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Excema treatment for a child with sensory issues

Laughing Hyena

My 6 year old has excema and we're supposed to put emolient cream on him twice a day to keep it under control. He also has steroid creams for when it's bad and various bath oils, shower gels etc.

The problem is that he hates the feeling of the cream on his skin and won't let us put it on. At best we manage odd bits of him here and there but nowhere near twice a day. He is a little better at letting us put the steriod cream on as it only has to be in small patches, however we're having to use it more and more and we really need to find another option.

While we put the oil in the the bath he doesn't have a bath that often as he also hates that.

The other problem is that when he's feeling anxious he has a couple of patches of excema that he picks at. The insides of his elbows and under his left arm and permantly sore and don't get a chance to heal. We try to make sure he has other fidget toys/chew toys to distract him and I've tried putting dressings over the affected areas but they don't last long before he pulls them off.

Does anyone have any ideas, either for helping him tollerate the creams or trying to stop him picking the scabs.

  • Hi Laughing Hyena, I'm new to the forum (and to ASD, my son is going through diagnosis at the moment), but I have had eczema all my life.

    Have you tried putting the cream on him while he's asleep?  Sure it's only once a day (although you could do it twice during the night) but it's better than nothing and could save him distress.

    One of my sons has a raised scar on the underside of his arm that he picks at and we sometimes put a temp tattoo on the other side of his arm to distract him.

    Hope you find something that works.

  • Unfortunaly showers are a problem for him too, though we do have a special shower gel to use the few occasions he will get in.
    It's hard to know what he understands as he's often not able to explain back to us. He knows the creams are for his excema and sore bits. He is better at having the cream on the bits which currently are sore, I suspect he doesn't really undertand the prevention aspect of cream everyday though
    So far this week the lego reward is working out quite well, he's only missed one dose and his skin is looking much better. As it's half term we've been able to take a lot longer over the process each morning. We'll see if we can keep it up when we have to get to school on time. For now this is the best we've managed for quite a while.

  • Will your son have a shower? You should be able to use the bath stuff as shower gel instead.

    Is your son able to understand what may happen if he does / doesn't have the creams on?

  • So far he's not accpeting that the cream will probably help long term. The here and now feeling of having it on is just too much.

    So far reward charts have not worked out too well. They usually get torn up and he refuses to do the task at all!

    I have come across one reward idea we haven't tried though, we're going to get a smallish lego set. Each time he puts on the cream we'll complete the next step of the instructions. I'm hoping that might be a bit more imediate for him than collecting stickers.