Eczema

The boys have had a mild rash for the past few months, and of course as a paranoid first time Mom I took them to the doctor when it first began only to pretty much be dismissed and told not to worry about it. Well, the rash was still pretty visible at their 6 month check up a few weeks ago, so once again I brought it up as a concern. This time I was told that they had a mild form of eczema and once again to not worry too much about it since it is pretty common. If you don't know what eczema is, it is basically very dry skin that is itchy, and once the skin becomes irritated a rash appears. Okay, so a lot worse things could obviously be going on but it still always kinda bothered me.

Well, yesterday morning when I was getting Coleman up from his crib I noticed that his poor little neck looked pretty raw and that the rash was really flared up. It had really begun Sunday late afternoon but it was definitely much worse Monday morning. So of course we were off to the doctor to see what we could do about it and what was causing it since Carter's rash (eczema) seems to barely be visible lately.

The doctor told us what I had read about in so many articles online and in my books, that it is still uncertain what causes eczema and could be a number of things that cause a flare up of the rash. One of which is a milk or food allergy, harsh chemicals in detergents, change in cooler temperatures (ie~ dry air), etc.

So in addition to some creams, detergent, zyrtec, and a cool humidifier we have changed his formula over to soy formula to see if that helps also. Once his rash clears up we can begin eliminating these things and see what the main cause is, or if we need to go to an allergist for further examination. The good thing about all of this though is that Coleman seems completely unphased by it all...still the same smiley cutie pie with lots of laughs and energy as he always is just with a few bumps. And I have also found out that a LOT of my friends with babies or young children have experienced the same thing and their kiddos grew out of it or they were able to find the underlying cause pretty easily...fingers crossed it's just as easy for us! In the meantime, I'll make sure to give him a few extra kisses and snuggles (Mommy's medicine) :o)