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This post is an anonymous guest post*
We first discovered that my son had eczema at the tiny age of just 8 weeks old. With eczema being in both mine and my other halfs side of the family we was aware that our baby could possibly get the awful skin condition but we didnt think it would be so early.
We first noticed that his face was slightly blotchy and dry at around 6 weeks, but when we took him to see the GP they assured us that little babies so young are prone to blotchy dry skin as a natural reaction to the big wide world. Their skin is so sensitive that anything from dust, to people wearing purfume, to fabric condtitioner can cause blotching and irritation of the skin. we were advised to moisturise our son with Olive oil and it should clear up.
Unfortunately it didnt and when he was 8 weeks old, one day we woke to find that our son had big raised dry red blotches all over his face, shoulders and legs. We paniced as we had never seen anything like it before. It looked abit like he had severe sunburn all over his face, although we hadnt been in the sun. We got an emergency appointment at our GPs who then told us our son had eczema that had not been treated correctly and had got infected. We were perscibed a bath additive called Oilatum and and emolient called dermol.. and was also given a mild steroid called hydrocortisone to apply to our babies skin.
The doctor was hopeful that it was just infantile eczema and it would soon clear itself up. But since then we have had flare up after flare up, Sometimes worse then others, but every flare up has caused irritation for my little boy.
We have had to take him to the doctors at least once or twice a month for the last 15 months and have seen countless doctors. Each doctor giving us different advise and products. which can get very confusing. We have tried countless emolients including; Dermol, Cetreben, Aveeno, Aqueous, E45, Hydromol, Double base, Oilatum.. All of which seem to work for a little while and then seem to loose effectiveness. We always end up with Hydrocortisone which my son seems to now be reliant on as as soon as his skin clears up and we stop the hydrocortisone his skin ends up just as bad as when we started. Its an endless cycle.
We have also tried to find the cause of his eczema. We have changed washing powders, both me and my partner have stopped wearing any sort of purfume or aftershave, we dont use anything apart from Oilatum in his bath, we have tried cutting out dairy, tomatoes, strawberries, egg all things which are common irritants of eczema yet everytime we still end up with a flare up.
finally at the age of 17 months and lots of creams and potions, and trial and error. Only now have we been referred to a specialist to help us. We have just had our appointment and they have told us that they will be monitoring him for 6 months.. Then at the end of the 6 months if his eczema is still as bad.
He will then do allergy tests as they wont allergy test babies under 2. We also have open access to their clinic so we dont have to go through a GP anymore.. We can go straight to them and they can perscribe us things our normal doctor couldnt. This is what ive been fighting for for 15 months and finally hopefully we will get some answers and help.
I would definately suggest to anyone going through the same as me.. Dont back down when a doctor is telling you that there isnt much they can do. If you feel you Little one needs specialist help follow it up and keep going until they refer you.
I feel so much better now seeing the specialist as I know they can give my son the help he needs. We have now been told to use Hydromol 4 times a day to keep the skin moisturised which prevents an outbreak. Use hydrocortisone twice a day when he has a bad outbreak and avoid bath products even baby ones. And if this doesnt work they can give us something stronger that our doctor couldnt.
Eczema is a horrible condition and especially for young children who dont know how to handle it themselves. It takes a lot of time and effort to treat and treatment is consistant. Many people dont know much about eczema but it is very common in children affecting 1.7 million children in the UK alone.
