Managing Eczema

DISCLAIMER:

Our guidelines are by no means extensive and cannot be substituted for a professional, medical opinion. Should you not see any improvement in the affected skin’s condition after 2 weeks of diligently following our programme (after the allergy test has been done), we strongly suggest that you visit a doctor and/or dermatologist, for assistance.

Background & Info

There is a lot of information available on eczema, and at the bottom of this article, there are links to some articles. Please read them and feel free to research eczema for yourself, too. The guidelines for the treatment of eczema in this article, is combined from a lot of sources, after a lot of research and after quite extensive experimenting with various products and product combinations.

There is a number of different types of eczema. Identifying which one you or your loved one suffers from, can be difficult, time-consuming and costly at times. If the eczema is severe, painful, affecting your ability to do daily tasks, or leaves the skin broken and not healing, I suggest a visit to a professional (doctor, dermatologist) immediately. By following our elimination process, you can determine broadly if the eczema you or your loved one suffers from, are caused or aggravated by certain irritants.

There is no cure for eczema

When contracted as a child, it can be outgrown, but sometimes it stays. You can even develop eczema as an adult.

Even though there is no cure, eczema can be managed.

However, there is no such thing as instant and/or lasting relief. The skin has been damaged and is constantly damaged when it itches and is scratched. It can be aggravated by playing outside, dirt, water, soaps, sun, etc. So to expect any cream or treatment to help overnight is farfetched, and to expect it to work all the time, is too. As the skin changes with age, with hormonal interference, other health conditions, it’s reaction towards medications and creams will change as well. Which means that a cream that has worked for a couple of years, suddenly stops working. There will be times when it looks better and the itching stops and you almost think you beat it, and then it will flare up again. That’s eczema. 

Allergies

The first step is to determine if any allergies are involved.
Have you tested for allergies?
If you haven’t, first test before changing anything else, like the creams, and such.

Here’s how:
Do a test with the major ones: milk, peanuts, sugar.

Start with dairy. Cut out all dairy products for at least 7 days. This includes all cheese, yoghurt, milk, cream, chocolates, ice cream, etc.
EVERYTHING else has to stay the same. DO NOT change creams, medicines or any such things during this testing phase, as it may skew the results.
Watch if it makes a difference: does the skin look better? Does it itch less or more?
Reintroduce dairy in the same quantities and ways as normally consumed before and see what happens. If there is no change, you know it is not dairy.

If it worsens, you know that dairy has a definite influence on the skin’s condition.

This does not conclude that you or your loved one is allergic to dairy, only that it seems to aggravate the eczema. Limiting of dairy products will then be beneficial.
Should the test show that dairy has an effect, you might want to ask your doctor for a more formal test if you want to.

Once this test is done, go back to your normal eating habits. If the dairy proved to be a factor, eliminate it completely. If not, add it back as normal. Wait 7 days. Now repeat the test with nuts, and then with sugar.

Managing Eczema

Managing it requires a comprehensive approach. But it need not be super expensive.

The guidelines in this article will help you in managing. And it does require some effort on your side, but if you do it, chances are you will see an improvement within 2 – 4 weeks.

Once you have done the allergy tests, you can now start with the managing of the eczema. Fighting eczema has to follow a three-pronged approach to truly be effective: 1 – the detergent used to wash the clothes, 2 – the soap used to wash the skin and 3 – the moisturiser used to moisturise the skin.
In managing eczema, these are non-negotiable:
– stop use of any soaps, bubble bath, bath oil, shampoo, etc.
– stop use of any creams (especially those with glycerin), acqueous creams, etc.
– stop using sta-soft or any other fabric softener
– stop using any commercial washing powder on the affected person’s clothes, towels, blankets, etc.

Instead, use an all-natural soap, like Sunlight soap, or our Shower Gel, our Eczema Skin Restoring Cream and an all-natural washing powder. (If you don’t where to find this, please talk to us. We can help.)
If you do all this, you should see some improvement within a couple of days, but it might take up to 2 weeks to see a significant difference.

General comments

At first, I washed my son’s clothes separately, but soon I just started to wash all our clothes with the natural washing powder. Our clothes are clean, very fresh smelling and soft. Without any softener or fragrance added. You can use Sunlight bar soap to soak and scrub the really dirty clothes before putting it in the wash, as sunlight is also a natural soap. It does dry the skin though, so I don’t use it to bath my son with. 

So, what do you do?

You bath with the soap, dry well and apply the cream all over the body. Every day. And you wash the clothes, towels, blankets, etc. with the natural washing powder.

If there are allergies, you can cut back on the exposure to it, and perhaps give a teaspoon of an allergy syryp, like Allergex, or a more natural one, like Telfast, in the evenings. (Please do not give any medication that you are not comfortable with. The best will be to clear it with your physician first.)

Do not use any other stuff in the bath (it’s sad, but unfortunately those bubbles and stuff are like petrol on a fire to eczema), do not apply any other creams, do not use any softener or other washing powder.

There is nothing in the products that can harm the skin, unless you or your loved one is allergic to any of it. So, if it doesn’t work, there is no harm done.
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