So Miss T’s eczema has been pretty good for the last few months and she’s really been looking forward to wearing short sleeves and dresses this summer (a major achievement as any eczema sufferer will tell you). However after two bouts of impetigo needing both oral and topical antibiotics, we now have a new problem with her skin.
When a few little blister like spots started to appear at first I thought it was eczema. Then as they spread I wondered if she had chicken pox again. A quick Google search and I finally realised that these lesions were in fact the virus Molluscum contagiosum and that they often get mistaken for chicken pox as they are blister like and have an umbilicated centre.
So apparently this pesky virus is really common in children. Having chatted with some of my friends I know that their children have had them too. However they only had 3 or 4 spots which resolved pretty quickly, whereas miss T’s started on her arms and have now spread all over her body. She is covered in them, poor little thing. Arms, legs, tummy and just to upset her even further, they’ve now spread to her face too.
Patches of eczema have started to form around the spots so she’s incredibly itchy and frantically scratches the Molluscum. This spreads the virus and has led to some of them getting infected. It’s such a horrible cycle and she is so fed up with it. It nearly broke my heart when she asked me why her friends have such perfect skin but hers is so "horrible".
A trip to the doctor confirmed the diagnosis and we were told that there is NO treatment for Molluscum. We were just given an antibiotic cream for the ones that she has scratched and have become infected. We’ve also been told no swimming in public pools until the infected spots have calmed down (the sea is fine) and she should use her own set of towels at home after baths and showers. Unfortunately children with eczema tend to get lots more spots and they last much longer too. The spots commonly last 6-9 months before resolving but in some cases they have been known to last for years.
I would love to find a way to help clear up Miss T’s skin. There are of course lots of weird and wonderful things suggested online, but the one thing that seemed to get a lot of positive comments is using apple cider vinegar. Some of the advice says to put neat apple cider vinegar directly onto the lesions and then cover with a dressing for 24 hours. However I’m pretty sure Miss T would scream the house down if I tried that. So instead I’ve started adding 2 cupfuls of cider vinegar to a daily shallow bath. For the first week I really think this was helping as the lesions started to get crusty and dry up. But we were getting through a LOT of cider vinegar! So we stopped for a week and the Molluscum came back with a vengeance. So she's back in her eczema PJs to stop her scratching, and I'm off to buy shares in apple cider vinegar to see if we can get it under control. It's got to be worth a try. I’ll keep you posted!
Have you or your child suffered from Molluscum? Did you find anything that helped? Any ideas gratefully received!
3 comments
My 15-year-old son has suffered from eczema for years. We have tried numerous creams and prescription steroid creams. Foderma eczema serum surprised me! My son has used this serum for 2 weeks and some spots have almost disappeared. He did say that the spots aren’t really itchy too. The cream is thin, lotion-like so it’s easy to rub in and has a slight medicated smell.
My daughter had this when she started school i noticed afew months later little bumps on her face and hands .I noticed one of the kids she played with had them on their hands ,so she had got it from them it was,very upsetting to see as it was on her cheeks i was back and to from the doctors and dermatologist but its gone from her face and hands .She didnt go swimming for 4 months because of it ..She suffers from folliculitis off,and on as hydromol ointment can block her pores but works the best for her very very dry skin and sever eczema
Our derm suggested cutting (curette) but each molluscum bump has to be done individually and my four children had molluscum on their face, stomach, inside legs, all over really. It would have been a terrible thing to have put them through. Our GP also suggested we try Mollenol. She told us it was a specialist Australian product and the only Australian TGA listed lotion for treating molluscum. The TGA is like the US FDA. We ordered it online. Mollenol worked well because we could apply it over clusters of molluscum bumps and treat individual larger lesions. I ended up having to use it myself because I caught molluscum on my head under hair. The lotion was easy to apply there and couldn’t be seen. We still have a bottle in the cupboard as occasionally my oldest boy breaks out with eczema and what looks like molluscum bumps. Molluscum seems to hang around for longer than doctors say.
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