Eczema BE GONE…

There are two common responses you get when you tell someone you have eczema:

1.  “Oh I have it, look at this red dot on my arm”.

2.  “Oh I had it really badly, but I out grew it, or it’s not as bad as it was.”

I don’t have eczema, but my youngest child does.  He’s on the severe end of the scale.  On one of our many trips to the family Dr, she said “this is one of, not if the worst cases I’ve seen”.

Marcello developed eczema when he was three months old,  he had worse than normal baby acne, but when he turned three months old, things got bad.

I have this one memory that really sticks out: five years ago this January, my mother-in-law (who was the glue of the family) passed away unexpectedly and very suddenly.  It was obviously a terrible and stressful time for everyone.  Marcello, my youngest was barely three months old, but was so helpful in providing a beacon of hope with his smile, innocence and cuddles.  I remember standing in the receiving line of the wake with Marcello on my hip facing outward and people asking, “what’s wrong with your baby? Did he get burned? His cheeks were so raw and red that we put baby socks on his hands to stop him from ripping his skin open while he scratched it repeatedly. I went to the doctor many times, and an eczema sufferer herself, she gave as many tips as she could, prescribed him a steroid topical cream and she assured me there’s no rhyme or reason to eczema. It’s a management disease and it comes and goes in the form of flare-ups.

I didn’t believe her.  I couldn’t fathom that something wasn’t CAUSING this?  My rationale was, something inside of his tiny body is unhappy and it’s manifesting in this raging, itchy, uncomfortable rash.  I was breastfeeding, so I began to cut out foods from my diet, hoping that would help.  I started by cutting out dairy, it did help but the eczema was still there.  Then a light bulb moment happened.  When Marcello was almost seven months old, we went on a big family trip to Cuba to celebrate my parents 40th wedding anniversary.  By the third morning, Marcello’s skin was creamy soft, with no eczema. Obviously moist air, sun, and warm temperatures helped this boy, and yes, the eczema returned as soon as we arrived back in the dry, cold climate of Canada.

So life went on with eczema always there, and we lived a life of trial and error.  I weaned Marcello from breastmilk and put him on goat milk to avoid lactose.  When he turned a year old, we noticed a sensitivity to peanuts, apparently a common relationship: peanut allergy and eczema. (I still say it’s the Karma I got for chirping people with peanut allergies!) Anyway to make a long story longer, we did notice some definite triggers in flare-ups:

• Eating or drinking any citrus: orange, lemon, lime
• Cold, dry air, so we always ran a humidifier and made sure his hands and feet were always covered up in the winter
• Butter
• Dairy
• Scented soaps/shampoos
• Hanging the clothes on the line in the summer (pollen I assume)

Basically, eating started to be more of a stressor than anything.  My poor Mom, who loves to cook Sunday dinners, had to re-train herself on how to make her famous mashed potatoes.  I’m telling you, allergies and intolerances are a real thing.  When you are cooking or having company, even ordering food, one of the nicest and most respectful things you can do, is ask about allergies.  It’s really isolating and potentially life threatening when you don’t consider what others may or may not be able to eat.

So fast forward and Marcello continued on his flare-up journey of managing eczema.  August 2013, Marcello is about to turn four and is the worst he’s been since he was a baby.  He literally cannot go outside without his skin turning bright red and scratching like a feral cat.  I make the connection that obviously there’s a pollen that’s irritating his skin and I make an appointment with Dr. Brenna Steeles, a naturopath in Peterborough, Ontario.  She listened to everything I told her.  She tested him for food allergies and noticed Marcello was sensitive to corn.  Let me tell you, corn is in EVERYTHING (see full list here). Perhaps even whatever is sprayed on cornfields, which may be why he was so sensitive to the air (we lived near a whack of corn fields at the time).  We also made a connection to stress and flare-ups. Some of you may be saying, “how can a baby/young child have stress?”  They do and can, and often, it is our stress they carry.  When I looked closely at the time of flare-ups, there was always an increased amount of stress in my life at that time.  It may just be a coincidence, but I was and am willing to try ANYTHING to help my child.  He was living on the maximum dose of Benadryl daily, waking continually in the night, and scratching himself raw and bloody.  I can remember his wee body lying on the bathroom floor writhing back and forth to scratch his back, sobbing and asking me to get him new skin.  It sucks watching a kid be sick, and it sucks even more when you don’t know how to fix it.

The story does get better though! Today, Marcello is doing so much better.  He rarely takes Benadryl and we use the cortisone cream waaaaaaay less than we used to. I do think he has “outgrown” some of his earlier food sensitivities, but here are some of our tricks that seem to help:

• Frequent baths with baking soda in the tub.
• Applying cream as soon as he is out of the bath.  We use “George’s Special Dry Skin Cream”.  It’s available in almost all drug stores and sells for about $20.  We’ve tried every cream and by far this is the best one we’ve ever used.
• Full onesies made of fleece.  My theory here is: no skin is exposed while he sleeps with the shirt riding up.  Also fleece wicks away sweat but allows the cream to absorb into the skin.
• Steer clear of citrus.
• Be aware of excess stress in both your lives.  If Marcello thinks he’s in trouble or nervous, he instantly starts to itch and flares up.
• Dog licks=flare up.
• No sunblock: we cover him with cotton t-shirts. When I do have to use sunblock, I use a natural paraben free sunblock or coconut oil.
• Humidifier in the winter months.
• We slowly introduced him to “trigger” foods and we believe it may have helped build up a tolerance**.

**There is detailed info on exposure therapy.  We’re looking at finding an allergist who can do this with peanuts.

My doctor was right, managing eczema is a “journey”.  There really isn’t a “quick fix” or a pill to cure eczema. In our experience, it’s trial and error and chatting with others who share your experience is a big help and comfort.

For fun, click here to watch a video we made for a DORITOS commercial with Marcello and his eczema cheeks (he was 6 months old).

MF