This April Emilio developed what I thought were bungang araw (prickly heat) on his neck and the folds of his arms. Though I doused heavily in cornstarch, they kept multiplying. When we went to Bohol for a week, they developed into red patches all over him. He was scratching himself even in his sleep! My heart went out to my little boy. I would put hydrocortisone but it only helped for a little while.
Yaya and I were trying to figure out what went wrong. I blamed it on the hot weather, thus we put him in the aircon 24/7. Yaya blamed it on the food I ate, thus I went on an elimination diet (oh how difficult that was being in a resort with a great chef). But the rashes persisted and even grew redder and redder. We stopped giving him solids as he had just started. Oh how Emilio stared longingly at his bowl. We even went as far as bathing him in mineral water.
Back in Manila, we went straight to a doctor. He was diagnosed with atopic dermatities (eczema), commonly known here as asthma of the skin. My mom has it. My brothers, sisters and cousins have it. And my husband has a bad case of allergic rhinitis. Our pediatric dermatologist prescribed steriods and corticosteroids to help calm it down. We were advised to put lotion on him regularly, moving to creams and eventually petroleum jelly should it flare up. My son would be having flares every so often our doctor said. What's important is to manage it well.
But I refuse to just take this sitting down. I wasn't comfortable on relying on steroids too. We were also advised to limit putting it on him to twice a day. But he was itching before the next dose could be administered!
I researched, researched and researched some more. There must be a way to help my little boy through this. As I write, he sleeps soundly. No itches, no red scaly patches and guess what, no steroids too!
Here's what helped:
1. Cetaphil cream: slathered all over him 3 times a day. This seems to work better than Aveeno.
2. Cotton clothing: we basically keep him cool (no need to aircon 24/7) and dress him in natural fibers
3. Calendula cream: Most of the posts I read suggested California Baby Calendula Cream. Where on earth would I find that in Manila?! But I remember buying a Calendula Diaper Cream from Dr. Cricket Chen's clinic when my first baby was born. I looked for that old tube and slathered it all over Emilio's tummy when he couldn't sleep (he was scratching his tummy). The next day, yaya said his back was still red. I asked her "how 'bout his tummy", she said it's pretty clear. Aha! Never mind that it's diaper cream, I asked yaya to put it all over Emilio. It helped a lot!
4. Elimination diet: I had to accept, albeit painfully, that chocolates, patis, bagoong and seafoods often triggered rashes in my son. So I gave them up. Cold turkey. Never mind that the chocolate covered espresso beans from Coffee Bean keep calling my name...
5. Probiotics: I kept reading about probiotics and how good they were for infants with eczema. Healthy Options didn't have any. And I didn't want to wait for June when I can ask friends to bring some home from the USA. Turns out, there is on our homeopathic/alternative medicine pedia's clinic! I gave Emilio immediately with my breastmilk.
6. Flaxseed Oil is supposed to be very good too. Unfortunately, Healthy Options ran out of the one for infants. So here I am taking flaxseed oil because Emilio will be able to benefit through my breastmilk.
I'm so happy because my baby's skin isn't itchy anymore. I really hope we can prevent flare-ups in the future. When he's much older, I will definitely detox him to rid him of the toxins accumulated when I was pregnant with him. My research suggests babies born of high-risk pregnancies such as mine often have higher incidence of atopic dermatitis. Perhaps its the barrage of medicines we took to carry them to term.
I hope this helps your baby too!
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