caleb2003

My baby boy of 6 months has quite severe Excema and we need to know if moving to the sunny climate will make the condition worse or better.

Now supposedly the Sun helps as does salt water but heat and humidity certainly dont seem to and weather fluctuations make it worse too.

Does anyone know of any stats or more helpfully any real life experiences as we were looking to go to somewhere like Brisbane but if the weather dont agree then that out the window.

Thanks

PeteY

Really don't know, but i would imagine it would be pretty unpleasant in hot weather. I had a mate in the UK who had it, and he hated summer. Said sweating made him even more itchy.

You moving tropics? Down south?

caleb2003

Only at 1st stage yet but if its no good then we might be going to Siberia or somewhere.

ABCDiamond

My daughter used to have it, but we didn't have any problems when we moved over here.

At one stage in the UK she had to be covered in bandages head to toe, and coated with the Petroleum jelly type stuff.

She now gets a bit of itching only once every few months and we use Calendulis Plus cream for it.

ABCDiamond

Just to show what she used to look like...

caleb2003

That picture is heartbreaking but really cute at the same time, that how my boy is really we aint got the head thing for him!!!

Did the seawater help or the sun or did it just go naturally.

Steve2438

My son and myself have it...not to bad in the summer over here but the winter is hell...in the sunny weather both of us are ok,the sun seems to help the skin,dont know if its the same for all,but for us the sun is the best cure

caleb2003

See thats the sort of thing we want to hear but its hard for us to test as being so young we didnt want him in the sun too much.

What about humidity?
and also does Aircon affect it?

Thanks for all the answers.

ABCDiamond

I really wish I could give a "true" answer, but I don't know. Maybe it just went away, maybe it was the cream that we used, maybe it was the weather.

While we were in the UK, she was using Balneum Plus cream, with the wet raps, and that may have done the trick, it definitely reduced the severity down to normal levels after about 6 months ?

All I know is that she's OK now.
Just thinking about it, when it is extra hot here, maybe for a few weeks per year, she does get a bit of a recurrence appear, but the cream fixes it almost immediately. It really is no problem now.

Try to bring as much of the cream etc over as you can, as you need to pay for it all here.

Aircon has no effect on her, but it's probably the humidity that brings on that little bit of itching.

I remember now, when we moved from Sydney to Brisbane I was concerned how it may affect her, but it hasn't been a problem.

What does your Doctor say about it ?

caleb2003

Not discussed it yet, but we use balneum and a hydrocortizone steroid and its only the steroid that sorts it yet for a short period but despite the docs saying thats safe we dont like using it. It does sound like a similar case though so its quite encouraging to hear, most kids generally go past the worst after a few years so I suppose you cant put your lives on hold in the meantime.

Thanks for your help/.

ABCDiamond

Now for the statistics part...

UK Nearly one in three children (33%) has suffered eczema by the age of three-and-a-half, triple the rate in the 1970s, a study suggested.

A fifth of babies (20%) develop the condition in the first six months according to data on 14,000 children born since 1991.
http://www2.netdoctor.co.uk/news/ind...23&M=12&Y=2003



Australia Up to 10 per cent of children under the age of five develop eczema. http://www.eczema.org.au/info/child.html

saraliz

My other half has eczema, and at the moment (winter in Perth) his skin is the worst I've ever seen it, far worse than it normally was in the UK. Our house here is extremely damp, and I suspect that is part of the problem.

caleb2003

Wow, wonder what the issue with the Uk is do we have more dust or maybe we just indoors too much.

Bella Donna

The incidence of breastfeeding is higher in Australia than in the UK so this is going to affect the statistics up to a point.

What does your child react to? Do you know what the actual trigger is/was?

Pollyana

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=311674
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268780

and there are lots of other threads too. Many children grow out of it, when you have it as an adult you know you have it for life. Beware of Queensland - the high humidity in summer will irritate, but equally the low humidity in winter will dry the skin to screaming point. Only one thing, my skin, stops me loving it here, but as any sufferer will know - when your skin isn't happy, neither are you.