Bathing distress

[lindsfin]

Hi
I have a 3 year old with quite bad eczema and at the moment is having a flare-up. She wont let me bath her, as soon as she hits the water she starts screaming as it's stinging her. Nor can I wash her hands anymore. Can anybody recommend anything I can add to her bath to ease the stinging ?

[sf34_22]

Lindsfin do you have to bathe her in the bath could you not just wipe her down with a soft cloth for the moment? When I have a flare up a bath or shower makes me a lot worse no matter how cool I have the water so now I sponge myself down before applying the creams.

Good Luck.


SF.

[mandyafc]

Hi Lindsfin, have you tried covering her body liberally with something like diprobase before she goes into the bath? When I have a flare up, I slap loads on before I get in the shower and find it doesn't sting as much as it would have done.

[AnnaB]

We found and our specialists agreed that creams can sting. But ointments that are less white and more like grease though messier are much kinder on the skin. When flared my kids have to use Hydromol and not the Cetraben we normally use as this hurts too much. Experiment with different emollients, we have about 4 we switch between for various reasons.

[mummybear2010]

Hi
My 5 and a half month old baby has had eczema for a few months now, it is fortunately not very severe but I am concerned because everytime I put her in the bath she scratches her legs like crazy. I have never used any baby bath products (apart from for about one week a long time ago and I stopped as soon as I realised they might make her dry skin worse) and have used a bath oil and increasingly cool water to bath her in, but there is no improvement. I am applying emollient at least 3 times a day, often 4 or 5 times, but if anything her dry skin is getting worse. For the past 2-3 weeks she has begun scratching her legs sometimes during the day, although as they are covered it doesn't seem to be causing too much damage, it is when her legs are uncovered (eg nappy change, bath) that they start to get red from all the itching.

I did try putting the emoliient (diprobase) on whilst she was in the bath, and there was an improvement, but it made her so slippery that she slid around and this frightened her and then she would scream every time I put here in the bath - so I had a week of getting her to stop being scared of her bath and haven't dared to try this again.

It is like the bath water especially irriates her and I wonder if I am doing the right thing trying to get her to soak in it and the oil (baletum and oilatum), or maybe this is aggravating it.

I just wondered if anyone can suggest anything for the bath to make it more comfortable for her? I'm thinking of softened water or redrush tea - anyone tried these?

Thank you

[Heidijo]

have u thought of the suction seat that u put in the bath it might kill two birds with one stone , you can use slippy stuff and she might not b able to reach her legs over the top ring.

[Jimbob]

I really feel for you as this can be so difficult. My son is now 6 years old but this can still be difficult for us when he is flaring. We did find that the bath oilatum plus and balneum plus seemed to make my sons skin worse as a baby. We now use the dermol range for in the bath and this does seem to help a little. In our experience the thing that worked best was distraction which is easier said than done. When we were unable to distract him it would just be a very quick bath pat him dry and apply his emollient and dress him. I wish I could do more to help but just wanted to know that you are not alone.

[AnnaB]

Hi, my son's eczema was certainly made worse by oilatum. We either dislove hydramol or add a lot of Cetraben to the water. I found using the emollient that best suits the skin helps in the bath water and as the bath soap and wash. This keeps things simple and reduces the number of things in contact with the skin. Anna