Emma's battle with eczema

I have sensitive skin, Evan had sensitive skin, but Emma has ultra sensitive skin it seems.  When she was a young baby she had bad eczema (that even got infected and turned into impetigo) on her face.  Then soon after we returned from Australia she got a new, widespread rash on her trunk focused mostly on her tummy and chest.  It's a red splotchy rash and it is itchy.  My poor darling scratches at it every chance she gets, especially at diaper changes.

She also has a few small splotches around her neck (hidden under her chin in this photo) on her chest.

I took her back to the doctor about it a few weeks ago since she's had it for almost 2 months now (it started around her 4-month check up).  He said it was still looking like basic eczema/dermatitis and that there wasn't much treatment for it beyond what we were already doing.   What had we been doing?  Several things, as advised by the doctors we had seen previously for her face:

• Very short water only baths in luke warm (not too hot) water, followed by immediate moisturization with generic brand Eucerin cream (not the lotion, which I'll explain later)
• Moisturization with the cream at every diaper change
• When she has a flare up (really red and itchy splotches like in the photo above) we put hydrocortisone lotion on it

We can't use hydrocortisone too much since it harms the skin over time (I think it thins it or maybe it thickens it, I can't remember) and who knows how much of it she's absorbing into her small body.   So we just use it once in awhile when her flare ups get bad, but this has typically been about 2-3 times per week!  It often helps reduce the redness, but the skin remains dry in patchy spots and never has seemed to fully heal.  We also don't use the Eucerin lotion anymore, as it always seemed to make her rash redder and she would often cry (maybe it was making her skin sting!?).  Beyond that (which is reason enough) the doctor I saw for her face told me that lotion still has a lot of water in it, and in a dry climate like Colorado it will evaporate and leave her skin feeling possibly drier yet.  So a thick petroleum jelly (vaseline) or Eucerin cream is better (pretty much a creamy form of vaseline).

So after this past doctor's appointment about it, I decided to be more proactive and called upon my inner scientist to design a more controlled experiment.  I am now keeping a log of everything I eat, what she eats (frozen old milk vs fresh milk), what she wears, what treatment we have done for her skin, and when the rash gets worse or better.  Maybe a pattern will emerge that we can test to see if that causes her flare ups?  Prior to that I had been trying to casually take notice of what she had been wearing, thinking maybe a rough fabric was the culprit, but alas that wasn't always the case.

Regardless, I've restricted her to only wearing 100% cotton to see if that will help.  I have also restricted her from wearing more than one layer of clothing over her trunk section.  The reason for this is because it seemed her rash got worse and/or came back when she might have gotten hot and sweaty (i.e. after she had been bundled up in her coat on a cold winter day, when she would wear microfleece sleepers and sleep sacks, etc).  Cotton (and only one layer) is much more breathable.

The most recent thing I also tried was to use hydrocortisone a few times in a row, even after the initial flare up seemed to have gone down, thinking that maybe I needed to use it more to get her completely over the flare up better.  So the end of last week I used it in the morning and then again in the same night and since then it seems a lot better.  It was dry at first, but with the cream it helped it get smoother.  There are still a few splotches under her chin area, though, but her tummy is a lot better.  Granted, it was only better for a few days, and then some small areas of rash came back on her tummy too (at least they were isolated though) so who knows if we're starting to get it under control or not.  In the end, the doctor did say if we don't have it under control by her 6-month check up, then we'll talk about other options (such as seeing a dermatologist).  Only time will tell on that one.