Our World Of Eczema

When Molly was a baby and we lived in Auckland, she had terrible eczema. We were constantly in and out of the doctors and the Plunkett rooms and the naturopaths. We removed dairy from her diet, and I was obsessed with alternative sources of calcium. We had a bucket load of creams to apply all the time. We reduced the severity, but we never cured it.

Then we left New Zealand, and we were away for three and a half years. We had some great adventures during this time and lived in some very incredible (and very remote) places. One of my initial worries was how we were going to keep Molly on a restricted diet and how we were going to manage her eczema with no access to big supermarkets or specialist stores, limited doctors and no specialists.

But then a very cool thing happened. It seemed that as soon as we left Auckland, her eczema pretty much disappeared.

Three and a half years went by and we’d pretty much forgotten about those difficult early days.  We returned to New Zealand (this time to live in Wellington), and all of a sudden Molly’s eczema returned.

By now, Alfie also had eczema, so our bathroom cupboard quickly became an enormous mountain of creams and we had to adapt to a regular management programme involving, at certain periods and during certain seasons of the year (it seems to be worst in Spring and Autumn), the application of creams on two children 4 or 5 times a day, special bath products, little bodies covered with gauze and bandages, weekly doctors’ visits, antihistamines, regular antibiotics to fight infections, etc, etc.

Alot of the time Molly’s eczema is accompanied by a stuffy or runny nose and itchy eyes. Given our experiences overseas, our belief so far has always been that her eczema / allergies are caused by environmental factors that are specific to New Zealand, perhaps things like long native grasses, Pohutakawa trees and Cabbage trees. But according to the experts there are thousands of causes of eczema, so who knows?

Last weekend we also discovered that Molly is allergic to Flucloxicillin – an antibiotic that is part of the penicillin family and most commonly used to treat skin infections. Bugger!

Overall, the eczema is slowly driving us all completely INSANE!!! The amount of time and money we are spending on it is ridiculous, and the emotional consequences are worse. The kids get exhausted as they don’t sleep properly, and they get irritable and grumpy....and so do Jake and I!

Molly has been teased at school about it, and last night she cried herself to sleep, saying “I wish I didn’t get eczema”, and “I wish I was normal”. (Trigger my broken heart...)

Thank goodness her doctor has finally ordered a RAST test (a special kind of blood test that tests for allergies) to see if we can figure out what’s causing her problems. First, she’s going to be tested for allergies to dust mites, dairy, nuts, shellfish, eggs, soy and wheat. But until she’s off the antihistamines (which she relies on at the moment), she can’t have the RAST test.

So we’re playing a waiting game now...