Nystatin for eczema? huh?

[AnnaRed]

Ok, my 7 mo ds broke out in his first case of full blown eczema before the holidays. His eyes have always sort of had a little too much purple under them and been red too, and he still spits up a lot.
We breastfeed and he'd been eating solids too: rice cereal, carrots, strained peas, strained mixed veggies, sweet potato, banana, and apple. all organic. But due to the holidays i'd been eating loads of crap-candy, chocolate, and just too much of everything in general.

His pediatrician said its definitely exzema and gave us 2.5% hydrocortisone cream which i avoided because i don't want to use steroids. We used Florasone cream, and mild cetaphil for bathtime. All of this seemed to help a bit but the itching was so intense that i also used the hydrocortisone cream over the pat few days. It helped a TON. But i dont' want to depend on it and would rather get to the root cause of the problem.

I immediately researched my brains out and went on a no dairy no wheat no soy diet....(have been living on rice products and chicken) and put him back on just rice cereal (and breastmilk of course.) I added flax oil to both our diets and have been taking acidophilus as well.

SO, today ds gets allergy testing results from a naturopath- he is allergic to chocolate, cow's milk, soy, wheat, goats milk even. But, the naturopath says he thinks its yeast. He wants me to put him on oral nystatin....I am confused about Nystatin-is it a drug? A natural compound? He wavered when i asked and gave me a non-answer. If its good, then why do so many women try to avoid it for thrush and use gentian violet instead? If it were yeast wouldn't the rash be bright red and also occur in the diaper area?

I have been reading and understand that it could be both, and leaky gut-type stuff, but what do you all think? I think i'm suffering information overload. And is it ok to give nystatin to infants? Or should i just treat it as i have been, with diet?
Help!

[SagMom]

Nystatin is an anti-fungal medication--I've never heard of it being used for excema, but then, I don't know everything. :wink

Here's some info http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/uspdi/202417.html

Hopefully someone will chime in with yeast info for you.

Is the dr saying that yeast is causing the excema or-- that there is a yeast infection secondary to the excema?

[boo'smama]

Unfortunately I have no info for you -- just a question -- how did your naturopath test your 7mo for allergies? Blood test? I have been dealing with a similar situation with dd since she was 3 mo (now 61/2 mo). I am finally down to rice, oats and vegetables. (I'm a veg. and allergic to chicken myself, and dd is even sensitive to fish).

One thing my naturopath tried was putting me on a supplement called Ultra-inflamex (with the idea that dd would get it through bfng). She explained that once the baby's gut is inflamed from the allergies, this can help settle things down again. You might ask your np about that. It helped for dd, but something is still causing symptoms.

I did find a salve that really helps heal the ecsema -- Wise Ways Herbals' "All Heal Salve".

Would love to hear how you end up dealing with this since we are in the same boat.

Melissa

[PumpkinSeeds]

My ds has severe eczema so I just want to

:hug



Keep up with the food restrictions. It can take up to two weeks or more to see results. My ds turned out to be allergic to

corn, oats, milk and eggs.

Another thing, fabric softener is BAD BAD BAD! Make sure you are not using it. It turned out that my ds was allergic to different detergents too, and we switched to biokleen with success.

100 % cotton clothing ONLY! Sweating under polyester and acrylic is not good for eczema.

Keep baby cool. Indoor heating with that dry dry air is so irritating to eczema.

We had really good luck with soaking ds twice a day in plain water for 20 minutes then slathering on a nice cream like Cetaphil CREAM (not lotion) then adding A&D ointment within three minutes of bathing. ( the doctor said to bath only twice a week but when we did that his skin started to peel which seemed to make it more itchy. The frequent bathing helped get this under control)

We did use the cortisone whenever the itch became unbearable for ds. I wanted to avoid secondary infections.

I thought at first that maybe it was yeast, but I took him to a dermatologist who told me that it was NOT yeast. Maybe you could take your babe in just to see?

I could go on and on (I really need to go to bed)

Please do a search in the archives of Health and Healing. Much has been written by us Mommas with eczema babies.

[Stacie]

Nystatin would probably work wonders if the problem is trully a yeast issue in the gut which is causing the excema. But, there is a major problem with using nystatin. the amounts are usually way higher than what is needed to do the work of killing the candida or other gut bugs gone haywire. Expspecially if your child has been on recent antibiotics or vaxed. Cut the dose in quarters to begin, otherwise yeast die off his horrendous and produces toxic side effects with erratic behavior and awfull smelly poops (ICK!!!). The docs usually give too high a dose. Lower doses are still wonderfully effective.

I have been using nystatin for years with my autistic son's gut issues becasue he is in chelation therapy which causes candida to really over produce.

[jtsmom]

:wave mama with eczema baby here. It's funny, I was wondering if yeast and eczema were related, dd has food allergies to:milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, potatoes, peas, citrus, chocolate. Some of those we knew for sure before the testing, because she would get hives if certain foods touched her body. Once dh was drinking beer and kissed her forehead and she got hives right there where he kissed her. I know she's not allergic to barley, but don't know what else is in beer except yeast. So I've had that theory in my head for a while, turning it over. hmmm, I'll have to think on that some more.