As the seasons change and we head into winter,
it can actually mark some of the most challenging times
for people with very sensitive eczema-prone skin.
Today, we'll be joined by Vicky and her lovely three-year-old
daughter, and they're going to be talking
through a few of their real concerns
about what tends to happen to her daughter's skin
over the winter months.
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I wondered if you could talk me through a little bit
about the problems you've been having with her eczema.
So when she was born, she started off
with really bad eczema just in these creases of her arms
and in the creases of the backs of her knees.
It was obviously aggravating her quite a lot,
so I found it quite difficult to find
the right balance of things that would
help sort of ease the itching and bring the redness down.
Now we have it under control in terms
of it's not there all the time.
Brilliant.
But she gets flare ups every now and then.
I find in the winter, when it's obviously a lot colder,
her face will flare up with eczema.
She'll et a lot of red patches and bumpy areas,
particularly on her cheeks, some of it on her chin as well.
So I just wondered if there's anything specific
that I can use on her every single day just to try and keep
that in check.
So winter can be a really difficult time,
causing lots of chapping on the cheeks and also on the lips.
And this can lead to lip-licking, eczema,
and other problems.
So do increase the moisturiser you're applying,
and there's also a couple of really clever products
that you can use a little bit like a colourless barrier
cream.
One of my favourite products here is the Lipikar AP+ Stick.
It's like a gigantic lip balm, and you can carry it around
in your bag and keep reapplying it
to any of these sore chapped areas,
and it provides a lovely, lovely extra layer
of protection for her skin.
So get her used to using it herself as well so that she
gets confidence in applying it instead of getting
into the habit of licking lips and sore skin.
Good girl.
And it's also something that once she's
really confident using, she can then take it to school.
So when she's a little bit older,
she'll have much more independence
using those sorts of products when she's feeling itchy.
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So Vicky, you mentioned as well that you were really worried
about winter clothing, particularly
those sort of woolly jumpers.
And we all know that these can aggravate skin and aggravate
eczema.
So one of the tricks is often to use
very, very simple light-coloured cotton base layers.
So try to stick to very soft cotton or linen.
And this is going to allow the skin to breathe.
You might want to avoid wool altogether and go
for more cotton-based jumpers as well, because often, these
are very helpful, particularly when
eczema's flaring, and are less likely to aggravate her skin.
So Vicky, that brings us on to bathing regimes.
Two little ducks.
Soaps are going to naturally strip
a lot of the oils that are present on her skin,
and it's very important to try to avoid that.
So the key ingredients that you need to look for
are things like soap substitutes or the other word
that's sometimes used to describe them as syndets
or synthetic detergents.
And these will allow you to cleanse her skin
without stripping natural oils.
So I was just wondering how often I should bathe her,
because I've heard conflicting advice
about whether daily bathing is best for eczema-prone skin
or if it should just be once a week.
That's a really common question.
So normally, what we advise is that children with eczema
have a bath once a day.
And the reason we say that is because where the skin gets
a little bit scaly and dry, often
you can have bacteria living underneath the scales.
So it's really important that the skin gets a proper cleanse,
and the bacteria is washed away.
But then a lot of the other things that you're able to do--
keeping the bath short and only with tepid water.
This is really important as well.
And then patting dry, and whilst the skin
is still a little wet, making sure
that you're getting lots and lots of moisturiser on.
So this is another really, really important part
of your everyday regime for your daughter.
I don't think you can ever put too much moisturiser on.
And it's going to really help to prepare and sort of soothe
the skin barrier when she's having flares.
But it's also going to help kind of settle things down and keep
everything nice and calm.
On a good day, you might just need
to apply the moisturiser morning and nighttime,
but when things are flaring, it's really important
that you pick up the pace and put it on at least four times
a day, sometimes more.
So whenever you see her reaching and scratching for her skin,
you try to apply some soothing moisturiser instead.
And this will really improve your kind of longer term
control of her skin.
And there's really good studies out there,
which are showing that if you put the moisturiser on four
times a day, you can actually reduce your steroid requirement
by up to 40%.
So one thing I really worry about
is how to pick the right moisturiser,
because I find that some moisturisers have actually
made her skin worse.
So there are a lot of products out there,
and it can be really confusing.
And what you want to do is to try
to find products that hopefully aren't
going to aggravate her skin.
So there are some ingredients that you
need to avoid, things like fragrances or perfumes,
because they can aggravate eczema and make
skin sensitivity worse.
Also, sometimes there's a real desire
to go out there and look for natural products
or even consider using natural oils.
But actually, sometimes, they can cause more damage
in the skin and can aggravate conditions,
so it's important to be quite careful about products
you're using.
So on the rare occasion when her skin does get very aggravated,
and she scratches it so much that she breaks the skin,
I often worry about placing a cream
on that, because I don't want to make it sting or make it sore.
So the nails are really the weapons
that are going to be breaking the skin.
So try to keep them as short as possible.
Keep them clipped daily.
It's important that you keep applying moisturiser,
even when it's aggravated like that
and when it's very, very scratched, even if there
is a little bit of blood on the skin,
because, again, that moisturiser is going
to provide a lovely extra layer of protection
to the open skin barrier with those large scratched areas.
Thank you so much for all of your advice.
It's given me so much to think about and so many
positive things that I can do.
And I think it will really make a difference
as we're going into winter.
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