When You Hurt I Hurt
At 8 weeks old I put a lotion labeled "natural" on Eli and he instantly broke out in a nasty chemical burn. As s new mom I was heartbroken that I had hurt my baby and that was just the beginning after this we noticed he started getting unexplained rashes and hives. At our pediatrician's advice we changed laundry detergents and I took it upon myself to rid my house of toxic cleaning products and chemicals. We stabilized for a short while but started realizing that whenever anyone else held Eli he would break out in a rash. I was struggling in those early days and it complicated things that nobody but my husband or I could ever touch the baby. If my parents came to visit they would have to shower using my "safe" products and wear clothes that I had washed in our detergent and even then Eli would get a rash at the simplest of things. My dad would eat Doritos and give him a kiss and he would have hives in the shape of a kiss on his forehead.
We sought the help of our pediatrician who said it wasn't a big deal (we have since changed pediatricians) but did refer us to a fancy NYC dermatologist. At this point the rashes had caused an open sore on his face that was there for months. The dermatologist said it was just eczema and told us to put aquaphor on it (which we had been doing with no result) and give him an oatmeal and sent us in our way. Going against our gut we accepted that this was just normal and would go away eventually.
We tried the oatmeal bath which caused head to toe hives. We suspected he was allergic to oats and saw an allergist. The allergist had us hold him down while they did a skin test on his back for the 12 most common allergens (never testing for oats) and declared him fine when those came back negative.
At this point a year had gone by and our baby still had the open sore and was suffering from frequent rashes. We sought out another dermatologist who took one look at him and was in shock anyone had let his face get that bad without treatment. She committed to helping us that day and has been on our side ever since.within two weeks she had his face healed and 90% better. At our followup we were practically in tears at how much progress had been made, but she looked at us and said she was committed to getting it 100% better and gave us an additional cream to try which worked like s charm.
For a few years this combination of creams kept things at bay. We would get flareups but the steroid creams would knock it out within a day.
At 2 he started to have breathing concerns. His pediatrician put him on Benadryl, then Zyrtec, then Allegra then Claritin but nothing brought relief. After a particularly bad week I called to try to bring him in and they said they had "no openings". The next night his breathing got particularly labored and we rushed him to the Pediatric ER. They immediately hooked him up to monitors and the alarms were going off constantly that his oxygen was too low. He was having an asthma attack.
It took them a long time to get his breathing under control. Two breathing treatments and a course of steroids brought it back to a stable level but not normal. They wanted to admit him but by this time he was working himself up so badly they felt some time at home may be the best medicine and gave us very clear and specific instructions on what to do if his breathing worsened. They also suggested that it may be time to see a different pediatrician and gave us some recommendations on ones we could follow up with. We never looked back and changed pediatricians the next day and absolutely LOVE the one the hospital recommended.
Now along with mystery rashes Eli's allergies were causing breathing concerns. The new pediatrician has us using a nebulizer and prescribed a combo of allergy meds that kept things at bay but every time the weather cycled or the seasons changed, he would have an instant asthma episode. Thankfully the nebulizer or a course of steroids always worked.
Then around his fourth birthday, the rashes started returning and these weren't responding to the meds from his dermatologist. We returned to her and she gave us another cream to use and thought allergy retesting may be in order.
So that's where we are today. I'm taking him to the allergist today for testing and to try to get some answers. My heart hurts at the thought of him going through the scratch test. He has some sensory concerns and doesn't like doctors touching him. My husband can't come to this appointment so I'm navigating this alone. I'm anxious because I never know which doctors will take us seriously and help and which ones will tell us to put Windex on it. (Love that movie!)
Wish us luck!
We sought the help of our pediatrician who said it wasn't a big deal (we have since changed pediatricians) but did refer us to a fancy NYC dermatologist. At this point the rashes had caused an open sore on his face that was there for months. The dermatologist said it was just eczema and told us to put aquaphor on it (which we had been doing with no result) and give him an oatmeal and sent us in our way. Going against our gut we accepted that this was just normal and would go away eventually.
We tried the oatmeal bath which caused head to toe hives. We suspected he was allergic to oats and saw an allergist. The allergist had us hold him down while they did a skin test on his back for the 12 most common allergens (never testing for oats) and declared him fine when those came back negative.
At this point a year had gone by and our baby still had the open sore and was suffering from frequent rashes. We sought out another dermatologist who took one look at him and was in shock anyone had let his face get that bad without treatment. She committed to helping us that day and has been on our side ever since.within two weeks she had his face healed and 90% better. At our followup we were practically in tears at how much progress had been made, but she looked at us and said she was committed to getting it 100% better and gave us an additional cream to try which worked like s charm.
For a few years this combination of creams kept things at bay. We would get flareups but the steroid creams would knock it out within a day.
At 2 he started to have breathing concerns. His pediatrician put him on Benadryl, then Zyrtec, then Allegra then Claritin but nothing brought relief. After a particularly bad week I called to try to bring him in and they said they had "no openings". The next night his breathing got particularly labored and we rushed him to the Pediatric ER. They immediately hooked him up to monitors and the alarms were going off constantly that his oxygen was too low. He was having an asthma attack.
It took them a long time to get his breathing under control. Two breathing treatments and a course of steroids brought it back to a stable level but not normal. They wanted to admit him but by this time he was working himself up so badly they felt some time at home may be the best medicine and gave us very clear and specific instructions on what to do if his breathing worsened. They also suggested that it may be time to see a different pediatrician and gave us some recommendations on ones we could follow up with. We never looked back and changed pediatricians the next day and absolutely LOVE the one the hospital recommended.
Now along with mystery rashes Eli's allergies were causing breathing concerns. The new pediatrician has us using a nebulizer and prescribed a combo of allergy meds that kept things at bay but every time the weather cycled or the seasons changed, he would have an instant asthma episode. Thankfully the nebulizer or a course of steroids always worked.
Then around his fourth birthday, the rashes started returning and these weren't responding to the meds from his dermatologist. We returned to her and she gave us another cream to use and thought allergy retesting may be in order.
So that's where we are today. I'm taking him to the allergist today for testing and to try to get some answers. My heart hurts at the thought of him going through the scratch test. He has some sensory concerns and doesn't like doctors touching him. My husband can't come to this appointment so I'm navigating this alone. I'm anxious because I never know which doctors will take us seriously and help and which ones will tell us to put Windex on it. (Love that movie!)
Wish us luck!
Comments
Post a Comment