Ok, where to start?

I never imagined that baby eczema treatment would become such a big part of our lives but to say that for the past 7 months it has taken over our lives would be an understatement.

My beautiful baby boy Kai was born with gorgeous skin and he loved a bath and a massage every night, looking back now I regret massaging him with lavender baby oil I was using but I’ve tried really hard to learn not to blame anything or anyone for his Eczema!

At around 6 weeks old he got what I assumed was his ‘baby acne’ as my first boy Marley had some stubborn cradle cap and baby acne for around a month when he was born!

I knew something wasn’t quite right when the baby acne not only didn’t improve but started getting worse, especially on his cheeks.

I took him to the doctors when he was around 2 and a half months old and he was diagnosed with Eczema. I remember the doctor prescribing a mild steroid cream, telling me to bath him twice a week maximum and to stop using soap! He then wanted to see me in two weeks when the eczema was ‘gone’ to talk prevention!

Oh how simple I assumed it would be! Little did I know that 6 months later we still wouldn’t even be at the ‘prevention’ stage because we’re still battling Eczema!

I can however admit that I’m pretty excited at the moment because I think we can see light at the end of our Eczema tunnel and we’re finally seeing real improvements! I’ll get to that later and for now explain our journey to get to this point!

After seeing 3 separate GP’s and my health nurse twice and being told the same thing and not getting any results, I became extremely frustrated. One thing that still bothers me today is that from the very first time I saw the GP I asked if it could be anything I was eating as Kai was still exclusively breastfed, all 3 GP’s and my health nurse assured me that It was definitely nothing I was eating. We’ve since come to learn that Kai’s Eczema is very much food related!

We were also told not to bath him more than twice a week, but have seen definite improvement since we started bathing him every night! I believe that’s important to keep the germs off the skin and as long as he’s moisturised straight after the bath then it doesn’t dry his skin out!

Kai’s Eczema started on his cheeks and forehead and had soon spread to his trunk, back, legs, arms, neck and at one stage, down his eyelids and in his ears! The only place he never really got it bad was his nappy area.

His cheeks were weepy, red, blistered circles and if he managed to get some scratches in would soon become infected!

He spent most of his days with socks on his hands which although stopped the scratching, he could still rub his cheeks red raw!

As soon as we knew what he had was eczema we stopped using any kind of soap or shampoo on him in the bath and switched to a bath oil, we changed washing powder to a sensitive one (for all of us) and used a third of the recommended amount, we soon changed to soap nuts which are 100% natural and amazing! We don’t use any chemicals to clean and I haven’t worn make-up or perfume in 6 months! (I’m not as scary looking as you imagine). Its basically forced us to be a lot more ‘environmentally friendly’ and natural.

Because I was breastfeeding, I also changed our shower wash/shampoo’s etc..

The house is vaccummed every day and kept as dust free as possible and bedding is changed almost constantly.

I could write a book alone on all the different creams, ointments, prescriptions, bath oils, eczema creams, and ‘miracle’ creams we’ve tried. We’ve easily spent over $1500 alone at the chemist on different things. I’d hand over $10,000 tomorrow If it would fix everything but its annoying to have spent the money we have and not see any results.

Kai has been on anti-biotics 4 times and an oral steroid 3 times. We kept getting given the steroid cream prescriptions until we ended up being given one so strong that the pharmacist didn’t even want to send me home with it! They were always a concern because the main problem area with Kai’s eczema is his face and you want to avoid that area as much as possible.

After using the steroid creams on and off for 4 months I decided I’d had enough because although they cleared it all up so quickly, as soon as we stopped, and I mean within 12 hours, the eczema was always back and worse than before!

The last time we used steroid creams was the 3^rd of January this year and although we had a couple of major flare ups after stopping, I couldn’t be happier with our decision. It was extremely hard not to reach for a tube and smother him in it knowing that it would clear up but the fact that we were only ‘masking’ the problem and not getting to the bottom of the eczema kept me strong enough to hold off!

Back in November when Kai’s eczema was at its worst I can honestly say I was worried for my mental health for a few weeks there, nothing I was doing was working and to watch not only someone you love so much in pain but a baby who relies on you for everything was heartbreaking. Every time I looked at him I thought all I could see was his pleading eyes begging me to fix everything and to be helpless and know that you’re doing everything you can is very emotionally draining. Not to mention I wanted to keep life as normal as possible for my toddler and put on a brave face every day to show everything was ok, when all I wanted to do was cry, which I’ll admit I spent a lot of alone time doing!

Looking back at that time now still makes me feel sick and get a lump in my throat, and to know that there are mums, dads and carers out there in the world now feeling exactly that way just breaks my heart!

One of the things I heard so often and it drove me insane was that “it was only Eczema” and “imagine how much worst it could be” and “he’ll grow out of it”. None of these phrases made me feel the slightest bit better!

I know people were only trying to help but, well, for one, no he might not grow out of it and two, It doesn’t make me feel better knowing that it could be worse or that he could have something so much worse than Eczema. I’m well aware of the terrible diseases and complications babies and children can have and knowing that there were people out there worse off than me didn’t cheer me up, it made me even sadder for those people, and besides, Kai might “only have Eczema” but for me (and Kai) this is the worst!

I can say now that I am extremely proud of myself for not giving up and not just listening to what the doctors say when it comes to Eczema treatment. All of the things I’ve tried with any success however small, has been thanks to my constant, and I mean constant googling and research and If I was still doing what the doctors told me to do I’d have a baby still covered in Eczema and steroid creams!

We had Kai allergy tested at 6 months old and he came back positive to Eggs and peanuts. We’ve since discovered that he has a dairy allergy and after changing from breastfeeding to a soy formula we saw a huge improvement. This is frustrating because I had eliminated Dairy for 9 weeks while breastfeeding with no improvements. After 4 months of eliminating certain foods from my diet including Dairy, gluten, eggs, nuts, soy, citrus and not getting results we decided to change him to a formula when we noticed the dairy allergy after giving him a custard one day. As I’d just found out I was pregnant with number 3, we decided it was for the best because I would have a hard time getting enough nutrients into me without all these foods and we’d be able to monitor a lot easier what foods triggered Kai’s Eczema.

Just recently I’ve also noticed that too much wheat flares up his eczema, he seems to be ok with little amounts but too much makes him an itchy mess for a few days!

Oh it drives me crazy just thinking about it, I know that the next year or so will be a lot of trial and error of foods but am happy that we finally have his skin at a stage where its clear enough to see a reaction quite quickly.

We get him allergy tested again in June but I’m not really relying on anything we gain from that as I’ve read and been told by my pediatric allergy specialist that its not unusual to get false positives and negatives in children under 2 and its also not uncommon for new allergies to develop in the first 18 months.

We’re also finally getting some sleep, after 6 months of Kai sleeping no longer than 45 mins at a time just from being so itchy and irritated, he now sleeps in 4 hour blocks. How either of us were functioning I have no idea! I’m glad he’s finally catching up on some much needed sleep (I’m pretty happy for myself too)

Anyway, in all this time we’ve also seen a Naturopath which I would recommend to anyone battling eczema as their theory is also to get to the cause of the problem instead of covering it up. This really is vital!

Ok so basically, my little man is 9 months old now and doing amazing, he gets to have his hands free for the majority of his awake time, has just started crawling (and loving it) and couldn’t be a happier little bub!

My eyes well up every time I think about what we’ve been through and where we are today, I’m confident that its only going to get better.

My advice to anyone out there going through the same thing? NEVER give up, keep searching, reading, emailing, everything. What works for one won’t work for all and finding what causes eczema is time consuming but isn’t impossible.

I didn’t want to mention products or any brand names in my story but for anyone who’d like to know what creams etc.. we’re using at the moment with huge success, please feel free to email me anytime. I’m always happy to talk Eczema (as you can tell).

I’m extremely grateful to all the women out there who have turned their babies/kids eczema into something positive to benefit other mums out there dealing with this nasty condition. Eg..Bamboo Bubby Bags :-)

Hanna Love

Hanna.curtis@bigpond.com