GRRR (long)

Some of you have heard me ramble on and on about this, some have not.

Around mid-February, Thomas developed a pretty mean case of eczema around his face, on his forehead, and around to his cheeks. It then spread to include the tips of his shoulders, and the occasional spot on his torso. However, it came and went. We have been back and forth, here and there, trying to figure out what's causing it.

When we went for his four month checkup, the doctor saw a correlation between when the eczema appeared and when he started rice cereal. So we took him off rice cereal, started an antibiotic ointment, and waited to see if that would help. The same time, however, we took him off his thrush medicine because his thrush cleared up.

The eczema cleared up.

Fast forward about a week and a half, and last Friday, daycare said they thought his thrush was back. We still had the medicine in the fridge, so we decided to give him the medicine again to clear it back up. We started giving him the medicine on Saturday. Sunday morning: eczema returned.

We stopped giving him the medicine, thinking it must have been that.

Eczema cleared.

Good, I think, it's not the food. Doctor agrees. Must be a sensitivity to the Nystatin. Continue foods, she says, stop thrush medicine. Put him on probiotic drops and that should clear it all up.

We eat peas. We love peas.

Two days later, we eat carrots.

Yesterday afternoon, this was my little boy, back at the doctor:


By the end of the appointment, we had two doctors and a resident in the room checking him out. The picture doesn't do it justice because you also can't see his entire face, or his body, which was all extremely spotty. Daycare called freaking out because his eczema was 'weeping,' which prompted doctor's visit #2 for the week.

We all sat in that room wracking our brains trying to figure out what is causing it. They couldn't come to a great determination and finally decided we should try switching it to....alimentum formula, thinking possibly he's developed a milk protien allergy.

Have you ever priced Alimentum? Well we have, and it's $26 for a 16oz. can.

And besides that, we JUST. DON'T. THINK. IT'S. THE FORMULA.

We came home ready to fill out our applications for food stamps and welfare checks to cover the cost of this stuff, and in the meantime had samples, luckily. But good luck, that kid wouldn't TOUCH it. we got an ounce down him while he screamed bloody murder the entire time.

We kept trying to think, WHAT WHAT WHAT did we change environmentally since mid-February???

Then, a little light went on in my husband's head.

The dish soap.

The dish soap.

We were using Simple Hypoallergenic non-toxic dish soap to wash his bottles and nipples.

In mid-February I went to Sam's and just grabbed a big thing of Palmolive.

If you have ever googled Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and eczema, you should. I didn't realize how this stuff is in EVERYTHING. We've always used free & clear laundry detergent, because BT's skin is so sensitive to regular detergent, that if he uses it, he breaks out in a rash. There are multipple variations of the detergent compound: sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laurate sulfate, etc.

How did I not connect the dots?

I don't know this is what it is, but we're about to find out. Getting all new bottles and non-toxic soap. I'll tell you one thing, though: it's a much cheaper solution that that Alimentum formula, so i HOPE HOPE HOPE that's what it is.

T has an appointment with an allergist next Wednesday just in case, but my hope is we'll discover he has baby-soft sensitive skin like his daddy.

All that said, look at the ingredients in your household products at how much stuff has detergent in it. I found out this morning that even my shampoo has detergent, and so does our hand soap! thanks also to www.solveeczema.org for even more information on the topic.

Hopefully we will be able to solve this with our bank accounts still intact!