She has Eczema

See that? That's Mia a couple of days ago. I've tried the Pawpaw ointment on her. It worked for a while. Then a few weeks later, the rash came back with a vengeance. I tried Sudocrem which I bought from Mothercare. It didn't make it worse. But it didn't make it better either.

We could only get an appointment with the pediatrician for 13th April -my birthday. So yesterday, we went to her pediatrician at The Kids Clinic. Dr Terry Huang checked her and diagnosed her condition: mild case of eczema and she's got fungus there. Euwwwwww!

Everything got checked for signs of eczema on other parts of her body. Luckily, its only on her cheeks. The rash that we've noticed at the back of her head is not a rash. It's birthmark. And there I was putting rash cream on it every day!

The Dr gave us 2 types of medication.

• I: Candacort. We need to apply this on her cheeks twice a day, morning at night. Then we can apply the Sudocrem on top as a moisturiser. This has to be done for 3 - 5 days (no more than 2 weeks) until the red rashes disappear.
  
• II: Candazole. Once we stop the Candacort, then we use Candazole for another 2 weeks, and Sudocrem on top.

We started applying the Candcort with Sudocrem last night.
The rashes seem to have "calmed down" this morning. I wanted to take a picture from the side but Mia keeps on turning wanting to look at the camera. Ishk, ishk, ishk! This girl thinks she's a diva. You can only take her picture from the front... no side views!

After so many failed attempts of trying to take pictures of her cheeks, I finally had 1 successful shot. I had to put her on the floor and distract her with her new toy (thanks Auntie Elva!). See, no more red rashes. The cheeks are still a bit rough because of dehydration and scarring so we'll still continue with the Candacort until her chubby cheeks become soft once more.

Note: Dr explained to us that:

• Sudocrem is a moisturiser. It is not recommended to be used on all babies because it contains fragrance. But since Mia's rash did not become worse from using it, we can continue to use it as a moituriser
• Pawpaw ointment is for cuts and wounds. Mia does not have cuts and wounds on her cheeks so we don't need to use it.

More on eczema. These are just some of the aggravating factors to eczema:

1. Use of soaps, detergents and solvents. Be careful of using cleansers that foam and lather as these lead to drying of skins. (We don't use any on Mia. I wash her face with plain water. I do bathe her with baby bathing lotion ie Johnson & Johnson. Maybe I'll stop using them for a while even though the bath lotion does not foam and lather)
2. Long periods in water especially in baths and chlorinated swimming pools (Mia's bathtime is usually around 5 minutes. Swimming pool time has been 20 minutes. Now I'm reducing it to 10 minutes followed by cleaning her with clean water all over)
3. Antiseptics and perfumed products such as bubble bath
4. Wool and nylon
   
5. Fragrances in cleansers, moisturisers or perfume sprays
6. Substances causing allergic dermatitis (eg plants, rubber and nickel). (No more rubber mats for her)
   
7. Allergens eg certain food and house dust mites
8. Stress