At treasure Coast Community Acupuncture we often see very young children with classic eczema on the knees, elbows, chest and face. It amazes us how many doctors the parents have been to and how little progress they have made. Infant eczema has to do with programming the immune system of the child. It also has to do with gut flora but do not be fooled, one cannot change the gut flora easily with over the counter supplementation. Probiotics just do not work like that because one must also simultaneously change the environment the gut flora lives in and that is the intestinal tract. Actually changes in the intestinal tract do more than probiotics. The one probiotic that is useful in eczema is bifidus longus. To change the health status of the intestinal tract one must vary the infants diet either through breast milk or solid food. There are some great Chinese herbal formulas for eczema that can be given to the mother or the child. There are great topicals commercially available like Gardeners Dream Cream which work for itching. We also instruct the parent on dry skin brushing and then there is a little machine we sell that was developed in Japan to treat skin diseases by spraying hypochloric water on the skin which the skin loves. For adults we also teach them to use moxibustion or simple infra red on themselves The process behind eczema is simple, there is so much inflammation in the skin that it blocks circulation of blood to the skin via the capillaries so the skin breaks down. So to relieve eczema we must restore proper circulation of the blood. Children will eventually outgrow childhood eczema only to have it return when they are in their later stages of life. Until then the parent is challenged to give their child relief.
