Friday, April 6 - Allergies, eczema...coping
Today we have a follow-up appt. for our 12yo with our naturopath. Kimberly has eczema very badly. It started when we were in Florida on vacation almost 6 years ago. She was 6.5 at the time. It started on her arms, inside the elbow area. We thought it was a heat rash....or a rash from the pool...or something just from the new area we were visiting. When we got back home and it continued...but not too badly yet, we finally brought her to our pediatrician. He told us it was eczema and gave us some cream to put on it. We did for a short while, which helped, but it is a steroid based cream and we didn't like the idea of putting that on all the time. When we stopped her arms didn't seem to get worse, so we didn't worry about it. Over the years it has continually gotten worse. This past fall it got much worse, spreading from her arms to the back of her neck, up the back of her hairline and even on the eye lid of one eye. We decided to bring her to an allergist. That brought us knowhere. Eczema is usually caused by an allergy and it is how the body reacts from the inside out. She tested for several of the obvious things...dairy, peanut butter, wheat, eggs, dust, and a few others. They all came back negative, except the eggs. She gave us another cream and said goodbye, wait until she grows out of it or learn to live with it. Oh, yes, she did say to take bleach baths!!!! Uhhhh....no thank you!
We then made an appt. w/the naturopath. She tested for like, 25 or more things and found Kimberly has reactions to the following common foods...dairy, wheat, corn, peanuts, barley, along with some other things. WOW! It made a huge difference when we cut all those things out. But then, the holidays came..Thanksgiving, Christmas, parties. It was very difficult to stay away from all those foods, delicious desserts and so on, so she had some here and there. By mid January, it got REALLY bad. One day it had spread all over her neck, the front and back, up her face, one eye very swollen, her arms looked terrible and she was in itchy pain. She went back on the diet of no wheat, corn, dairy, peanuts and more. This time it only got slightly better. We have gone back to the naturopath a couple of times and it feels like we're getting nowhere! We go today and we are ready to scream!
We've been letting her use the steriod cream again just because it is spring time, she wants to be able to wear short sleeves, bathing suits, and so on and not look terrible. She used to get teased sometimes by a few kids about her arms. I feel absolutely terrible for her, 'suffering' like this. Being at that precious age of 12, going into teenage-hood, there are enough issues to deal with in life. Now we add on a rash that is very visible unless using the cream, not being to eat what everyone else eats, always having to pack her food if going to a friends house during a mealtime...I am crushed for her.
We'll be praying that this visit goes better or we will be looking for somene else to see. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share them! We'll consider many options at this point.
After our appt. we will have lunch w/some friends, then home for nap for the little one and off to haircuts! Another day of fittng school in sometime!
Happy Good Friday all and may the Lord bless you!
Comments
Friday, April 6 - Hello
Posted by LaMereAcademy
Sounds like you guys have a nice day planned, enjoy!
~Becky
