“I felt so guilty - it’s hard... I can’t leave him even for a second..." the NZ mum reveals.
When Bridget Ssaw her then four-month-old son, Sebastián’s baby soft skin suddenly turn bright red on his left cheek and arm, she knew something wasn’t right.
“People kept telling me it was a hormone rash, but I knew it was something different,” the 40-year-old mum tells Kidspot.
“It just got redder and redder. It became so bad that it looked like someone had taken a razor blade to his skin... it was just raw.”
Her baby boy was diagnosed with eczema, which, back then, seemed like a minor condition.
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“I thought, ‘We can deal with that - we’ll put some cream on it and it’ll go away’,” she says.
“I didn’t realise how much of a journey it was going to be…”
In the months that followed, Bridget, who lives in Tauranga on New Zealand’s North Island, tried countless ointments, topical steroids and creams, many of which didn’t give her son a second of relief from the painful condition that covers the left side of his arm and cheek.
Through consultations with medical practitioners and a naturopath, as well as closely monitoring his diet, Bridget has discovered her 16-month-old son cannot tolerate lactose, sunflower oil, bananas, citrus fruits, berries, avocados and eggs, among many other things.
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“We found that the formula he was on for his dairy intolerance actually has sunflower oil in it, so when we took him off that, his eczema started to calm down,” she explains.
“We’ve also had to remove any packet food from his diet, even things like rice crackers, because they have oils and preservatives, which make it worse. He ate banana once and it made his skin inflamed and weeping the very next day, so he’s never had one again.”
To prevent him from scratching his arm, Sebastián has to wear long sleeves - something Bridget is incredibly diligent with.
But one day, when she least expected it, the mum-of-two was painfully reminded how fragile her toddler’s skin really is.
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“I was changing his nappy and he was sitting on the floor without a top on when I turned around to a table to get one of his creams,” she clearly remembers.
“A few seconds later I went back to him and there was blood everywhere, all down his arm and on the floor. There were indented marks where he’d scratched, almost like a cat had done it.
“I felt so guilty. It’s hard. I can’t leave him even for a second when he’s getting changed. He’s just a kid who wants to run around and play, and he can’t do that unless he’s covered up.”
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Each night, Bridget mixes apple cider vinegar and epsom salts into Sebastián’s bath to calm his skin down, which becomes more inflamed as the day goes on.
Three times a day, the devoted mum will also lather her son’s skin in three different creams.
She also often uses medical-grade honey when the skin gets raw, covering his arm in the honey, then wrapping it with gauze and tubular bandages.
“That has been amazing for him, it has healed him overnight sometimes.”
He also sleeps with baby socks on his hands to prevent his skin being scratched overnight.
“I just feel so sorry for him, to be itchy all the time must be so hard.”
One of the best things, she says, has been giving her son clover ferments three times a day to heal his gut.
Recently, Sebastián has also been treated by a chiropractor, which Bridget believes has also helped her toddler’s left arm appear in the best condition than it ever has been.
“It’s still very dry but it’s not red and raw like it once was.”
While she is too afraid to be optimistic in curing Sebastián’s eczema, Bridget remains hopeful that one day, he can be a normal little boy.
“I just hope he can run around with a T-shirt on in the sun without having to worry that he’ll bleed from it.”
Melody Livingstone, CEO of Australian natural skin care brand, MooGoo, has a number of tips to help calm eczema symptoms.