When my oldest daughter was a baby we always heard comments on how red her cheeks were. People commented because they thought it was cute, but it bothered me. I knew they were red because they were so dry. No matter how much lotion we put on those cute little cheeks it never seemed to fix the problem.
Her legs were dry too, and scaly. Eventually, I realized we were dealing with eczema. But I didn’t understand why the lotion wasn’t helping. After years of this we found some answers. Basically, we learned four things about eczema that made a difference in clearing it up.
1. We found a laundry detergent that was not so harsh on her
skin.
2. We changed the soap
we were using in the shower. Many bars of soap are not soap at all, but detergent.
Detergents can be hard on your skin. We found a more natural soap that did
wonders for her skin. When this product was no longer available we learned
to make our own soap and improved it until we felt we had a superior product.
3. We learned that many lotions
contain petroleum and mineral oil and that these ingredients cannot soak into
the skin like natural oils. We searched for lotions with natural oils and
eventually started making these ourselves also.
4. We found herbs that are known to help eczema and learned to incorporate
them into a salve that we used for eczema. We’ve been using the salve
for fifteen years, not only on eczema, but also for scrapes and scratches
and other skin concerns.
Some people who struggle with eczema have to adjust their diet
also. Fortunately, we never found it necassary to explore dietary changes
in connection with the eczema. But we will never go back do smearing mineral
oil on our faces. It's just not worth it.
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