Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Ding dong, the rash in GONE!!!

Hooray, hooray, hooray!  That stupid rash is finally cleared up, and I can officially stop obsessing over the state of my daughter's behind.  I VERY much appreciate everyone's words of encouragement and advice, that stupid thing was driving me crazy!  The whole saga in case anyone else experiences the same thing...

E's rash popped up on Mother's Day, when she was only one week old.  Disposable wipes made it worse, and she screamed bloody murder when we would use them, so we switched to cloth, using a solution of water, mineral oil, and her bodywash.  This helped a lot, but a week later, it was still there, and at her 2 week appointment we asked the dr about it- he said it was fungal (yeast) and had us get an over the counter anti fungal (jock itch cream) and Desitin.  Did not help, so he wrote us our first prescription anti fungal (Econazol Nitrate Cream) and a prescription for a cream that worked a lot like Desitin (Cholestyramine).  This also helped, but there were still little bumps that wouldn't go away, and occasionally it would still flare up.  We were giving her lots of naked time, we had tried different diapers, and even some baby powder- no help.  I was worried the cloth wipes were reinfecting her, since yeast can be very hard to kill, so I started adding Grapfruit Seed Extract (GSE) when I washed her wipes, which kills the yeast and the spores.  Since the rash was STILL not gone, I called the dr and he prescribed her a second anti fungal (Nystatin and Triamcinolone Acetonide).

We had her two month appointment a few days later, and the rash was as bad as it had ever been.   At this point, the dr said he thought she had both a yeast fungal infection AND a bacterial infection, and prescribed an anti bacterial (Bactroban).  He wanted us to apply the Nystatin twice a day and the Bactroban twice a day, with Desitin in between.  Three days later the bumps were clearing up but the redness was still bad, so I went back to the Econazol for the yeast.

In addition, I did a lot of research on killing bacteria and found out it's very contagious, so anything E's behind came in contact with got washed with a half cup of vinegar, to kill the bacteria, then washed again with detergent, with an extra rinse with the GSE to kill the yeast.  I also added vinegar and GSE to her wipe solution.

I'm going to give it probably another week of applying the medicine and continuing my obsessive washing routine, and then we'll transition to our waiting cloth diapers (yay!).  I hope E never has diaper rash again, but good heavens, I've got a whole pharmacy in my medicine cabinet to treat the darn thing if she does.
 

3 comments:

  1. Yay!! So glad it is officially gone. :-) Wishing your family a wonderful holiday!!

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  2. SOOO happy it's finally gone and your little peanut doesn't have to suffer through that anymore. When I was changing my little guy's diaper the other day, it looked a little red in that area and it made me think of you & E...wondered how she was doing. Thought I might need to re-read this post on how you treated it, but so far I think he was just hot ; )

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  3. Oh my goodness! What a pain in the behind--literally!

    Glad it's cleared up! :)

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