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Eczema Tips Guest Interview

Easy to Use Wet Wrapping to Keep Child’s Skin Hydrated

Tubifast Garment (pic taken from www.molnlycke.com)

MarcieMom learnt online that wet wrapping is a method used to keep moisturizer/emollient on the child’s skin, particularly for children who has severe eczema and requires their skin to be kept hydrated. MarcieMom started looking for easy to use wet wrapping in Singapore and found that Tubifast Garments, a product of Mölnlycke Health Care Limited, is available in Mount Elizabeth Hospital (Update 2019: The common Tubifast bandage sizes are also available at Guardian pharmacy). As some parents are new to Tubifast, MarcieMom contacted Mölnlycke Health Care to find out more about their products and how to use them.

Marcie Mom: I read from your website that Tubifast is a 2-way stretch technology, meaning it can stretch horizontally as well as vertically. It comes in ‘tube’, therefore removing the need to bandage and secure with tapes or pins. It is recommended on your site to be worn by children under their clothes, including pajamas. I haven’t seen the actual product, but I imagined it to be like wearing thermal wear which isn’t very appealing and brings to mind trapping heat and scratchy. From your experience, how did the children with eczema describe wearing Tubifast?

Mölnlycke Health Care: Tubifast is made of SoftSeam technology which helps to reduce irritation of sensitive skin. The material of Tubifast is very soft and comfortable, yet not very thick. It is totally different from thermal wear. For Eczema patient, Tubifast is worn after application of emollient (either wet wrapping or patch wrapping). Feedback from children are always very comfortable and it really eases their itchiness and prevents them from scratching.

Marcie Mom: It is written on your website to first apply Epaderm (an emollient brand under Mölnlycke), followed by wearing Tubifast Garment/bandage. Does a certain type of emollient go better with Tubifast? And is there a preference for lotion or cream when using with Tubifast?

Mölnlycke Health Care: No. Any type of emollient that is meant for ezema can be used with tubifast.

Marcie Mom: For wet wrapping, it is stated on your website to wear one damp layer of Tubifast, over the moisturizer, followed by another dry layer. This sounds really warm to me, yet I understand that the damp layer can cool and soothe the skin. How does this work? And how long can the child’s skin be kept cool?

Mölnlycke Health Care: Wet wrapping helps to keep skin hydrated and moist, hence reduces inflammation. It also helps to ease the itch and scratch cycle for ezema patients by giving a cooling sensation to the skin that prevents children from further scratching and causing potential injury. You can constantly keep the damp layer moist by spraying water every few hours (depending on the environment / temperature especially in the air-condition room).

Marcie Mom: I’m thinking through some practical questions parents may have, such as (i) how many hours should my child wear Tubifast for it to be effective? (ii) how often should I wash Tubifast? (iii) how do I wash Tubifast, can it be steamed? (iv) will my child get crinkled skin from osmosis? (v) will my child catch a cold like wearing wet clothes? (vi) can my child continue to sleep in air-conditioned room?

Mölnlycke Health Care: (i) Usually Tubifast wet-wrapping is worn during night time. However, please consult a dermatologist who specializes in treating atopic ezema. (ii) No fixed frequency for washing. As and when deem required. (iii) Hand wash tubifast and air-dry it. (iv) So far we have not received such feedback but please consult your dermatologist for further information (v) Tubifast wet-wrapping is to be worn under supervision of a healthcare professional (vi) Please consult your healthcare professional.

Marcie Mom: Thanks, I think we’ve covered many questions that will come to parents’ mind. Should there be more questions, I’ll let you know and update in the comments. p.s. to readers of eczemablues.com, I asked for this interview as I’m curious why wet wrapping is seldom seen in Singapore. I did not receive any money from Mölnlycke Health Care for this interview.

6 replies on “Easy to Use Wet Wrapping to Keep Child’s Skin Hydrated”

I did the wet wrap too. If you are staying in the eastern part of Sgp, you can buy them off the shelf @ CGH pharmacy.

Dr Jennifer Shu’s Wet Wrapping technique on healthychildren.org:
“The basic technique is as follows:
The patient soaks in a bath with bath oil.
After bathing, pat the skin partially dry with a towel.
Apply moisturizer and eczema medication (eg, steroid crème, ointment) to rash areas.
Moisten bandages (eg, tubular bandage, wrap gauze bandage, athletic sock) by soaking them in water or applying moisturizer. When treating an infant or a very young child, moistened pajamas may be used instead of wet wraps. Special care must be taken to prevent these children from becoming chilled.
Wrap the wet bandages on the area to be treated. Wet bandages can be used on any area of the body that the patient will tolerate, including the face.
Lock in moisture by applying dry bandages over the wet ones.
The bandages should be left overnight but for no longer than 24 hours.”

Hi Jenny,

“Tubifast Garment is available at Mount Elizabeth Hospital Pharmacy only.

Tubifast and Tubifast Garment are widely used by dermatologists who specialize in treating ezema. Most of them are in Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, Kandang Kerbau Women’s and Children’s Hospital and National Skin Centre.”

Above is what the Singapore product manager told me when I interviewed her for this post.

So sorry to hear of bad scratching.. Marcie is only 2.5 year old now, so I’m not familiar with how to control the scratch for 12 year old. Do you want to join my support group? If yes, can you fill in the contact form and then I’ll put you in the group mail. Active sharing now, hopefully someone can offer some suggestion?

http://eczemablues.com/contact-me/

Take care,
Mei

hi, my elder daughter had atopic ezema during April this year…hospitalised for 5days to do the wet wrap every two hourly. Currently, with occastionally flare up, I still need to wrap her. Futhermore, since discharged, she has been wearing gloves to sleep. In fact, it was her face that’s worry me. It flare up pretty badly now, that when I masked her face, she still scratched and the mask is stained with blood..my heart was like slice by knife. As a matter of fact, I need to buy another pair of gloves, coz of daily washing, it was torn. i need to wash daliy coz she scratched at night and thus its pretty dirty at the finger tips. I would like to know where to buy them beside Mount E. By the way, my gal is 12 years old.

Thanks for sharing on your wet wrap experience! It’s not so common in Singapore so I’m sure parents here will welcome your insight! Take care, xoxo

Wet wraps saved us when Tristan’s skin was at it’s worse. It was a great emergency treatment. It’s not good for long term, but it works wonders short term. Tubifast makes it really easy to wet wrap, but any cotton clothing works well too. We would give our son a 10 min bath, slather him with cream, wet a pajama top and bottom and socks for hands and feet – cover our son with them, then cover with a dry layer of the same clothing. Works amazingly well!

Your sharing will help others!