The Heart of the Eczema

The title of this post is misleading, because eczema has no heart. If it had an embodied form, it would be a soulless monster, preying on anyone, including the young and the helpless.

The past week has been filled with moments that just make me want to curl up on my bed and cry. Today especially was incredibly discouraging. There are few things more emotionally stressful and draining as a parent than seeing your child suffering, and there has been a lot of physical discomfort for Diana this week. I hate hearing her scream during the rare bath/shower times, or when I'm putting on a moisturizer that I know is good for her. I hate hearing her cry and beg me to stop because it hurts.

The Plan

We've declared war on her eczema again. It seemed to get worse in the past month, so Joseph and I did some brainstorming and came up with some plans. Everyone's skin in the house got drier once the temperature dropped and the heater started coming on, so we've been putting on the kids' humidifier every night. Also, we theorized that 60% of Diana's skin problems have to do with the fact that she scratches, leaving lots of scabs that are dry and itchy or open wounds that are always in danger of becoming infected. So we committed to stopping the damage done by scratching with fingernails by covering her hands EVERY time we see her scratch. We've got a couple pairs of lightweight cotton gloves from The Allergy Shop in Australia that we use, or if we're in a pinch, we just pop socks over her hands. Joseph sewed one pair of gloves onto an old pajama shirt Diana had so that we can use it when she sleeps without her pulling the gloves off. We put that on under some of her footie pajamas (because even with gloves on, she'll still peel off pants and diaper and scratch if she has the opportunity) and then put a band of athletic tape around her chest so that she can't retract her arms from her sleeves (something she perfected about a year ago) and scratch inside her PJs at night. Additionally, at our doctor's suggestion, we've been giving her 1/2 tsp Children's Liquid Zyrtec every morning and at night as needed to try to make her less itchy.

The Results

It was a bit of a rough transition to wearing the gloves during sleeping times, but now Diana asks for her "glove shirt" and is comfortable with putting her fingers in the fingers of the gloves herself. That seems to make it easier for her because she knows she mostly still has the use of all her fingers and isn't too limited in what she can do at night. It was (and is) much more frustrating for Diana to get used to being forbidden to scratch during the day. I hate to keep her from doing that, but she does so much damage to her skin and usually leaves herself bleeding. We stress that she can scratch with her gloves on all she wants or she can rub the itchy spot with her gloves off. Usually we have to revert to putting the gloves on. Understandably, it's frustrating for Diana, especially as she healed up and the scabs became dry and itchy. Her frustration has manifested in a lot of un-Diana-like behavior: blatantly tormenting her brother, not listening to mommy, being surly and whiny at every opportunity, and saying things like "I don't like you, mommy," "You're a naughty mommy," and "Go away, mommy, I don't want you here." I know that she doesn't mean it when she says that, but it's still a little disheartening. I've tried redirecting her to say things like "I'm frustrated/mad at you," because that seems more accurate, though I'm still not sure I like that.

Happily, though, as she was thwarted from scratching, her skin did heal up! Kids heal so quickly (when they let the healing happen), and soon her skin was free from scabs and scratches. I could use our Aveeno Eczema Therapy Cream on her without the alcohol hurting her skin! She began to willingly take baths and showers and just sit and enjoy them because the water didn't hurt her skin! Hallelujah! If you'd ever had the misfortune to be around our house at bath time, you'd know this was a huge improvement. Soon all that was left was, essentially, the heart of her eczema: dry skin with raised, irritated red patches.

We overcame the problem of scratched and bleeding skin and now we're left with just the eczema, which is no less confusing. Her dry skin is irritated by something, and we somehow need to combat both the dryness and irritation. We tried an exclusion diet with no noticeable results. We noticed that whenever she has sugar (including white flour), her face flushes red and she immediately begins scratching, so we tried removing sugar as well and haven't noticed any changes in her skin quality or itchiness levels yet, but that can supposedly take up to two weeks to get out of her system. To allow natural oils to accumulate on her skin, we cut out showers and baths and only did wipe-downs on her hands and face with a warm wet rag at the end of the day. Unfortunately, we encounter a lot  of irritants in the course of a day even just seeing friends, relatives and animals, so I'm not sure this did a lot of good either. Additionally, the dog has been in the house more often since the nighttime temperatures dropped to freezing and we also got a new couch, which may be covered in cleaners that irritate her skin. There are no limits to the amount of things that could be irritating Diana's sensitive skin!

And the new plan

A sweet, sweet friend saw some of my posts about Diana's skin and brought over some Arbonne Baby Care products for us to try. I was so touched by how thoughtful she was! Diana's eczema problems are like no one else's that I know, so it feels like a very lonely, frustrating battle sometimes, but it is encouraging to know that people notice and care, including you, lone reader. It makes me nervous to try new products sometimes, but I've never heard of Arbonne products and haven't tried them, so we're giving them a shot. 

Diana's unhappy skin after unsupervised scratching.

Diana's itchiness and attitude problems reached new lows today. Every minute or so she'd scratch uncontrollably, I'd pop the gloves on, she'd throw a fit, eventually calm down and I'd take them off, then she'd go right back to scratching. The cycle went on all day, with frustration misdirected at me and Liam. And do you know that it's actually impossible to reason with a toddler, or explain that their own scratching hurts their skin? At naptime, I checked on her every couple of minutes for almost an hour, taping gloves back on and putting clothes back on when she'd pulled them off. At last, it seemed like she was just falling asleep and it was quiet in the kids' room for about an hour. However, when I finally went in, I found her completely naked and scratching herself with no gloves. She set her skin back so far with this one incident. So we figured this was a good place to reevaluate and start a New New Plan. 

In the New New Plan, the dog lives outside exclusively. Diana's gloves will stay on all day except during meal times. We're going to shower every night, even if we don't use soap all the time. We will be using Arbonne Baby Care Hair and Body Wash occasionally in the showers and moisturizing with Arbonne Baby Care Body Oil and sealing in the moisture with our tried-and-true Vaseline. When her skin is a little less scratched up, we may try the Arbonne Baby Care Body Lotion as well. She still gets Zyrtec in the morning and at night as necessary, we're still keeping sugar as low as possible and substituting whole grains whenever possible. Humidifier and glove-shirt go on every time she sleeps. 

After the day's scratching, tonight's shower was, predictably, horrifying. It was also a huge emotional challenge as a mom to slather Diana with the body oil while she curled into a fetal position on her side and begged me not to put it on because it hurt her. HOWEVER, I did notice that as soon as the oil and Vaseline were on, Diana's scratching stopped. Under normal circumstances, Diana's hands will scratch away at her hot spots, even with gloves on, especially when she's distressed. (This is another complicating factor, because if she's ever startled/ uncomfortable/ tired/ hurt/ frustrated/ nervous/ etc. she will immediately start scratching herself even absent of other skin irritations.) Instead, her hands just stopped and she chatted with me. After getting her dressed, I asked her suspiciously if she was itchy and she said no, so we skipped the Zyrtec tonight. I'm curious to see what her reaction is to the new products after a few days of use. Her skin did feel extra soft after putting on the oil, and hopefully the moisture gives her some relief.