Any Medical folks out there? Need advice on bandages.

[tivaclare]

You don't really have to be a nurse, doctor, etc to answer my question, I just thought it'd be an attention grabber.

DD is 4 and has had very severe eczema since she was 3 months. It's getting better with age and is thankfully, entirely gone from her face, but still is very severe in her arm and knee joints. She scratches the skin raw and bloody every chance she gets without even realizing it (seriously, sometimes it's almost trance like).

I have started to wrap them up, at least night with gauze and tape, but we are burning through those FAST. It is getting quite expensive.

Any other options or recommendations? I have just been getting J&J gauze from the store and using first aid tape.

I'd like to come up with a reusable option (I can sew) but I'm concerned about the hygiene of it. For those who may be more knowledable, could I possibly rebab old tshirts for something like this?

Money is an issue right now, and at least for the next few weeks we are without insurance or a doctor. Even when we did have insurance, most of them seem unconcerned about this and throw useless creams at us.

I've noticed that if I slather it in KY jelly (yep, THAT KY) and wrap it up, it does clear up quite well. Thankfully, I have years worth of KY thanks to coupons, lol.

TIA.

[derketchup]

OMG this was so me as a kid. My mom wrapped my hands in socks at night and then wrapped that up with duct tape. It was the ONLY solution to stop me from scratching.

To this day, if I get too stressed out I'll pick at the only remaining spot on my left elbow until it's raw.

[tivaclare]

OMG this was so me as a kid. My mom wrapped my hands in socks at night and then wrapped that up with duct tape. It was the ONLY solution to stop me from scratching.

To this day, if I get too stressed out I'll pick at the only remaining spot on my left elbow until it's raw.

Yep, totally my kid. She has a communication delay, so when we tell her not to scratch at it in any way, she immediately gets frustrated and even more upset, especially if we catch her and she doesn't know she's doing it.

I will put lotions/medicines on it, she'll say "don't scratch" and then 30 seconds later, there she is picking at scabs. Poor kid. I can tell it makes her miserable.

Putting her in footie jams seem to work ok, but she's old enough now to where she will pull up her sleeves and scratch anyway. She scratches her legs using her toes. That's a trick she learned at about 4 months.

[momof2inohio]

My son had eczema when he was little. It went away when he was 2 1/2. We just put aquaphor on it and that seemed to help. His wasn't too severe though, he mainly had it just on the back of his knees and he did not scratch it too much. Hope your DD gets some relief soon. I know it can be really frustrating

[tivaclare]

Thanks. It's super frustrating. It looks terrible. We dropped her off at nursey once during church and we got pulled out of mass because one of the ladies was concerned she was "contagious" and wasn't sure if she should be with the other kids.

My husband politely explained that it was eczema, which really, any idiot could have seen it...ugh, whatever.