My (and Asha's) Eczema Fight

It has been a few months since the first allergy attack. To tell you thr truth since that day her right foot skin was never the same.. And truthfully the eczema actually spread. But since it wasn't flaring nor  very itchy I only put some creams daily. So everywhere she goes she wears socks.

Until last month end of August. We went back from a Hari Raya visit and my friend gave her a box of cow milk! Otw home her face started to swell and she had a worst round of allergy attack. This time it really spread. And the skin became so inflamed it hurt when it went under the water.

I finally resorted to a 3 days dose of steroid when the doctor said her skin was infected.. Not done with that, a week after that she got hfmd which makes it worst and she even got allergy hives at the end of hfmd.

Me and asha was really at the end of our wits. She kept on crying and scratching and i kept on yelling and pinching. I went back to see the doctor and she gv me desowan for the hives.

You see i was never a fan of steroid creams. But I believe that using it for 2-3days will be less harmful.

Since start I started browsing for ways to improve her eczema. I tried soaking her in epsom salt. Give her high dose of Probiotics. But this time round i was so determined to try everything.

Turns out that the high dose of lacto gg from the start was not a very good choice. I read somewhere that it's better to start off in small doses for the body to adapt before moving on to higher dosage gradually. Before the 2nd allergy flare up it was showing improvement but then after the flare ups we were back to square one.

I tried a few things but during my absence from work I noticed that even with all the recommended supplements and her skin even under constant Moisturizing is still so dry and flaky and it didn't show any improvement at all. Something must be wrong from the inside. So i watched her diet and decided to take out soy milk from her diet and watch and see. I searched for the milk replacement and decided to try on rice milk or air tajin in Indonesian.

Alhamdulillah several days after that it wss showing tremendous improvement. I believe in the leaky gut theory which i believe it is better to heal her insides first before the skin could get better.

So in short what worked for her 2nd allergy management is:
1. Take supplements which boosts her immune system. I bought the oceankids supplement since it was no gelatine. And contains zinc and echinachea.
2. Take omega 3 supplements or give salmon once in a while to boost regeneration process
3. Take Probiotic. She took 100mil dosage per day for a few weeks. Followed with 1 bil dosage etc til mb one day she can handle the 20bil dosage.
4. Take high dose of vit C. For her it's max 500mg a day.
5. Take virgin olive oil. Here it's sold as Oliva forte in guardian or Watson's. 60ml for $89. Expensive but worth a try. Some articles said that virgin coconut oil helps too. If i was in Indonesia I'd go with virgin coconut oil since it surely will be cheaper.
Moisturizing wise I bought:
1. Maya severe eczema cream for worst conditions and Maya eczema cream for normal conditions.
2. For her cracked skin I used the Maya skin healing cream that contains turmeric which is really good for anti inflammation and anti biotic.
3. Moogoo Soothing Skin Cream. THIS cream is good for skin that needs moisture for long hours. Plus it helps your skin to fix the top layer of the skin which most eczema sufferers are having problems with. I usually only use it at night. Cos Asha always said the cream stings at the beginning. So I only apply after she is asleep.

When the Health Champion shop is out of stock on Maya products I used other creams which contains no fragrance and no parabens at the very least.

Alternatives:
1. For flare up skin i used physiogel AI cream which you can only get in hospital pharmacy
2. Under control eczema skin i used physiogel cream which you can get just anywhere
3. Cetaphil cream for extra dry skin
4. Aveeno baby eczema cream
5.Neosporin eczema cream
(the last two items can only be bought from US ol shop. I usually buy from iherb.com.  Some ols in Singapore has it but i forgot the names)
6. Cetaphil/physiogel lotion for other parts which has no eczema

That's about it I guess. Combinations of a good diet and extra knowledge of what can be done to resolve the problem naturally is a must. I actually don't want her to grow up with some food total restrictions. I am determined to introduce her allergens again as she got older bit by bit. But for now I want to let her digestive system to heal and mature first.

One more thing, i know all mothers love to see their kids eat more. But it is said that in order for the gut to heal faster don't over burden it with too much job a.k.a don't overeat. Makes sense. Explains why Bram's eczema usually subsides during Ramadhan. So I do not force her to eat nowadays.

I also noticed that since then she has been getting more sleep which is good. Means her body is repairing itself more.

In the end all the efforts are meaningless without prayers. I prayed day and night for Allah to lessen her pain, relieve her from her eczema and give me strength throughout. The knowledge above is only possible because Allah guides me and the strength Allah lent me.

About Allergies

Last week, approximately on Tuesday her legs are suddenly full of red bumps. Signs of allergy. My kids get small allergies alot. It usually comes out and once we stop the allergens it will jz disappear.

But until thursday it's still spreading. On friday it spread to her face. And I thought oh well it should subside soon. On saturday it was worse. Half of her face was swollen. She couldn't open one eye. I panicked. We were in Batam, I was sick too and didn't know where to go. I only brought zyrtec with me.

So I went to local pd. I suspected he doesn't tend to kids with eczema problems often.

This is my first time turning to steroids. I didn't want to use it but it was really bad and sudden I was scared it would spread elsewhere.

One of the few things that made the flares worse was the heat in Batam and the dusty air. It made it all really bad. Her face becomes more itchy when we went out of the air conditioned room. Plus I stopped all her dairy products temporarily. Especially her cow milk. Yogurt is still fine, cheese as well..

Now back in Singapore. First thing I did on Monday morning was...I took her to her usual Pd. She gave me the same type of steroid but made by original manufacturer in FRance, cream for the face, lotion for legs. She never gives steroids to my kids, ever. Just this once. She told me no more than 5 days. I used the steroid from the Indo pd for 2 days already so I can only use the new one for another 3 days. She gave me physiogel AI cream as well. The super expensive cream which apparently works even for Rana last time round. For antihistamine she told me to give 2 diff types. Aerius for morning and Zyrtec for night.

Alhamdulillah she looks better now. Plus today Allah gives me a cool wonderful weather to help her heal her eczema.

I did ask the PD abt the trigger cause I myself have no clue what it was. I suspected it was the chicken seaweed that we bought. She said it could be the additives. I don't think it's MsG. There must be another stronger additives inside it. Or maybe a preserve additive.

As far as I know, Asha is sensitive to shellfishes. But now I realize I must be cautious when buying frozen foods as well. And any other things with additives. This one when I looked it up was a product of China. So never ever buy anything from China!

I didn't enjoy my holiday in Batam. Even though I enjoyed the hotel. But left me with footnotes and lessons learned for next trips.

Rana 17months, Asha 4yrs 4 months

Asha

She's in K1 now. She's learning spelling, writing and spelling in school. Arabic and English. Reading... We'll get there eventually. Speaks mostly in English. With some mixed bahasa.

She enjoys outdoor playing more nowadays. Lesser ipads. She gets along better with her sis. She loves apples and watermelons.

She still nags for attention and whines. Still hard to wake up and get ready for school. Still listens more to the teacers compared to us. She is now 105cm and 18kg.

Aura

Rana is active. Likes to wrestle. Loves hanging around with people. She eats whatever her sis eats.

She speaks randomly for words. But ibu is very difficult hahahaha. She is about 10kg now. She walks everywhere run everywhere and so lovable.

She still sleeps early and wakes up early. Still allergic to cow formula. She is small in stature big in energy. She's a very expressive girl. Her biggest milestone is her increasing vocabs, and she can tell when she wants to go poo poo. Her frequent word is "mau mau".

Asha 4yo

She is officiallly 4yo!!

Her milestones:
- she is growing up. Now it is easier to reason out with her. We still fight occasionally but not that bad. Now she is only whiny if she's hungry or sleepy
- able AND willing to eat on her own. Using spoon and fork. Well sometimes she's just lazy but she is willing now
- shows interest in books and writing and spelling. During holiday she writes and draws evrywhere. Including my walls.
- she slowly learns to spell and can memorize words. She can imitate writing too
- attention span is long enough to watch a 90mins movie on movie cinema.

I wish she grows up well but I sure will miss the lil Asha :')

Rana One Year Old (+1month)

The thing is.. I am just too busy. I am sorry but I really was too tired to post anything. Until...I installed blogger on my android (like doh where hv I been?)

Rana's milestones are:
1. Kept on babbling. She's very communicative as in she is talking with body language that is so clear she could literally speak it. But no new words yet, so far just ayah,teteh. No ibu people!
2. I noticed her soft motoric skills are getting better. She is able to use fingers for anything. Such as teearing up bread, holding up pencils, pick up small objects, peeling off stickers.
3. Walking wise.. She's improving. Now once in a while she'd walk on her own but I can see she's not confident enough yet. She seems to still be more comfortable moving around on 4. Hope to see her more on 2 in the future.
4. Like her sis. She sooo loves music. Just dances to anything with tunes. Oh, and she sings! Babbling of course, musical babbles.
5. She understands NO! So if I say no she will shake her head and stop doing it. Oooooorr.. She will pretend to stop n when I look away she'll do it again.

Her vaccinations:
Just took her MMR vaccine. Scheduled for PCV vaccine next month.

Her food.
She eats more variety of food now. Good thing is some items are slowly eliminated from her food allergy list. She turns out to be able to tolerate fresh milk. And now she's fine with white egg and cheese. But i found other processed food using skimmed milk etc she still can't take.
She still eats normal rice witg veggie and meat. Just that i give up with no salt no sugar. I try to limit her exposure though. And it's hard. Whatever Asha eats she wants.

Another Virus Attack

This is October.

Time for a season change, and the time when viruses breed. The most common virus is FLU! As usual, Asha got it, Rana got it, Ibu got it.

Another sleepless nights, runny noses, coughs, and whiny kids all day long. Trips to the doctor. I guess so being exposed often to viruses is good, in a way.... Builds up their immune system.

Get well soon kids!

The End of My Breastfeeding Journey

Rana is only 11months old. She stopped breastfeeding abruptly when she was 10months old. She was sick, having runny nose, and teething. She started biting on my breast and when I turned her down she started to pull a nursing strike. Which people say might last one to two weeks. And so I waited, and tried, and two weeks went by. And I finally accepted the fact that maybe this is the end of it.

It wasn't easy for me. Cos I breastfed Asha for 2 years full and enjoyed every minute of it. It was bitter for me. Lots of things went on my head. Did I try not hard enough? Did I do every possibility to get her back to the breast? How will our relationship be? Even then I always leave her at home while going out with Asha. I was scared I won't be as close to her as I should be.

But still, in the end, I still need to accept and cope with the fact that she is not wanting the breast anymore. So for the last month I tried pumping as often as possible. But now at 11months, my supply dropped significantly. Bare minimum. I could only provide a bottle of 4oz a day. I'm not sure why, but maybe one of the reason is because I often skip the pumping schedule when we needed to go out. Also these last week I was dead tired cos the toddler and the baby was both sick.

And now I am facing another horror truth. It might really be ending sooner than I expected. Would she be okay without my milk? I am really at dead end...

Of course rather than weeping over my helplessness over the fact I am now preparing myself mentally to accept that fact fully. I'm just praying that til she hits 1 year old I can still pump out that 4oz.

On the other hand, she is just growing perfectly. She's a fast learner, a generous baby, demanding baby at the same time. And even though she doesn't fall asleep sucking on my breast like her sister did, but she still fall asleep on my breast whenever I cuddled her to sleep. And though I truly recommend breastfeeding as much as possible, but even without it I don't need to worry so much.

Even though maybe later other problems will arise, I don't want to blame it to my abrupt end of breastfeeding. Looking at the positive side, I don't need to go through the screaming during wean off times.
I've had my moments, and all good things must come to an end.

I'd love to breastfeed again if Allah gives me another chance :)