I've given up trying to get pictures where I want them on this site, so here they all are in a clump.
The first three pictures were taken in March and April of this year. My little one has had eczema since he was four months old. In an older post you can see pictures from last May when he had two infections on top of it all, and he came down with another infection in March. We've been to four different dermatologists, with the same results from all of them. "Here's a topical steroid. Put Vaseline/Aquaphor/Eucerin on his skin. Baths in lukewarm water. Use a mild laundry detergent."
He never really got much better. His skin would clear a little, then get worse again. We tried a wheat-free and dairy-free diet, and had a slight improvement, but he was still miserable. Because he was, we were too. I was resigned to getting up three or four times a night. At one point he scratched his chin to the point that he was tearing off pieces of skin nearly 1/8" thick, and blood was dripping down his arms onto the floor.
As you've see in the next pictures, taken over the last week and a half, he looks GREAT!!!! It's hard to pinpoint what is exactly responsible, but we feel acupuncture has made all the difference. The first time we took him in, electrodes were used on his feet, shins and hands. We were given some drops to give him internally, too. Nothing changed, not that I really expected it to. My thoughts were, "Well, we gave it a shot."
In desperation, after the chin scratching incident, we took him back for acupuncture a couple more times. This time the acupuncturist used needles, and she gave us some different drops to use. I had also started another round of the steroid just before we went in. This time, as you can see, the results were amazing.
Before the acupuncture, the steroid would start to clear his skin for three or four days, then his skin would start to well up and bubble again, even before we had finished the 7-day course of treatment. This time, his skin continued to clear. After 8 days of the steroid, we stopped. He was itch-free for another four days, then started to scratch again, but it was nothing like before. Amazingly, he stopped scratching this time after a day, and his skin is still mostly clear. He still rubs at his eyes sometimes, and there are still little patches on his wrists and behind his ears that have been slower to heal, but finally, finally, we have some real hope.
The last two pictures are of the drops we give him, and a cream for his skin that my husband found. The company that makes the cream also makes some pastilles, little things that look kind of like cough drops, with a slightly gummy-bear feel, that we give him from time to time.
Some of the improvement may be just from him getting older and growing out of it. Some may be due to the spring cleaning we did in the apartment (that I'm trying my best to maintain). But I really think without the acupuncture, we wouldn't be where we are. I'd probably not ever believed it without experiencing it first-hand, skeptic that I am, but I wanted to share this in case it helps anyone else out there who is struggling like we have.
