Newspaper feature articles

The Parent's Guide: September 2001

EDWARD'S STORY
The following story was reported in Parent's Guide Issue Sept 2001 p.30

Julian Pottage is from Tadley, in Hampshire & has a two year old son named Edward. This is Edward's story as told by his father.

'Edward's eczema developed when he was six months old. Initially his face was covered in a red rash which watered as it became infected. The rash later appeared on his back and knees. Eczema, hayfever and asthma are in my family and I still sometimes get mild eczema and hayfever.

Edward was very itchy. I was a nervous wreck because I couldn't take my eyes off him in case he started itching his face, making it worse. He also slept very badly. I used to cuddle him all night when his eczema was bad because if I put him down he would start scratching and wake up.

Luckily, our GP told me right away that it was eczema and prescribed him a course of antibiotics as it was infected. On subsequent visits to him I was given hydrocortisone cream, Oilatum and Diprobase. I was also given Fenegan, an antihistamine to help him sleep, but as it said on the bottle not to give to children under two years and he was only eight months old, I didn't like to use it. I tried the hydrocortisone cream on his face for one week. It didn't make much difference and as it is not advisable to use a steroid cream long term I stopped.

Bathing his face with Oilatum did stop the eczema getting infected. Our GP told me to apply the Diprobase liberally all day long to stop him damaging his skin when he scratched, so I did.

I was absolutely devastated by the news that my son had eczema. His flared up suddenly and from then on everyone who saw my once beautiful, little baby said 'poor little thing'. Worse still, some people would move away from us, worrying that he might be contagious! I knew nothing about eczema and felt very depressed and isolated. Everyone else seemed to have such beautiful, healthy babies and my baby looked just awful.

Someone did eventually tell me that eczema could be caused by a food allergy. To make things more complicated, Edward was also reacting to any artificial additives in food, such as common preservatives and flavouring. A lot of so-called 'healthy' cereals today contain malt flavouring to which he is highly allergic.

Nine months after his eczema first flared up, I came upon what triggered it - dairy products, red fruit, orange juice and cocoa, as well as any artificial additives.

I discovered M-Folia at this point. He still had bad eczema on his face, so I decided to try the M-Folia instead of Diprobase, which is a chemical-based moisturiser. Edward's eczema cleared up overnight. He had actually been allergic all along to the chemical moisturiser that the GP had given us. I used M-Folia bath oil and Edward at once slept beautifully through the night at last.

Edward's skin is reasonably clear now as long as he does not eat anything that he is allergic to. However, he does continue to have dry, itchy skin that irritates him making him want to scratch all the time. I don't know what we would do without his M-Folia products. The bath oil really soothes his irritated skin and makes it lovely, smooth and supple - like it should be. It is so difficult nowadays to find a truly 'natural' product. Products only have to be called natural! Edward sleeps much more soundly when he has his M-Folia bath - and so do we!'