Neighborhood Doctor: What is Eczema and how do I handle it?
Join us on this episode of Neighborhood Doctor, where we talk all about Eczema.
What to do if your child gets Eczema? Well it is essentially just dry skin, and it can show up when you aren't feeling well, when the weather changes, even food can play a factor. However it is absolutely manageable and we talk about the ups, downs of Eczema, in an episode you don't want to miss.
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Our Host
Dr. Ryan Hassan
Transcript:
Ari O'Donovan: (00:00)
Hi everyone. Ari here. Before the episode starts, I wanna say thank you for listening and invite you to boost Oregon's annual fundraiser. It'll be on November 4th in downtown Portland, Oregon, and there's gonna be drinks, food, live music. It's gonna be a ton of fun. Boost Oregon wants to give fans of the show half price tickets. If you wanna take advantage of that discount, be sure to click the top link in the description and select partner admission. By the way, the second link will also have the event details. So if you're around the great Pacific Northwest, we hope to see you on November 4th, and of course, enjoy this episode.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (00:02)
I am Ryan, pediatrician and dad here to answer my patient's most common question. So your kid has eczema, what do you do? Eczema is the most common skin rash I see in my clinic and it can be challenging for patients to manage. But the good news is it is treatable.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (00:20)
Eczema is also called atopic dermatitis and fancy medical Latin. But I explain it to appearance as just dry skin. Skin that's more susceptible to irritation. It can look like a lot of different things. Generally you're gonna, it's gonna be rough skin, you'll notice it just looks dryer and feels rough, but it can be red sometimes not though it could be bumpy. Sometimes if it's really bad you can get cracked skin. It usually happens on areas that are more susceptible to drying out, so folds in the skin that rub against each other a lot. So newborns get this a lot in skin folds. You can get it behind the elbows, behind the knees, uh, wrists, knuckles, ankles, cheeks are really common in babies who like to drool a lot or around the lips and older kids who lick their lips a lot and can often sometimes leave a little white patch behind and that'll go away with time.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (01:07)
But it's important to make sure you're chatting with your healthcare provider if you do think you might have eczema or your child might have eczema because it can also look similar to other conditions like ringworm or acne or an allergic rash that might be managed differently. Now there are a few different things that can trigger eczema, including if you get sick you might be more likely to experience a flare up or changes in weather, especially when the weather gets dry. Different skin irritants or environmental allergens can also cause eczema to flare up. Sometimes foods can be associated with it. In most cases though, we can't really identify a clear cause. I stress to patients that there's not a cure for eczema. I think a lot of people will make claims that, oh, if you do these things you'll cure your eczema. You'll never have problems and if you have problems with your skin it's 'cause you did all these other things.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (01:52)
And mostly that's kind of bunk. There's not really any, any good data to support anything like that. In particular, I recommend against food testing, like food allergy testing as a cause of eczema. We know this is done excessively and it is almost never helpful and often just leads to unnecessary food restriction. So I'd recommend against any kind of food allergy testing just for eczema. Generally, treatment for eczema is pretty straightforward. Starting out it helps to make sure you're avoiding common skin irritants, so anything like scented bath products, cleaning products, uh, lotions, hygiene products, detergents, things like that. Use unscented products, gentle products that can be helpful. Uh, avoid clothing that can be too tight fitting, which can be irritating and it can help to just maintain good hygiene. Make sure you're showering after you are, you know, coming in from outside, especially if there's a lot of pollen in the air that might irritate you or after swimming in a pool with chlorine.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (02:46)
Those things can help if you're washing those off. Beyond that, it's just about moisturizing consistently. People with significant eczema can help to moisturize on a daily basis, especially after a shower or a bath or the water can really dry out the skin. For most people, that's all you really need to do is just moisturize. So I moisturize before bed and I don't really have problems with dry skin, but a lot of times that's not enough. And when that's the case, that's when a steroid can be helpful. Steroid creams can help to combat the autoimmune response that's responsible for the irritation of the skin that that eczema is. So my general rule of thumb is use a steroid cream twice a day for two weeks at a time and then take a two week break. That way you won't have any problems with side effects from the steroid, like, like thinning of the skin, which can happen if you use it for too long in the same place.
Dr. Ryan Hassan: (03:35)
Now it's okay to use it a little longer sometimes, but two weeks is a good rule of thumb to make sure you don't have side effects. And if you feel like you need to use it for longer, it'd be good to talk to your healthcare provider. Probably you just need a stronger strength cream. You can start with just over the counter hydrocortisone 1% also called cortisone 1%, but if that's not doing the trick, then talk to your healthcare provider and consider something stronger. That's really about it Over time, eczema generally gets better as kids get older, although some people continue to struggle with it their whole lives. But if you manage it with moisturizing regularly and using a steroid as needed, generally you shouldn't have too many issues with it. That's my show. If you have medical questions you'd like me to answer, reach out to Boost Oregon online. Come back next week for a new episode of boosting our Voices with Ari.