About Eczema

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. David Hill, and today, we're going to be talking about eczema. Eczema is an allergy, just like the allergy that might affect your nose or eyes or even the allergy in the lungs that we cause...that we call asthma. The difference is eczema is an allergy of the skin. Now, eczema starts and ends with dryness. The dryness in the skin allows an allergic reaction to occur. You start itching and rubbing where the bumps and the scale form, and that just makes everything worse. We call it an itch-scratch cycle. You have to break that cycle if you're going to stop eczema. Eczema is very common in children. We tend to see it as young as the first couple of weeks of life, often on the face around the forehead, the sides of the face, and the chin, also on the chest. This can be very difficult to distinguish from neonatal acne, but it tends to look a little different to trained eye. There are no blackheads or whiteheads or pimples, for example, with eczema. It's very common in children. You tend to notice it on the fronts of the arms and the backs of the legs. But it can occur anywhere on the belly, the back, the face, the buttocks. In the winter, you'll see it frequently on children's cheeks where the air dries the cheeks out and makes them itch and burn. You'll want to use some sort of moisturizing cream as the front line for eczema, but we also use creams that include steroids like over the counter hydrocortisone or prescription creams that include stronger steroids. There are also prescription medications like Elidel and Protopic that impact the immune system in the skin and even systemic allergy medicines like Benadryl, Zyrtec, or Claritin can be used. Talking all about eczema, I'm Dr. David Hill."