usually) feel really itchy and tend to scratch quite a bit. If they scratch their raw skin it can tear and become infected.
What are we doing?
Going hypoallergenic and chemical free with our products for both Charlie and his parents. Our lotions, hand soaps, shower gel, laundry detergent etc. (Yes that means I'm re-washing perfectly good and folded clothes) No perfumes, cologne or fragrance lotions.
Narrowing Charlie's baths down to 1-2x a week to prevent his skin from drying out too much. This is a tough one since he LOVES his baths and I love them equally as much because he will come out of a full-out fit to play in the water. We also need to be aware of how running the heater sucks the moisture out of the air - so keeping out a big bowl of water and or running the humidifier works. But not to warm...overheating causes the break out to worsen (it was a steamy bathroom that highlighted the problem two nights ago)
We're also really trying to keep his diaper fresh/dry and keeping him moisturized with aquaphor/cetaphil products and dressing him in 100% cotton. (Goodbye Poly blends...I never really liked you anyway.)
What you can do:
Since Charlie likes to rub his head around the chest and neck of the person holding him (and tries to grab everything!) if you want to hold the little man please refrain from wearing perfume/cologne/fragrance lotion.
1 comment:
Hi Allie,
Ava has eczema as well and here are a couple of tips I've learned along the way and things that my Dr. has told me:
Eucerin works really well. It's a lotion (fragrant free of course) that sooths the itchy skin. It is sold at Target and a little bit goes a long way.
We use Tide Free and Downy Free for our laundry and that seems to work just fine. I wash everyone's clothes in it. No use in buying 2 sets of detergent. We also use Bounce dryer sheets (they have a fragrant free one as well) and Ava's skin seems to do okay with all of those brands.
For really bad flare ups I rub a tiny bit of hydrocortizone on the inflammed patches of her skin. That really seems to help but be careful with that as it is a steroid.
The only difference that I see from your Dr.'s advice to my Dr.'s advice was on baths. We still bathe Ava every day, as she too loves her bath. Maybe the difference is in age??? I was told however to make sure to blot her dry immediately after she's out of the bath and to not let her "air dry". Then I put on the Eucerin lotion and let her hang out in her diaper for a little while (this lets the lotion get into her skin without having her clothes get all gross from the lotion). About once a week I put a little bit of olive oil in Ava's bath. This makes her skin so soft and silky.
Having eczema totally sucks. Our Dr. seems to think that this is something that she will outgrow though. Only time will tell I guess.
Hang in there sista.
~Hillary
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