Trip to the Pedi

I took Annelise to the Pedi yesterday for her lack of weight gain and refusal to eat. I took her to the family doc on Friday and both her ears were infected. I figured this was the cause of the eating problems and hoped that the antibiotics would solve the problem. She had also started to develop a rash in her diaper area, but I forgot to ask him about it. The plan was to start the antibiotics right away and follow up with the Pedi this week (he was out of town last week). By Sunday, her eating had not improved. I started to suspect she was having a yeast infection as well because of the rash (which was getting worse) and the fact that I've been battling it for weeks. So we went to the pedi yesterday and he said her right ear is still really infected. Since the amoxicillin should have helped after 3.5 days, he prescribed a different, stronger antibiotic. He also said her rash doesn't look at all like a yeast rash. He said he thinks it is eczema. I suspected she has eczema because her skin is really dry from head to toe. Last time she was in, he suggested we use Aquafor for her skin. It helped some, but not a lot. Now he suggests we try Aveeno. We started using it yesterday and I think it is helping her legs and arms. However, her diaper area looks really sore. I started wondering this morning if she could be reacting to her diapers. We've used the same diapers (Pampers Swaddlers) since she was born and the same wipes (homemade) for the past two months that we've been home from the NICU. Could she suddenly start reacting to the diapers? Any thoughts?

 

Has her diaper area always looked a little sore or just from the antibiotics? If she has had constant issues I would try a change of diaper or wipes and see if that helps. I am sorry to hear she has an ear infection. I am guessing since the Amoxi wasnt working she might now be on Augmentin?? Be careful because that can give them diarrhea at the start since it is a bit stronger. We are on day 7 of it and the soft stools seem to have subsided. :hug99:

 

My boys just went through this and they did a round of augmenten which is a stronger version of amoxicillon. As soon as they started the antibiotic they both got diaper rashes. The best thing I have found to use on the diaper rash is Triple Paste (it works wonders) just slather it on really thick. As far as the dry skin, both of my boys have eczema and the Aveeno with the dark blue cap that says for dry skin and eczema works the best on their legs and arms but Jack has it bad on his face. On the really tough spots I use 1% hydrocortizone once a day and aquaphore up to 5 times a day to keep it under control. I hope your little ones feel better soon. I'm sure the new antibiotic will help and the eating issue will improve, my boys are back to shoveling food in after 2 weeks of not wanting anything and each losing a lb.

 

The rash started before the antibiotics. I asked for something other than Augmentin because I get horrible diarrhea from it. She's on Cefuroxime. I'm not sure if that is a brand name or generic.

 

I've never heard of that antibiotic but as for the diaper rash my boys have had bad one's twice. Once from the antibiotic and once when they were teething really badly. Try the Triple Paste (I have tried everything A&D, Balmex, Desitin) it seems to work the best. It is kind of expensive but does the trick.

 

What ingredients are you using in the wipes?

 

2 1/4 c. water, 2 T. baby wash (Johnson's), 2 T. baby oil, Bounty paper towels

 

QUOTE(Beth*J @ Apr 30 2008, 04:52 PM) [snapback]748130[/snapback]
2 1/4 c. water, 2 T. baby wash (Johnson's), 2 T. baby oil, Bounty paper towels


Have you tried using the Pampers Sensitive Skin wipes? Maybe the baby oil or the paper towels are irritating the area?

 

Try a different soap she may be having a reaction to it. A lot of brand name soaps like Huggies, Johnsons, aveeno and some others I can not think of have a lot of chemicals in them that can cause allergic reactions. My boys and I are all sensitive to all kinds of soaps. We get eczema and rashes. But since we use a different soap the boys do not get eczema anymore We had to change our wipes to a different brand cause we all were reacting to it also.

 

I love the Aveeno diaper rash cream. My boys were at the pedi yesterday for eczema and were given a hydrocortizone cream. We had tried the Aveeno cream pp mentioned, but it wasn't helping. DS also had it on his face and we loved the J&J balm (in a stick) for that.

 

One of my girls has pretty sensitive skin and I use all Aveeno products and they work great. I also use boudreaux's butt paste the couple times they've gotten rashes. I grease up their butts really good at night with vasoline too after their bath when I put their bedtime diapers on.

Good luck!! Hope the ears and rash clear up soon!!!

 

I also would recommend Triple Paste - it's good stuff. I also think that the diaper irritation is probably flared up worse due to the antibiotic output. Just slather her bottom, and give as much air time as possible!

 

I am also a fan of Triple Paste -- my Karina has mild eczema, and she can get some horrible diaper rashes because her skin is sensitive in general.

Annelise could be reacting to the Johnson's baby wash in your homemade wipes. I can't use any Johnson's products at all....if you like making your own wipes, try switching to plain Cetaphil wash instead of the Johnson's. It's very mild, and great for sensitive skin.

And, instead of regular baby oil, you could try using Mustela Stelatopia milk bath oil. They sell it at Babies R Us. It's crazy expensive, but it's really great stuff....

Good luck -- hope you get it figured out soon!

 

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/index.php?nothanks=1
This is a great sight to look up ingredients and products to see if they may cause some allergic reactions.
A homemade diaper rash ointment I have used on Tommy our 2 yr old when he was really sick and had the runs and a bad rash was oatmeal and cornstarch mixed with water to make it a paste.

 

Thanks for all the great replies. I'm going to stop using any soap in her baths for a while and use some sensitive skin stuff for her hair only. I'm also going to try the cetaphil in the wipes solution. She doesn't get wiped very often because she only has a dirty diaper every 5-6 days, but recently she's had runny poo because of the antibiotics, so I think that is aggravating things. I may also try the triple paste stuff. I'll let you know if we see some improvement.

Becca~ I saw in another post that you said your Karina had spots that look a little like ringworm. That turned out to be eczema? That's what Annelise's rash looks like to me right under the waistband of her diaper and a little on her bottom too. The doctor said he thinks it is eczema, but then I read on the Internet that babies don't get eczema in their diaper area. I don't know what to think. Lots of times the Internet just confuses me.

 

Beth -- yes, her spots looked like this:

Eczema

I posted this pic on here before I took her to the ped, and the responses were about half n' half between eczema and ringworm....the ped then said that sometimes it's impossible to tell, because they can look exactly the same.

I did use a little hydrocortisone on them, but I also slathered on the Cetaphil cream (the kind in the tub, which is heavier than the pump lotion) with every diaper change, and used some Aquaphor, too. They took a month to go away, but they eventually did and haven't come back. Karina does have some mild "regular" eczema in the creases of her elbows, behind her knees, and in the folds of her ankles....I think there are officially different kinds, but I'm not that familiar with them.

I noticed that warm water in the bath aggravated her spots, so now we bathe her in only lukewarm water, with no soaps. I think the ingredient "sodium laureth sulfate" is the one to watch out for in baby washes -- it can be very irritating.

I've also read the same thing about not having eczema in the diaper area.....maybe that means you can't actually have it on your genitals? I'm guessing the lower back or under the waistband aren't included in that? I really don't know.

Hope your munchkin is better soon!

 

sodium laureth sulfate = EVIL
sodium lauryl sulfate = EVIL
:diablo:
Hate it soooooooooooo bad


A great soap is Clearly Natural Glycerin Soap you can buy it online and I see your in MN too you can get it at CUB.
I buy it in bulk it has 3 ingredients in the unscented base
Ingredients: Palm glycerine, Saponified palm oils (palm stearic acid and vegetable oleic acid and sodium hydroxide), purified deionized water.
I make shampoo, liquid hand soap and body wash with it. LOVE IT :Clap: and it makes a lot of soap.
http://www.clearlynaturalsoaps.com/cgi-bin...cgi?category=CN

 

Thanks for all the replies. I think there should be a sticky about eczema like they are making about reflux.

Becca~ Annelise's sores/rash look just like the picture you took of Karina. She's such a mess...the poor thing.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a63/BethJahn/DSC02463-1.jpg

 

One more question. I decided to alter the wipes recipe to see if that would help things. I'll use regular mineral oil since that's what baby oil is except baby oil has fragrance. I thought I'd substitute a gentle cleanser for the Johnson's Baby Wash. I looked at the Cetaphil Cleanser, but the ingredients say it has the Sodium Lauryl Sulfate that I was warned to avoid. So is it only the Cetaphil lotions that are safe for really sensitive skin/eczema?

 

Okay, so I clearly contradicted myself without realizing it. Oy. Someone recommended the Cetaphil cleanser to me early on, so I started using that instead of Johnson's, and Karina's eczema did improve.

I then started looking for a different product, because the Cetaphil wasn't getting her hair clean....someone recommended California Baby, and I tried that, noticing that it said on the label "no sodium laureth sulfate"...

Anyhow. I never realized that Cetaphil cleanser contained that ingredient -- sorry! I stopped using it when I started using the California Baby wash -- this one:

http://www.californiababy.com/super-sensit...ash-8-5-oz.html

So, I'm not sure what to tell you in terms of what you should use. Are you making your own wipes to save money, or for environmental or other reasons? All these fancy washes are so expensive that I'm not sure it would be cheaper to use them in homemade wipes....if you decide to buy wipes, I've used Pampers Sensitive without any problems.

Sorry about the confusion!

 

California Baby products are excellent. They are all natural. I am using the Super Sensitive Shampoo and Bodywash. It has no fragrance, so sodium lauryl sulfate, no parabens, etc. It also supposedly helps w/ eczema. I also have their calendula cream which is also for eczema and I have just started using it for Sofia's eczema - we'll see if it works!

 

hi there, i have something u can try for ur lil one diaper rash because my daughter had it really bad she wouldnt let you touch it or anything she would cry every time we changed her and that was very often cause i wanted to get rid of it so i called the nurse line and the nurse told me about something she uses so i gave it a try and let me just tell you how much it went away so fast i was quite surprise the name of it is... lotrimin af..i was alil confused about it at first cause its for jock strap for althetles..i would give it a try i used it and within a day or so it started to go away and 3days later it was gone so i keep some on hand just in case that happens again...i hope it works for you like it did for me

 

QUOTE(DATJMom @ Apr 30 2008, 01:09 PM) [snapback]748171[/snapback]
Have you tried using the Pampers Sensitive Skin wipes? Maybe the baby oil or the paper towels are irritating the area?



I was going to say the same thing. For every one of my kids, Pampers sensitive were the ONLY thing that didn't give them horrible rashes. I actually talked the Neo in the NICU where I used to work into switching over to them for the unit instead of the ones they had been using.

 

Burts bees is a good one too they have a whole line of baby products, I can not remember who posted the link for an awesome shopping site(BTW thank you whoever posted that link before) you can get that and other natural products there cheaper then the store www.vitacost.com if anyone shops there here is a code for an extra 8% off too aetna8 they got a wide variety of natural products and there is a lot of oils for babies and just oils, I would not use anything with mineral oil in it "Mineral oil or liquid petrolatum is a by-product in the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline"
That picture of her rash is really bad eczema I would not bath her with any harsh soaps and I would use a wet wash cloth with just water for awhile for wet diaper changes and try hydrocortisone cream.(look at inactive ingredients some creams have SLS in them) If after you change soaps and wipes and it still does not go away she might be sensitive to Chlorine that is used in almost all diapers.
If you decide to ever buy wipes I have found Seventh Generation and Nature Babycare do not burn eczema ouchies I got bad eczema on my hand from baby wipes so I have tried to find that wipe that doesn't cause flare ups. I just bought Tushie wipes from Amazon good ingredients also so hopefully they work good.
Seriously try Clearly Natural Glycerin soap it really has helped my skin and my boys skin and it is pretty cheap and not harsh at all.
I hope this helps some. I have suffered from bad eczema for awhile now and my 2 year old had it pretty bad before we switched soaps and my twins had it but then we switched soaps for them to at the same time and it really helped. Good luck

 

Well the poor kid is still not eating well AND has diarrhea from the antibiotics. The Pedi called me last night and we decided to try a third antibiotic. He also gave the go ahead to use some probiotics for her. I can't get those until Mon. though because the place I can get them is closed until then. The good news is that her diaper area seems to be getting better. I've been using that Triple Paste on her and it is definitely helping. I also ordered some California Baby stuff. I've also read that probiotics can also help eczema, so maybe that will help her too. Thanks again for all your help and advice.

A thread has been started in the Health Issues and Special Needs forum about eczema. If you haven't already posted there, please do. The thread can be found here.

Also, I've started a thread/poll about eczema and food allergies. If you are interested in participating in the poll or seeing the results, that thread can be found here.