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Eczema sufferers are easy marks. When you are itching to crawl out of your skin a $100 bottle of snake oil seems like a bargain! Marketers promote exotic and expensive ingredients on the basis of the barest threads of scientific evidence. Creams containing extracts from the peel of the jabara fruit, for example, are touted because they grow only in regions where most people have no allergies (see New York Times article) -- yet even serious research on the subject of psoriasis can be confusing and contradictory. Lanolin, for example, is the main ingredient for many creams doctors recommend to relieve the itchy dry skin typical of eczema, yet often dermatologists warn against using it because some people are allergic.
I am as vulnerable to marketing as anyone else, and in my search for the perfect recipes I bought many useless expensive oils and ingredients just because the word "dermatitis" was printed nearby. My husband is the chronic psoriasis sufferer in the household, but despite his cracked hands and angry red itchy skin he's a very tough customer. The cream has to feel just right, it can't smell funny, and he doesn't like green hairy stuff to start growing in the jar after a few weeks. He was very suspicious of my homemade attempts to replace his familiar, dermatologist sanctioned products, even though the Cetaphil he used does not score very well on the safety scale set up by the Environmental Working Group Cosmetic Safety Database... but when he ran out of my home-made cream and had to resort to commercial products during a trip, he finally had to concede that even the worst of my experiments were far superior to anything he could buy... and much, MUCH cheaper.
This instructable was adapted from a book I'm working on, Make Anything, a Handbook for Saving Money, Living Green and Having Fun with Trash. If you like it, sign up to be on my mailing list. You won't be getting spam (I set this up a few months ago and have yet to send out a single newsletter....) but you will get a chance to win a free pop-up card template....
I am as vulnerable to marketing as anyone else, and in my search for the perfect recipes I bought many useless expensive oils and ingredients just because the word "dermatitis" was printed nearby. My husband is the chronic psoriasis sufferer in the household, but despite his cracked hands and angry red itchy skin he's a very tough customer. The cream has to feel just right, it can't smell funny, and he doesn't like green hairy stuff to start growing in the jar after a few weeks. He was very suspicious of my homemade attempts to replace his familiar, dermatologist sanctioned products, even though the Cetaphil he used does not score very well on the safety scale set up by the Environmental Working Group Cosmetic Safety Database... but when he ran out of my home-made cream and had to resort to commercial products during a trip, he finally had to concede that even the worst of my experiments were far superior to anything he could buy... and much, MUCH cheaper.
This instructable was adapted from a book I'm working on, Make Anything, a Handbook for Saving Money, Living Green and Having Fun with Trash. If you like it, sign up to be on my mailing list. You won't be getting spam (I set this up a few months ago and have yet to send out a single newsletter....) but you will get a chance to win a free pop-up card template....
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Signing UpStep 1Prevention
In this first and essential step I will be sharing my husband's strategies for coping -- but you can find excellent information on the National Eczema Association website. Vigilant prevention will make a big difference: once your skin is compromised it can be almost impossible not to scratch, even though you know scratching the rashes only makes things worse...
Water is both a villain and a hero. Hero because when you soak in water it moisturizes your skin. Villain, because once you stop soaking, unless you seal in the moisture it will evaporate and leave your skin even drier than it was to begin with.
What this means is that you need to avoid casual contact with water, especially hot water with detergents -- that's right, no more dishes! Well, actually, you still can do dishes, but NEVER without really good gloves. My husband also uses gloves in the shower, the clear, latex free variety, which he seals around his wrists with rubber bands. When he gets out he washes his hands in cold water and quickly covers himself with the cream described in step 2.
Gloves should also be used any time you are doing messy or dusty work, lifting cardboard boxes, gardening of course, but also handling a lot of paper which might dry out your skin. Wear cotton gloves at night too, after slathering on an inordinate amount of cream, to keep it from rubbing off on the sheets.
You probably already know what type of fabric you need to avoid: my husband can never wear any type of wool against his skin, even the softest cashmere, and he avoids synthetics but also silk. Cotton is pretty much his only choice.
Wash the clothes often with so called "fragrance free" detergents -- I actually make my own mix of sodium percarbonate, borax, washing soda and sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (a surfactant which comes in powder form) because commercial detergents, no matter what they say, always contain fragrance -- but for most people detergents marketed for babies should be OK. Don't use fabric softeners -- use a little distilled vinegar instead.
Use sunscreen generously, and favor the kind with titanium or zinc oxide -- these offer broad spectrum protection (i.e. they block both UVA and UVB beams), and the zinc has the added advantage of soothing the skin and reducing itchiness. Even better, make your own sunscreen! Your active ingredient can be 100% zinc and you can avoid the chemicals which might cause irritation (before I started making this my fair skinned husband had to choose between a sunburn and an itchy rash). The Neem oil in that sunscreen recipe is also great for eczema, although you might want to omit the essential oils.
Water is both a villain and a hero. Hero because when you soak in water it moisturizes your skin. Villain, because once you stop soaking, unless you seal in the moisture it will evaporate and leave your skin even drier than it was to begin with.
What this means is that you need to avoid casual contact with water, especially hot water with detergents -- that's right, no more dishes! Well, actually, you still can do dishes, but NEVER without really good gloves. My husband also uses gloves in the shower, the clear, latex free variety, which he seals around his wrists with rubber bands. When he gets out he washes his hands in cold water and quickly covers himself with the cream described in step 2.
Gloves should also be used any time you are doing messy or dusty work, lifting cardboard boxes, gardening of course, but also handling a lot of paper which might dry out your skin. Wear cotton gloves at night too, after slathering on an inordinate amount of cream, to keep it from rubbing off on the sheets.
You probably already know what type of fabric you need to avoid: my husband can never wear any type of wool against his skin, even the softest cashmere, and he avoids synthetics but also silk. Cotton is pretty much his only choice.
Wash the clothes often with so called "fragrance free" detergents -- I actually make my own mix of sodium percarbonate, borax, washing soda and sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (a surfactant which comes in powder form) because commercial detergents, no matter what they say, always contain fragrance -- but for most people detergents marketed for babies should be OK. Don't use fabric softeners -- use a little distilled vinegar instead.
Use sunscreen generously, and favor the kind with titanium or zinc oxide -- these offer broad spectrum protection (i.e. they block both UVA and UVB beams), and the zinc has the added advantage of soothing the skin and reducing itchiness. Even better, make your own sunscreen! Your active ingredient can be 100% zinc and you can avoid the chemicals which might cause irritation (before I started making this my fair skinned husband had to choose between a sunburn and an itchy rash). The Neem oil in that sunscreen recipe is also great for eczema, although you might want to omit the essential oils.
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I've aklso found that the cheaper petroleum jelly from our local 99 Cents Only store seems to work better than the more expensive stuff from regular stores. It does seem to "soak in" more because it's a little bit more "liquid", if that makes sense.
Thanks for the ideas! I will try some of them.
My eczema is mostly on my face, which makes me extra motivated to find a solution other than the Elidel I can't really afford. (Too bad I can't try the bleach bath -- at least not around my eyes and mouth.) Currently I'm having mixed results from oat flour paste applied as a mask. Any experience with oats or oatmeal?
The bleach bath breaks down to one cc to 40 oz of water. comes to about a large drop of bleach to 40 oz of water. not very strong.
sounds like it would be less than the amount that our water company uses in the spring and fall to deal with run off.
Mine is at least 50% related to a dairy allergy.
My sister's is related to celiac, Gluten allergy.
This may not work for everyone, but if like her she scratches until she bleeds then its worth a try.I HOPE THIS MAY HELP SOMEONE
msw100@yahoo.co.uk
Is it ok to take a regular shower after the bleach bath? Example: I take my showers at night, helps me relax, so, I was thinking I'd do the bleach soak before my shower, take my shower, and then moisturize.