Tom's Eczema Journey

Tom started teething at 4 months and with that came a teething rash on his cheeks, they was red and I expected it to clear when the teeth came through, but it didn't. But then Tom was teething again so I chalked it up to that. At five months I wasn't very happy with the rash, it was still there and stating to look irritated, I used Sudocream and they seemed to slow down the irritation. I then tried Weleda derma baby which seemed to soothe his face but wasn't budging the rash.

This is the rash at five months on a good day

At around six months we went to a get Tom weighed and asked the health visiter about the rash. She suggested using e45, and if that didn't work then seeing a doctor. At this point the rash had progressively got more irritated, it got redder and redder and began to weep. The e45 irritated the hell out of his face and you could see that it was stinging when applied so we stopped that.

You can see here that some weeping had started to occur 

The morning of his doctors appointment I was really not happy with his face and took to Google. I had looked up before but was searching for 'teething rash', this time I was looking up 'rash on baby cheeks ' and lo and behold ECZEMA!

This was the eczema when it was probably at its worst, it had started weeping and scabbing

I saw the nurse practitioner and explain what had been happening and my belief that it was eczema which she confirmed. Tom's eczema had become infected as it was not being treated properly. I felt like a really shit mum, like I had ignored Tom's suffering and I should have known, despite trying my best and not knowing what to look out for!

This is the start of getting the eczema healed! Still pretty red and angry looking.

So my new mission was tackle the infection and then work on clearing the eczema, with regular follow up appointments. We used Fucidin and Hydrocortisone to manage the infection and irritation. I found using the a Hydrocortison really scary and off putting as it can thin the skin and is super strong and generally isn't recommended on baby faces, my nurse practitioner is fabulous and gave me the talking to I needed, explaining that it had to be done to rapidly improve the situation before we worked on managing his day to day eczema. 

The infection slowly healing.

It took around a month to clear the infection and build a routine around keeping his eczema in check. We learned that strawberry flairs it up and that baby food companies frickin love strawberry! We found that Aveeno really works for him, we also still like Weleda. Tom itches his face when he is tired so he has a thick ointment on his face over night to moisturise and work as a barrier for the itching. And we have an eye lube called Lacri-Lube as he can get odd patches around his eye.

A few flair ups along the way

Nowadays it's not too much of an issue as managing it is part of our daily life. I think I've earned a reputation with both our families as a crazy lady around foods and skincare but I am the one that has to manage the flair ups and upset, and so I don't really care! So far Tom's eczema has remained localised to his face and hopefully it will stay that way. Apparently a lot of children grow out of it so I remain hopeful but either way I'm happy jut to have it under control (frantically touches wood!)

Horray! Healed! Just some rosey cheeks these days!

I hope this has been helpful and that wherever you are on your baby's eczema journey you find a solution! 

Allergy Testing :

Before: I am feeling really nervous, I really don't know what to expect. It seems so long ago that he had reaction I almost feel like I made it up. I am scared that he is allergic to other things, nuts in itself is a bit of a pain. I'm hopeful that I will get good advice on how to manage a reaction. I just feel really nervous. They don't really give you much of an idea as to what is going to happen.

During : I got there and handed in my appointment card and sat and waited. Because the appointment was a the children's unit there was lots of toys which was handy. We went and got Tom weighed and measured, not really sure why but it was handy as I hadn't done it in a while! Next up we met with the doctor, we discussed Toms allergic reaction to peanut butter and our family history with allergies. We decided on what to test him for based on what he has been exposed to, so he was tested for peanuts, hazelnuts (to check if it's an all nut allergy or peanut and not tree nut allergy), cat hair, another animal hair (but I really can't remember what!), eggs and there was also a positive and negative swatch to ensure he was reacting in the expected way. 

N.B. I was asked if Tom had taken any antihistamine prior to the testing as I'm assuming it might sway the results, so avoid if possible.

The test was done by having numbers listed on his arm, next to each number was a blob of the allergin which was followed by a shallow prick to introduce the allergin to the skin and cause a reaction. We then waited for 10 minutes.

This was as the hive reactions started coming up. As you can see Tom had a few reactions. We went back in and the nurse drew circles around the hives and used a transfer tape to magically transfer the circles onto paper. They was measured and taken to the Dr to have a look-see (back to the waiting room). We went back into the Drs and discussed our results. It is confirmed that Tom has a peanut allergy but not to hazelnuts! This is really good news as it means Tom can eat some nuts (and Nutella!), Tom is also mildly allergic to cats (we have a black cat called Hillary), the doctor said that if Hillary isn't affecting his eczema then not to worry (phew). 

The other big reaction was eggs. I had intentionally not introduced eggs into his diet as my gut was telling me to hold out until his allergy testing, after the peanut reaction just in case. The Dr has advised us to research if Tom has eaten things with egg in previously in which case he might tolerate baked egg. If this is the case then we could do the baked egg test, which is feeding him a bit of cake made with 1/4 ratio of egg that you would usually use. I'm going to have to check if Tom has eaten baked egg before as the Dr explained that if he hadn't then we defiantly shouldn't attempt it. 

I was given some information from the Allergy UK website and it was agreed for us to return in 4-6 months.

After : I feel a bit relived that it's done and I now know where I stand. Equally I'm really disappointed about the egg allergy as my dad (Nandad to Tom!) has made a special egg dish for both my neices and Tom won't be able to have it, but c'est la vie. I think I will need more time to digest (boom! Pun intended!)

I hope this has been helpful! Have you had any experiences with allergies?

Shopping List :

Tommee Tippee straw cups

I have a few friends with children that struggled to transition into straw cups and so when the time came I wasn't expecting Tom to take to it well. We have always used Tommee Tippee bottles and sippy cups and Tom seems to work well with the shape and size, so I decided to stick with what we know (plus it was on offer for £3 at Mothercare!)

Tom took to it straight away, the straw seems really easy to use, with the water flowing up with minimal sucking required. My friends with children have sampled it (as they do) and they too found it really easy to use. I would really recommend it as a first sippy cup, the only downside is I just can seem to find them in shops, they always seems to be sold out, I guess that is an indicator that other people love it too!

Trousers

Tom seems to be a bit of a funny shape, he is tall for his age so his T-shirts are big but his trousers rarely fit well! Tom grows out of trousers faster than any other item of clothing so I am always on the hunt for more!

In the meantime I seem to be dressing Tom in lots of rompers as his room up top gives him more space down below!

Pyjamas

After his bath Tom gets really eager for boobie feed and so it's a bit of a pain in the arse to get dressed, anything with poppers takes forever and so we have moved from baby grows to pyjamas. 

Now it's just trying to find good ones! We have some cute ones from M&S which have a good fit, and make Tom look like a little gentleman. His Matalan ones are also nice and reasonably priced, not as cute as M&S but in price vs cute, price often wins, hence no baby gap pyjamas in the running!

Aveeno

Tom suffers with eczema on his face and it's starting to travel around his body (joy!). We use a few different products but I like aveeno for ease of use due to the pump bottle. I'm always on the hunt to see if it's on offer as it's not particularly cheap and for a product that's used daily it's worth holding out.

What's on your shopping list this week?