A new life in France - goodbye to eczema Ian and I have two children, Elizabeth is 5 and Hugh is 3. We have recently
moved to France to start a completely different life - slower pace and
more quality time with the children. For reasons that we do not understand
- our children's eczema has virtually disappeared.
Elizabeth developed eczema at six months old and it steadily became
worse. When she was 18 months old, frustrated with the support from my
GP, I attended a Good Housekeeping Magazine seminar about Eczema and wet
wrapping. There I listened to representatives from the National Eczema
Society and Guy's Hospital who demonstrated the wet wrapping technique.
I was sold on the idea and asked my chemist to get hold of Tubifast bandages
for me.
After one night of wet wraps it became apparent that this would revolutionize
our lives - it was in the heat of the summer and wet wraps solve a number
of problems:
- the creams were absorbed much more efficiently
- the wet bandages helped to cool down Elizabeth's burning and irritated
skin
- the bandages stopped her from getting to the skin to scratch
- the sheets were still clean from cream and blood in the morning.
When Hugh was a baby he was clear from eczema on his first birthday
and I thought that we had struck it lucky with our second child, however
at the age of 15 months, he developed a virus on holiday and eczema flared
all over his body, just like Elizabeth. It followed exactly the same path
and he, too required wet wrapping.
Like everyone else with eczema, my children suffered more a some times
than at others - my husband, Ian also suffers (he was in Guy's Hospital
when he was a child having clay bandages). But we found that everyone's
eczema flared up together - we tried to locate the problem - was it pollen?,
was it diet? we kept food diaries, we visited specialists, the children
had allergy tests, we visited homeopaths, we tried every suggestion that
seem to be forthcoming from relations, friends, how many times had we
heard the story "My daughter/sister/nephew/uncle tried this and it completely
cured the eczema" I know that people are trying to help but it is really
frustrating when you try one thing after another and nothing works.
Just before Elizabeth was three, she became very poorly indeed - she
had terrible eczema and was also very ill. On the night before her birthday,
I recognised that she had developed Eczema Herpeticum and I remembered
the warnings from the seminar that I attended when she was 18 months old.
I took her to hospital and it was clear that she was very seriously ill,
the sores had covered her head and neck and were now appearing on her
arms and legs. We had a very painful and distressing time whilst the drip
was inserted into her arm and she was watched very carefully for 48 hours
by which time she was visibly better. The herpeticum has returned on a
number of occasions, but I am much more aware now and it can be treated
orally if we catch it quick enough.
During this time, I was trying to work and manage my family. Although
I had excellent child care, I felt that there was no substitute for myself
and decided to give up work. This big change for me and the prospect of
Elizabeth starting school in the UK, gave us the courage to seek a life
where Ian could also spend more time with the children - he was very busy
as a self employed IT consultant.
After a holiday in France, we decided that we should look at moving
to France to give the children a chance to be bilingual, as well as being
a tighter family unit. The children were at the perfect age - both preschool,
so with hardly time to draw breath we put our house on the market and
sold within 24 hours and moved us and our furniture to a rented house
in North Brittany. We thought that we would try to find a house with outbuildings
that we could use to create gites or country cottages, so that the income
from renting these out would provide our living.
Within a week of moving we found the perfect house in the same village
as our rented house. We put in an offer that was accepted and the children
started at the village school the next day. Life was tough to begin with
- the children did find it difficult and didn't quite understand that
everyone spoke a different language. But the key thing was that the eczema
was getting better - day by day it slowly improved - it could not have
been stress related, as life was very different and very demanding. Perhaps
it was that the rented house was all very clean with no carpets (although
we had replaced most of ours in England with hard floors) and all the
furniture was new. As our move to our permanent house drew nearer and
the children were almost clear of eczema, we both wondered what would
happen.
We moved in and the eczema has remained at bay - occasionally we get
a few little itches, but just nothing on the scale of how it was in England.
Within a month, I had thrown out all the wet wraps and the children had
worn pyjamas for the first time in their lives rather than cotton sleepsuits
with mittens built in. This meant that at the age of 5, Elizabeth was
able to go to bed without wearing a nappy - she feels so grown up, she
was always very self-conscious of this when we had visitors.
We still have no idea why the eczema stopped, so many things have changed,
pollution, water, diet, school etc. Life is still quite stressful - we
have created three beautiful gites (holiday cottages) in six months, which
has been really hard work for us all. Ian and I have been working around
the clock and the children have not had much of our attention. But now
the gites are finished and we are having some lovely holiday guests -
often with children for Elizabeth and Hugh to play with. An advantage
for them is that we have 4 acres of grounds where we have created a massive
play area for all the families on holiday, but which our children can
use, too. We are spending much more time together as a family and this
may be one of the reasons the eczema has subsided. The way of life in
France is very relaxed and geared towards families. For us it is so satisfying
to give people happy holidays as our job, and the children enjoy speaking
English to our guests and French to their friends at school.
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