Readers offer to help eczema boy (Report by Ms. Lea Wee)

The following report by Ms. Lea Wee is from Mind Your Body of the Straits Times dated 20th January 2011, Thu.
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HL 123's Comments: I am surprised that no readers in the report below mentioned the importance of having healthy diet and food, abstaining from almost all processed food in curing eczema. Please see my post in this blog “Benefits of healthy plant-based diet (based on my personal experience)”.

Readers offer to help eczema boy

From taking evening primrose oil and customising your shirt, to swimming in the sea and shaving your head. These were some of the solutions that at least 20 readers sent to MYB after reading about the eczema of Madam Diana Ng's son.

Her struggle with her son's eczema was featured in last week's issue of Mind Your Body ('Help, my kid's itching all over', Jan 13).

The five-year-old has rashes all over his body, including his scalp. He sleeps only 21/2 hours every night because of the itch and often scratches his sores till they bleed.

Readers, mostly mothers whose kids had eczema, asked MYB to forward their e-mail to Madam Ng as they were eager to share their success stories with her.

One mother said evening primrose oil cured her son of his eczema soon after he turned two. He had suffered from it since he was four months old.

Another mother, Mrs Chia Hsin-Lin, sealed the sleeves of her son's shirt so that he could not scratch himself at night. She could also apply medicine to the rashes without having to worry that it would end up in his eyes or mouth.

She enthused: 'I can show her my son's old garment.'

To keep her son cool, one mother said she would shave her son's head every now and then. Heat is a known trigger of eczema.

One mother claimed a cream from Norway cured her kids of eczema.

She said: 'I can let Madam Ng try my remaining cream. If it works, I can help her order it.'

A few readers who had eczema themselves also wanted to share tips with Madam Ng.

One such reader, Ben, believes salt water soothes the itch and encourages wound healing.
He said: 'I used to have bad sores, but once I went swimming in the sea, they healed quickly.'

In the article, Madam Ng said she might buy a $1,600 machine that converts tap water into alkaline water for drinking, in the hope of making her son's eczema better.

One reader said he was willing to lend her the machine while another offered to buy the machine for her at a discounted rate, something which he usually did 'for friends only', he wrote.

Readers even had their own theories about what triggers eczema.

One believed that childhood eczema is a delayed complication of vaccinations which 'damage the immune system of a child while it is still very immature'. He reasoned that this is why the body cannot handle outside triggers so well.

The readers' overwhelming response took Madam Ng by surprise.

She said: 'There are some very caring people out there.'

She plans to reply to the e-mail messages and is considering sewing up the sleeves of her son's shirt as suggested by Mrs Chia.

Lea Wee