Infantile Eczema - May 2013

Mr. T on a good day. Looking generally much better.

Since the last blog entry I tried Hopes relief moisturiser as their dry skin treatment cream was so good. Silly me never read the ingredients, just assumed all was good. Poor Mr.T turned out in a red rash and got very itchy. I checked the ingredients and yup, Shea butter. Bummer. I'd tried Shea butter on him before and he got a reaction, which makes me believe he has a nut allergy too.  We promptly put him in a bath and washed him off and have now resorted back to Salcura Zeoderm for non broken skin and Hopes Relief dry skin rescue for broken skin.
The Zeoderm is nice and greasy but is sore for him if you put it on the open areas, whereas the Hopes Relief seems to give him some immediate relief.
We also discovered from a friend who is similarly allergic to things that the fact he was sleeping in a bed with feather duvets wasn't good. I had been cleaning the sheets at least once a week with either Dr. Bronners soap or  soapnuts and at the same time hoovering and steam cleaning the mattress but then we decided (to Toms dismay :) that we would switch to hollow fibre anti allergen duvet and pillows. We got them cheap enough from our local Heatons. We had hoped that maybe then we would get some sleep but no luck so far.

I have also made sure that Mr.T doesn't come in contact with any cuddly toys except for his two which we got as presents. They are made from organic materials, without chemicals, and have been super washed. 

All of us have ditched the usual hair products, conditioners, shampoos and also moisturisers and have detergent free soap, shampoo, and conditioner now. If I run out I've found bread soda works as shamoo aswell, and cider vinegar works well as conditioner. We now use organic coconut oil as a moisturiser for ourselves. I have found that now that Mr.T isn't exposed to detergents as much he starts getting irritated and itchy when a visitor holds him with 'normal washed' clothes and 'normal washed' hair and skin.

We have also discovered that the following foods are foods he needs to stay away from for the time being until his condition is more controlled:

- Oranges - any citrus
- Strawberries
- Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes - any nightshade family
- Soya
- and obviously the ones previousy discovered - dairy, goats milk,  eggs, fish.

At the moment he still has bottles of Neocate but he has about 2-3 solid meals a day consisting of dairy & egg free baby rice, and either apple or a mixture of sweet potato (not in nightshade family), carrot, kale, broccoli florets & leaves, cleavers, nettles and a pinch of oregano. He absolutely loves it. 

For ourselves, to try stay awake and with it, we trying to eat as healthy as we can as well as supplementing with complex B vitamins, zinc and magnesium as well as drinking my green smoothie and a mix of juiced garlic, ginger, honey and cider vinegar. Its hard to find the time to drink enough water in the day, but I try....

I have also realised that until we have reached a stage where Mr.T isn't going to break out all the time I have to limit trips away from home with him. On a normal trip somewhere the amount of detergent lint and allergens that surround him are insane. Even just being in the car aggravates his skin. I have tried pitting a car clean session into my weekly schedule but so far it has only happened once in the last 3 weeks. If we do go out somewhere, then we bathe him straight after and change our own clothes aswell.

I have some more things I have learned in the last few weeks in our quest against eczema but its getting late now and I'm on night duty so I will write a follow up on this post in the next few days. At least this way if anyone in the same predicament reads this they have some food for thought and ideas to try out. 

Thank you to everyone for reading and sharing this. I really appreciate it, and please, spread the word. We can only keep trying to combat this, and our little ones need our help. They need us to widen our perspectives past what doctors just diagnose as 'incurable infantile eczema'.