Eczema Cream

The other day, one of my favourite customers said to me that she has every eczema lotion known to man, and I said, hold on.

I’ve personally had very minor eczema as an adult, but with this baby I’ve discovered that eczema people have tremendous empathy for each other, and we are like a very exclusive club/self-help group, constantly recommending different strategies to each other. Call me anytime you feel like walking into a bar; also try tide free and an extra rinsing cycle.

The baby has eczema. It’s terrible (not that terrible in the grand scheme of things that are terrible for babies, and not even that terrible in the grand scheme of truly debilitating eczema). Every once in a while I notice a particular silence and I look over and she’s just scratching herself, her arms wrapped around her, one hand scratching the opposite arm, or those little fingers working away on her ankles. The sight of it gives me the same visceral feeling of nails on a chalkboard.

Her pediatrician prescribed some steroid cream, which we used regularly but her eczema has been so persistent that we found we were using the steroid ointment continually. So we’ve been trying all sorts of vague remedies, changing the laundry detergents, humidifier, oatmeal baths, in addition to the constant experimentation around food sensitivities and allergen food exposure therapies, teething, minor colds. While the scratching exacerbates things to a not insubstantial degree, I’m mostly opposed to socks and footed onesies and mitts because she’s well into the age of cruising and crawling and pulling and socks are slippery things and hands are necessary things for exploration and so we are left with a small apothecary of creams and ointments.

The million dollar question is which one works the best, but the only available answer is clearly none of them, since we have so many. We use the Aquaphor a lot, sometimes the Aquaphor mixed with something like an oil or a diaper rash cream with the zinc oxide. This season of life! Grateful for it all.