Any ideas to keep ds from scratching himself awake each night?

[ajsmom]

No matter what we do for ds' eczema, he wakes up scratching at least once each night. Since he is almost 5, I can't put mitts on his hands. He scratches until he bleeds sometimes and then asks for calendula ointment. I put it on and he scratches some more and eventually falls back t sleep.

This began with full on eczema when he weaned in January. I am losing an hour or so of sleep each night because he moves around a lot trying to get comfortable again. I was ready to start having him sleep by himself but if he wakes up each night needing ointment, dh will not get the sleep he needs for his 12 hour work and commute.

It's worse now than when he night nursed as a baby because we now are fully awake to apply things. We are working on giving him the foods and topical support he needs but the night thing is so tough. I stay up for an hour or so after he goes to sleep so sometimes I only get an hour or so of sleep before he's up scratching. I let him sleep in to compensate but then our day starts late and I am short of z-z-z-z-s and tired.

The dermatologist said she'd be happy to prescribe a sedative. I don't think so...

Your thoughts? Potions?

[AdoptChina]

can you figure out whats triggering it? food/pets/laundry detergent/soap or lotion/pollen etc? If you can eliminate the trigger, it should help some. On nights when DS is REALLY bad, Ive given him prescription meds...but I try not to use it unless I feel its necessary

What works best for DS (who is very pollen allergic) is to bath/shower every night in the spring (in cool/warm water) then moisturize while he is still wet....this seals in the moisture and helps to keep some of the itchies away

[guerrillamama]

:

[JaneS]

Where is it?
A wet wrap might help if it's a small area ... putting a lot of lotion or cream on followed by something to seal, like plastic wrap or bandage of some sort. We did this with just gauze bandanges (one wet with water, one dry on top) for a while for DS's feet, probably better that it breathes. The plastic wrap is a mainstream dr suggestion.

I find it interesting that the eczema arrived when he weaned. But you say "full on", did he have indications of eczema, or a mild form before that? What is he eating or drinking more of since them?

[ajsmom]

It started when he was about 15 months when he began to play outside in the yard. He had cradle cap when he was new but it went away.

It was only around his wrists, sometimes the elbow pit until he was 3 and then it also was behind his knees. Last summer he and dh had poison oak and so he was itchy in the above places and his neck and torso. It finally backed off to his wrists.

Then we went to Michigan for 3 weeks in January, when he weaned and where we were inside in dry air dogsitting and he bloomed. Since then it has never gone away, it just blooms then slowly reduces to his wrists. He picks at it so it bleeds and hangs around. We have a cat but he never sneezes or gets wheezy. We live by the coast so it's damp and we run a dehumidifier. Eggs used to make him barf so he doesn't eat them unless baked into muffins, etc. He has cow milk on his cereal, maybe a 1/2 cup and likes Squeezers by Stoneyfield Farms. He only has cheese on pizza - rarely.

He is very strong willed and just getting him moisturized is a chore. Since he likes to pick, he gets mad when he knows this stuff is going to take away his passtime, ugh!

We use a mild laundry soap but it does have some lavendar in it. Lukewarm baths every couple of days, no soap but a small amount of shampoo - lavendar, which has never bothered him.

I have never been able to see food reactions except for the egg. He has my sil's skin, dh and I do not have this. She and ds seem to react to their own sweat and scratch when sweaty.

This is why he wakes up sometimes at night, from sweating. The homeopath gave him sulphur to help but it's the picking that keeps it from going away completely. My sil said she just stopped picking and scratching even though she was REALLY itchy.

[JaneS]

A homeopathic remedy might help with some of the behavioral issues. It sounds like it's a vicious cycle.

If he is allergic to dairy or something else, even small amounts could definately be causing this.

Have you tried any supplements like evening primrose, cod liver oil and probiotics? His immune system is not getting whatever building blocks it needs to do its job and its appearing as eczema.

Sensitive skin runs in my DH's family too. From my reading, it has an underlying issue, like an inherited inability to correctly process fatty acids or similar. Even though eczema does seem to have a genetic component, I truly believe it is a nutritional need or deficiency of some kind that a family has a tendancy to, that can be corrected.

(or perhaps it is our modern diet or the fact that we have gotten away from the traditional diets our ancestors ate that may actually have evolved to address these ethnic deficiencies... but I'm rambling here)

It's not like, "Oh well our family has big noses so that's the way we are born". You know what I'm trying to say?

[ajsmom]

I like homeopathic remedies but wouldn't know what to give in the middle of the night

Dh and I were discussing the Mothering article about this tonight. We are just beginning to add the good stuff some of which you mentioned into his diet. I am going to focus for now on getting the right stuff in him and on him.

Eliminating dairy is a challenge because ds and I are going to Michigan on Thursday for 2 weeks to attend my nephew's graduation, go through my mom's stuff - she died suddenly in February, 2 weeks after we returned from our dogsitting trip - visit my brother's family and then have my mom's memorial service. We are staying with my dad who is grieving but handling it ok. So I will eliminate dairy when we get back home.

Perhaps as he begins to heal he won't need to wake up and scratch so often because it won't itch. That would be nice.
Thanks!

[pageta]

DS has bad eczema on his knees. If I put him in a pair of fleece pants or knit cotton pants, he doesn't wake up to scratch. But if he wears shorts to bed or even soft wool pants (we use wool over cloth diapers because it eliminates diaper rash), he wakes up more than once because he's scratching. So that's what's worked for us. I put Eucerin on his legs before he goes to bed and many times during the day which keeps it soft but he still often scratches enough that it bleeds.

[sarahariz]

I don't know if this would work w/ a 5 yr old, but I bought slighhtly larger cotton pj's for my dd and sewed up the sleeves-that way, when she itched, at least her fingernails wouldn't tear open her skin. The only way we got rid of the ezcema was by using a strict elimination diet and adding in the oil, probiotics, etc. We also used the 1% hydrocortisone cream on the really bad areas after her bath at night. That does relieve the itching. That combination slowly got rid of the ezcema. I hated to use the hydrocortisone, but I had to do something to break the itch/scratch cycle. Also, we used homeopathic teething tablets if she woke up at night distressed by itching.

We also did 4 NMT sessions with an NMT practitioner who is also trained in Chinese Medicine. She suggested we stop the hydrocortisone and use Chinese Pearl Powder cream instead-which worked as well as the hydrocortisone. If she starts to break out now, I will use that and it works very well.

Good luck!

[MamaMonica]

Does he have contact with dos, cats or birds? The reason I ask is because my ds has the same eczema pattern- behind the knees, ankle creases and wrists. We had pets and it took a long time to figure out that was his trigger since we always had pets, all our friends have pets- so he had contact with pet hair every day. We went on vacation and his eczema cleared up- we realized it was the pets then.

He still scatches himself bloody if he has contact with even incidental cat hair on a friends clothes.

[ajsmom]

And the air on the airplanes!

I thought about pets but we went to Maui for 9 days and he had it very badly there with no animals. It almost cleared up and then we flew to Michigan and yikes, again he bloomed. So I know the dry air on planes makes it worse.

Dairy is the next step in elimination because our first few days in Michigan were almost dairy free (Stonyfield Farms Yogurt Squeezers were the only dair he had) and he began to heal. Then he had ice cream and cheese and I think he was a bit worse so we'll check this now that we are home. The plane ride home was a cycle of florasone/non-petroleum jelly applications then itchy attacks and re-applications. The dry air just sucked the moisture right out. And the plane was hot so he sweated and his rash stung! Poor guy.

I just started using shea butter because it's less goopy than unpetroleum jelly. I like it a lot! Also we are using a product called Cal-Mag Zinc liquid mixed with black currant oil and Rice Dream. The difference I see is my son's ability to recover faster from the trigger.

We are home for the foreseable future and I hope to test the dairy and get better probiotics into him.

Thanks everyone for your ideas!