I have no medical knowledge, but I'll ask my daughter what she learned, Barney, and will get back to you if you send me a PM. She had a pretty bad case of eczema herself, but learned to control it over time (she's now 27). It's caused by a missing protein in the DNA, and I'm the culprit for that... You can't cure it, but you can tame it. The key is to keep providing moisture to the skin. My daughter would take a shower, then cover herself in moisturizers and let them soak for a while, then cover that with something that seals the moisture to the skin. It takes a lot of time from her life, but there is no other option. Again, no expert advise here, but rather conveying her experience if you wish.
Thanks mate.
I've no doubt that as parents, we definitely fail a bit in this regard. We've about 20 tubs of Fifty:50 paraffin ointment that we're supposed to put on him all day every day but we don't, so we have to take the blame there.
When he was at his worst he was getting plastered in that 4/5 times a day and the steroid on top of it, then dressed in skinnies before putting his regular clothes on.
I recently bought a scratch star and roller ball thing from Cosi Care, but they're a bit too big to use on him until he grows a bit.
It's definitely not a dairy allergy, as the first 6 months after he was born were the worst and he never had any dairy in that time. He was on nutramigen baby formula which is for babies with a cows milk allergy. So at this stage we've pretty much just accepted there's next to nothing we can do except manage it for him until he is old enough to manage it himself.
