Okay. Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate the word cream…so the fact that I’m even typing it here should tell you that this is some special stuff. And it is, so listen up! We have found a magical cream that works on Emrist’s eczema.
Em has been dealing with eczema for almost her entire life. About a year ago, we finally had her tested and received confirmation of what we had suspected for a while – that she was allergic to dogs and cats (we owned a cat at the time). You can read about that journey here and here if you need to catch up.
Even though we removed our cat from the home, and kept Em’s pet dander exposure to a minimum, we continued to struggle with her eczema. In the very beginning, she would have flare-ups whenever exposed to the allergen. Her skin would turn red, itch, and sometimes bleed. We had steroids for whenever it did that, and we just did other things to manage the in-between stages. At some point, though, the flare-ups stopped going away altogether and became her natural state. I’m not really sure when that started…maybe last summer? Regardless, we’ve been dealing with chronic eczema and inflamed skin for a while now.
I’ve always HATED using the steroids, but it seemed like we had no other options. We possibly could have cleared up her eczema patches completely by using the steroids every day, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to put that stuff on her skin every day (you can see all the nasty reasons why by clicking here). We decided to use the steroids on an “as needed” type basis. Basically, anytime her flare-ups would get bad, we’d use it to heal it up, then we’d stop. It would return immediately. This is actually pretty common with steroid usage for eczema – your body becomes dependent on the meds, and you also have to keep being bumped up to a higher strength the more you use them, because your body builds up a tolerance to them.
So…I eventually resigned myself to the fact that my daughter was going to be itchy, scratchy, and completely miserable and that there was nothing I could do about it. That’s a pretty depressing feeling.
Fortunately, winter wasn’t so bad for us because we were able to keep her covered and prevent scratching for most of the season. But then summer came, and it was just too hot to keep her in long sleeves and pants all the time, so she started scratching and tearing at her skin again. Thanks to that, she now looks like she has poison ivy all over her tiny little legs. I’ve gotten so many questions about her skin since summer started that I’ve started to worry that she may hear or pick up on everyone’s comments, and start to feel self-conscious about her skin.
Fortunately, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine mentioned a local product to me that had worked on her son’s skin when he had an allergic reaction to a dog. I’m not going to lie…I was WAY skeptical because we’ve tried so many things and haven’t had success, but I decided to try the product anyways.
I prayed that God would bring us some relief through this product before we even started using it. I’ve been so desperate for something that is natural and safe to use on her skin that actually works, so I got real with Jesus and prayed for some relief for my sweet baby. It appears that he answered my prayer. Check it out.
Amazing, right?! It’s a simple whip made of organic Shea butter (white) and organic coconut oil. That’s it. They do have some with essential oils in them, but we went with fragrance free for Emrist. The whip is made by a company called Cottage Industry Soap Company (you can click on that for a link to their Facebook page) and is available at the Farmer’s Market at Eastchase in Montgomery, as well as some local shops, like PepperTree. I also have it on good authority that you can message the company on Facebook (if you don’t live locally) and have them mail you some with dry ice (since it’s a whip, it’s fragile during these hot summer months).
So there’s that. The magical cream. I am so over the moon excited about it! Every time I put it on Emrist, she says it feels better and doesn’t itch. I’m so impressed and SO thankful for my friend (hey Bekah!) that told me about it!! I just wanted to share about it here too because I know I have several friends who deal with eczema in their children and don’t feel comfortable using steroids. This may be something you should try!
Also on the allergy front, we are taking Emrist to have a blood allergy test done tomorrow or Monday. Since she has been struggling with eczema so much, in spite of the removal of our cat, we want to be sure she isn’t consuming anything that is causing these flare-ups! We should have more answers soon, and hopefully I’ll find the time to update about them when we get them.
Wild & Wrecked 