Rashes on children are all too common. Here’s the case of a two-year-old little girl who has had eczema since birth, with constant flare ups and allergic reactions.
Her family took her to an allergist, a dermatologist and even a GI doctor for an endoscopy to make sure she didn’t have eosinophilic esophagitis (which is like an allergy in your esophagus).
That’s a lot for such a young child.
Steroids Commonly Used for Rashes on Children
Before coming to our practice, the specialists who saw her recommended topical steroids: clobetasol (generic), triamcinolone (generic), desonide (generic) plus an immune modulator Protopic (tacrolimus topical, which is used to treat the more severe forms of eczema).
Mom would use these topical steroids on her for a period of time, her skin would improve, and as soon as she stopped the steroids, her skin would flare up again.
Our young patient had also been requiring two different antihistamines to control her skin itching. One was used daily—Xyzal (levocetirizine)—then a stronger one for bedtime, Atarax (hydroxyzine).
Once we began the integrative approach with her, we were quickly able to significantly decrease the Atarax which she had been taking since seven months of age.
Healing Eczema with Diet
As an integrative pediatrician, my job is to look at all the information and testing that has already been done by the pediatrician or specialists. I put it all together to make sense of it in the big picture. For eczema, we specifically look at allergies (both food and environmental), nutrition, gut health, supplements and the barrier of the skin. This information helps us figure out what the best approach is for that particular child.
One of the underlying triggers for eczema can be food related. Dairy and eggs are two of the biggest culprits, (our young patient was allergic to both of these) but there are several other foods that can play a role as well.
She was already off dairy with her known allergy, and she ended up drinking a great deal of soy milk daily. Since many people with a dairy sensitivity also have issues with soy, we began to wean her off of the soy milk.
She is a picky eater and these nutritional changes are going at an appropriately slow pace. It sometimes takes several months to figure out the right foods and the right topical lotions to significantly improve or resolve eczema altogether.
Healing Eczema with Dr. Aron’s Cream
We can use topical lotions to treat a second root cause of eczema flare up— the bacteria on the skin.
It can take 90 days for the full thickness of the skin to heal. It’s not always a straight path to cure eczema, and this young girl’s case is a good example. She got better very quickly, her skin healed by 70-80% within a week, then she had some flare-ups in her eyes. We had to continue looking at food and supplements for her, then watch and adjust.
Our goal is to heal the full thickness of the skin while making nutritional changes and making sure we don’t taper off the topical treatment too quickly, or the bacteria can cause a flare-up.
The effective topical protocol we used was formulated by Dr. Richard Aron, a consulting dermatologist. He’s created a formulation that we use over a period of time to alleviate even the most severe cases of eczema. It includes a topical antibiotic along with a steroid mixed in with a thick lotion.
The difference in this treatment compared to typical steroid prescriptions is that the steroid and antibiotic in Dr. Aron’s ointment is diluted several fold with lotion. The three of these creams in combination help heal the full thickness of the skin.
Dr. Aron has been gracious enough to share this fantastic topical recipe with me and it has been incredible at improving children’s eczema. It is very effective at decreasing the bacteria on the skin that perpetuates the eczema flares. Used in combination with nutritional changes and supplements, we have seen dramatic improvements as shared by our patient’s mother in the video.
If your child suffers from rashes or eczema flare-ups, do not assume they are just a normal part of growing up. Consider taking my online course or scheduling a FREE 15-minute informational call with one of our patient care specialists to learn how to become a member of our practice.