Eczema herpeticum – this is a term that I keep hearing of moms in forums sharing that their children have repeated eczema herpeticum during the year and also of delayed diagnosis where it’s not identified as herpeticum promptly.
If you search eczema herpeticum’s definition – you’ll see it’s often stated as a rare life-threatening complications that results from infections caused by herpes simplex virus type 1 or 2. The virus enters the child’s body through the defective skin (common in eczema children) and attacks multiple organs, including eyes, brain, lung and liver. However, judging from moms’ feedback, it isn’t that rare, so let’s learn more about it!
Is Eczema Herpeticum Dangerous?
Before we get to that, let’s look at how one gets it. Usually the child comes into contact or catches the virus from someone with cold sores. Cold sores is not dangerous and usually it causes blisters around the mouth and is accompanied with fever or flu-like symptoms. Cold sores is most contagious when there are blisters, but can also spread when there’s no blister as the herpes simplex virus can lie dormant in one’s body. The virus can be spread by kissing, sharing utensils, lip balm or generally, coming into contact with the mucus of the infected person.
Now, here’s the DANGER part – for a child with eczema, the herpes simplex virus can enter the skin and sets off a chain of infections, including large scale bacterial skin infection. The symptoms are:
1. 5-12 days after exposure – Rashes with blisters at eczema lesions/skin patches
2. Spreading of the blisters with yellow pus, accompanied with flu, fever and body aches
3. Blisters start to get painful with bleeding, scabbing
4. Widespread at body parts, usually neck, head, upper body with swollen lymph nodes
If left to run its course, the infections may take over body organs, including the eyes. Should the eczema on your child looks different than normal, and starts to blister with pus, it’s recommended to go to the hospital for a prompt diagnosis and treatment.
Diagnosing and Treating Eczema Herpeticum
Diagnosis can be quickly conducted by antibody staining of the pus filled vesticles or a viral culture test. Sometimes, it may be mistaken as small pox or chicken pox, but in any case, an anti-viral drug such as acyclovir or valaciclovir can be administered. For skin with bacterial infections caused by staph, antibiotics is also given to reduce the secondary infection risk.
Be prompt in going to hospital as research shows that the delay in one day increases hospital stay by 11% and one-third of the patients have staph infections, while 3.9% has blood infected and 3.8% needs to stay in intensive care.
As for why moms are sharing that their children gets repeated attacks, it’s because the virus stays in the child’s body and sometimes when there’s a trigger such as fever/flu or stress, it can set off the virus. Some children need to be on daily anti-viral drug which so far, seems to be minimal long-term negative effect as the drug attacks the virus but not the child.
Learn more about eczema and infection from National Eczema Society here.
Update on research in September 2015, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – Certain genetic variants in a gene (iFNGR1) have been studied to increase susceptibility of atopic dermatitis patients to eczema herpeticum.
Update on May 2017 article on Eczema Herpeticum written by MedicalNewsToday.com
A note on Marcie’s experience: When she got chickenpox, she didn’t get the anti-viral drug because her skin wasn’t so bad. When she got Hand-Foot-Mouth-Disease the second time, she was given anti-bacterial antibiotics because her skin looked red and infected.
75 replies on “Eczema Herpeticum – What is it and is it dangerous?”
My 19 month old was diagnosed yesterday with Eczema Herpeticum. Never heard of it before now. I really thought he had hand foot mouth disease. He has had eczema since 6 months old and his right (dominant) hand has always been bad and tends to stay scabby or open sore during flare ups. I knew something wasn’t right when the eczema took on a raised bumpy blister look on his hands and most of the outbreak was in his usual eczema flare up areas. He seemed perfectly normal other than the rash. (He had a high fever two days before but made a quick recovery. The rash appeared within 24 hours of the fever stopping.) Luckily his pediatrician recognized it on the first visit the minute he walked into the room. I am very pleased and blessed to have such a great doctor from what I have heard on these other posts! He has been practicing for at least 10 years and has only seen this infection 3x. My son started anti-virals yesterday so I hope he doesn’t experience any side effects or relapses. My other son who is 7 just developed a cold sore yesterday afternoon so I guess he also has the virus though I am praying he doesn’t develop the infection as he also has a history of eczema.
Thanks for your sharing and I’m so glad for you that your doctor could diagnose it fast. Be very careful about not sharing towels, utensil, and kisses!.. and possibly protect your child’s skin. The more scratched skin, the more likely the virus (if come into contact) can enter. I came across a recent research that there’s genetic variant that makes one who has eczema more likely to have herpeticum. Hopefully, your other son doesn’t have that, big hugs and thanks loads for your sharing, real glad for the early diagnosis.
If your child is born with eczema, DO NOT let anyone kiss him/ her, especially if you see they have a cold sore or blister around their mouth or face. Pediatricians should really warn parents of children with eczema of the danger in contracting eczema herpeticum especially with babies born with eczema.
My son was born with eczema and would constantly scratch. We found out it was eczema when he was about 4 months old. He was put on steroids and Vaseline.
At six months old he contracted HSV1 from someone who had a cold sore. This person had no idea of the danger it posed to our child. He lovingly kissed the baby on the neck and in a few days; the baby had a severe outbreak with oozing blisters around his neck, growing within hours to his face. It was terrible. Luckily our pediatrician sent him to the ER right away. Our baby was hospitalized for 10 days. The doctors were worried the herpes infection had reached his bloodstream, but thankfully the infection did not reach his bloodstream or vital organs.
This baby is now a 3 year old toddler whose eczema has gotten better, but still has herpes outbreaks whenever he has a cold or is in the sun or heat. He is currently recovering from an outbreak that started last week but thankfully no hospital stay. 2 months ago however, he was in the hospital for this issue for 4 days. Going through this experience with our son, we are very keen to anything appearing on his skin and when we see something on his skin that we are not sure it’s a staph infection that can be controlled by antibiotics, we take him right away to the dermatologist.
The danger is that if the herpes outbreak occurs around the face and especially close to the eyes it can cause blindness.
Parents, if you see that your child has some sort of blister or hive or weird rash and are not sure if it’s a staph infection (which eczema children are prone to) please take them to the doctor right away as a herpes outbreak grows really quickly and can reach vital organs. It spreads within minutes. My son is now on vale acyclovir and doctors are considering putting him on a longer term dosage as a preventative.
His dad and I have researched foods that can help prevent outbreaks and we found that lemon balm tea can help prevent outbreaks as well as certain foods.
Here are some links for reference, but always consult your child’s doctor first with any diet or supplement questions!
http://www.sandiegohomeopathy.com/downloads/Lysine_Arginine_Foods.pdf
http://justherpes.com/facts/foods-to-avoid-with-herpes-diet/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/277660-foods-to-eat-that-help-heal-prevent-a-herpes-outbreak/
May your little one be healthy and strong and may you as parents find the strength and guidance you need to help your little one.
Love, Ana
Thanks Ana for sharing, and yes you’re right about checking our child’s skin – we realized too with ours, that we’ve become a bit of an expert. When the rash don’t look the same, it usually isn’t. We had our share of impetigo and shingles + many more probably not diagnosed cos she gets weird rash when someone in her preschool falls sick.
Thanks for taking the time to share!
Mei
I’m glad you have this website. It is comforting to read other people’s stories. My 4 year old daughter was just diagnosed with this. She had cold sores in the past year which were mild and only occurred 2 -3 times a year. She gets eczema in the summer months (we live on the East Coast) and it usually starts around end of May and goes through October. She typically gets the eczema the fingers of her left hand (her dominant hand) and the back of her legs and thighs.
Over the last few weeks we noticed her hands were very raw from the eczema and she was getting blisters. Then a week ago I saw a small patch of tiny bumps in a circular cluster on her leg which I thought was eczema and so I applied a topical eczema cream.
The next day it crusted and looked like the cold sores she gets, but on her skin in a large swath. We have a ongoing prescription of topical Acyclovir that we keep on standby for when she gets her oral cold sores. We applied that and saw our pediatrician. Within a day we saw both our pedi and a dermatologist. Both didn’t seem overly concerned, inspected the blisters on her leg and hands, and prescribed the oral acyclovir and advised us to let it run its course. It seemed to be contained. They also advised us that she could go back to preschool.
After a week her hands still seem sore, her leg is healing but still looks raw and red as it heals. She recently got a bump in her chin, which looks like a large pimple. I’m not sure if this is another sore or a side effect. Possibly impetigo?
We’ve decided to hold her out from preschool until we can get a grasp on what is to come. We are trying to listen and trust our doctors, but also be proactive parents so we can try to contain this. II’d love to know more about how people have been living with this and what has been successful treatment. Are there any specialists that people have seen? It seems like such a rare medical thing. Arming ourselves with as much information as possible is all we can do at this point to help ease our worries.
Thanks for your time,
Sincerely,
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for dropping by! I have a daughter too and she’s got shingles, impetigo, chicken pox, HFMD, countless times of swollen finger bacterial infections from finger biting (so much that my husband is now an expert in draining the pus himself instead of heading to the emergency ward!).
Some thoughts on active management of eczema – perhaps allergy test to see if there’s pollen allergy since she gets eczema during certain months OR could be like my daughter who gets eczema when she’s sweating and out in the hot sun. We carry towels with us to wet and clean off the sweat after outdoor play and then moisturize (if we can’t head back home that is, ow we promptly shower her after she’s out and sweaty). The sweat residue can irritate skin, esp when it’s dried, so maybe take care to keep cool and fresh all the time.
My daughter has eczema on her dominant hand too, and we think it’s contact dermatitis to the coloring pen. Never tested for that but we suspect cos only her dominant hand gets it. Perhaps moisturize her hand so that it acts as a layer of protection against the pen. Or could be friction against the paper when writing. Friction is also a trigger for rash.
Does your child’s rash look like
http://eczemablues.com/2014/07/eczema-news-impetigo-for-eczema-child/
I also use chlorhexidine-based shower on my child twice weekly, same effect as bleach bath, basically is to kill the staph bacteria which is the cause of many infections/complications in eczema kids. It also makes the eczema much harder to heal.
Eczema is not rare, affects 20% of kids. What I think is important though is to see experienced doctors as some can’t identify the complication of eczema, for instance, I diagnosed my kid’s rash as impetigo but 3 other young docs gave 3 different diagnosis before a senior doctor said it’s impetigo. Their diagnosis range from scabies to fungus! Also an experienced doc can recognise sooner than inexperienced ones when the treatment requires change. Esp for steroid cream, if it’s not working, you can’t keep putting more of it due to side effect.
The doctor should be working proactively to identify triggers and pre-empt future flare-up, so I’m totally in agreement that you ought to find a specialist. Esp for girls, (am I sexist?) but untreated eczema with scratching leaves permanent scarring, it’s not pretty.
Take care Kevin and hope I’m of some help,
Mei
Thanks Mei,
I should’ve also clarified that she was “diagnosed” with eczema herpeticum. I use quotations only because it was not the typical outbreak associated with eczema herpeticum. Instead of widespread circles all over the body that spread like wildfire, what she got was small blisters clustered in an area on her leg and fingers. She was on Acyclovir for a few days and when we stopped the liquid a small blister/impetigo appeared on her chin. Everything has been scabbing and looks to be healing. The fingers are difficult because it’s her dominant hand, so it’s impossible trying to convince a 4 year old to stop picking or using her hand. We’ve been using winter gloves to help protect it while it gets better.
We saw a children’s dermatologist yesterday who was very comforting and explained that it could technically be classified as herpeticum, but that it was a very mild case with no complications or fever and we could expect it to run its course. It will likely reoccur, but were told it would likely be less severe. It didn’t seem to cause him any concern. It helped alleviate our worries a lot.
We plan to be more proactive going forward with treating her eczema before it gets bad. We’ve been moisturizing her often, especially after out door play. I’m very curious about the pollen allergy, as the eczema flares do get worse when the pollen index rises.
Anyhow, thanks very much Mei. I’ll look forward to checking in on the blog often and sharing.
Thanks Kevin and so glad to hear that your session with the dermatologist went well. Be careful about sharing towels and keep her clear from anyone with cold sores. I always run like crazy (with my kid of course!) when we see someone with cold sores cos we know she’s at higher risk of getting it. Take care and hear from you soon!
Mei
I got exzema herpeticum two years ago is was spreading rapidly and I went to the doctor about a week later who prescribed me antibiotics and a cream and that cleared it up in about 4 days and just a week ago I started getting the blisters on my face, its much milder and the meters seem to be fading away, shot I go to the doctor anyway or will it go away completely on its own?
Hi Dave,
Better go to the doc. There are quite a few cases of eczema herpeticum recurring that I’ve heard of and sometimes it get worse. Don’t share towels with anyone too.
Take care!
Mei
I think my sister has eczema herpitcum, we have gone to the ER and her doctor they just say is really bad ezcema but that’s all. They send her some antibiotics and has been bad for 8 days. No fever but her skin is really bad. And she won’t stop scratching. How can I convince the doctors to look and see if it’s ezcema herpitcum. Also is this contagious to other ppl living in the house? We have 7 month old baby !!!! :O my sister has had ezcema since she was born but it’s never been this bad.
Hugs and it’s a stressful situation. And yes, it can spread and it’s best to avoid contact with young children as their immunity isn’t strong. For normal people, they may get cold sores but for babies, it can take a more serious form of the infection.
Avoid sharing towels, food, limit contact as it’s a virus. I don’t think it’s airborne..
Hugs,
Mei
Most of the information above relates to small children. My daughter is 19 and was hospitalized for three weeks with eczema herpeticum. She is a severe asthmatic, allergy, and eczema suffer from birth. About 6 months ago we found a hole in her lung, further tests from her pulminologist found that she had aspergillosis (a fungus that can get into asthmatics blood stream; the fungus is everywhere normal lungs just typically don’t react). Her levels were 21%, that means 21% of her blood was this fungus. She was put on a high dose of steroid treatment (the other option would have been chemo if she did not react to this treatment), the treatment had to be for 3 months. After this she went out of state and had a reaction to something and her eczema flared dramatically, this went on for two months. During that time she encounter some road blocks to her college and job plans, resulting in a very stressful situation. She moved home a month ago, after being home for a week she developed flu like symptoms, then the rash started. In three days the rash went from a small spot on her upper arm to her entire face, neck, torso, back, pelvic line, and butt. She was hospitalized immediately and put on anti virals, antibiotics, morphine and percocete for the pain. This treatment went on for three weeks. The rash went into her eyes and caused her eye to close and scab over, there is still concern regarding her eye sight and the scaring that might have occurred. The author of this blog concluded that this was not a rare condition, however, in working with three infectious disease doctors, and two dermatologist who all have been practicing up to 30+ years, only two of them had seen a case of this and not as severe as this one was. 95% of the adults in the US have antibodies for 7 of the herpes strains, this strain is the 8th and most are never exposed to it. There are currently no long term studies on this virus and how it will affect an adult. Anything can set this off if someone has severe atopic dermatitis and the immune system is depleted as my daughters was from the last 6 months.
Her current care now that she is home is 8 medication multiple times a day. The worse part now is that all the nerve endings in her skin are growing back and it has caused her eczema to flare. We have four different doctors that we have to follow up with and she must now work with an immunologist to build her ability to fight illness.
Several posters wanted to know what it looks like; the pox are different from chicken poxs in that they get a dip in them. If a doctor wants to use steroids in the beginning of the virus, question it. This happened to us when my daughter was transferred to another hospital, the admitting doctor decided it had not been diagnosed correctly, even though he himself had not seen it before, and wanted to put her on steroids for “severe eczema” we stopped him and found out later from the infectious disease doctor that it could have made the virus grow even quicker putting her at risk of long term damage to her organs or death.
We are still learning to deal with this and what will come next. I hope this helps give more insight to this virus. The final thing that I would recommend; when the sores start to heal if the case is severe they might actually join together in big scab areas, there are two things that helped my daughter. The first was zinc oxide it helped to soften the scab and kept them from pealing and bleeding. The second was calmoseptine (like really thick calemine lotion) ointment and then wrapping the areas with viscopaste (gauze infused with zinc oxide). If your child is hospitalized ask to work with wound care, they can help bring relief as the skin starts to heal and help you avoid secondary infection.
Thank you so much Diane for your sharing, I’m really encouraged in the sense I can feel you care much about kids (young/older) suffering from eczema herpeticum. It is comments like yours that keep me going in my blog (knowing that people read and care too!) and on my toes (to make sure I get info right).
On its prevalence, found the following articles:
Superimposed viral infection is an uncommon complication of atopic dermatitis. Atopic patients are prone to opportunistic infection because their skin barrier is compromised and their immune response may be suppressed.
Epidemiologic data on eczema herpeticum are scarce; however, there has been an increase in the number of patients treated for the condition in university hospitals in recent years.
http://www.pediatricsconsultant360.com/content/case-point-eczema-herpeticum-uncommon-complication-atopic-dermatitis from University of Virginia
In this article that focused on length of stay for eczema herpeticum kids
January 1, 2001, and March 31, 2010, of 1331 children aged 2 months to 17 years with eczema herpeticum from 42 tertiary care children’s hospitals in the Pediatric Health Information System database.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/6/1161.full
In this article,
There has been little research on the incidence of eczema
herpeticum, but one study from the Department of
Dermatology at the University of Mainz, Germany, found a
sharp rise in incidence in the period from 1969 to 1986 [1].
From 1969 through 1981, 13 cases were registered, whereas
for the years 1982 to 1986, the number of cases was 62. It is
unclear whether the increase in registered cases refl ected
a genuine change in the epidemiology of atopic eczema/
herpes simplex or was due to increased reporting.
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject;jsessionid=FC5BF53A41D750797E5D19C69304D0F3?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0010012&representation=PDF
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3204177
In this recent journal, it’s about 3% of eczema patients
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3773952/
Overall, on the incidence, seems like it’s still considered uncommon but increasing incidence, with the two main predictive factors of whether eczema patients will get herpeticum is
1. Early onset of eczema
2. Total IgE serum level high
I gathered also from people clicking on this article from the web and from talks in forums, it is possibly uncommon but not unheard of – in fact, one eczema patient with repeated episodes have shared her story too, see here for Jenny’s account.
http://eczemablues.com/2013/08/someone-manages-eczema-herpeticum/
Hugs Diane and hope all’s better for your daughter,
Mei
Hi. My son had chicken pox a month ago. My husband has since had shingles. I took my 18 mo daughter to docs. The first doc thought it was chicken pox. I wasn’t convinced as she had a flare up of excema. I took her to out if hours next day when a competent doc told me it was excema herpeticum. I’m getting different stories from docs. One says it’s isolated and the other says my daughter will be susceptible to this ugly virus. My daughter is on acyclovir. Last night I noticed my son getting spots around creases in his knee. I took him to docs this morning and he has the sane thing as his mouth has broken out. Are my two kids going to suffer this? I feel like sucha bad parent. They weren’t near anyone with cold sores only shingles. I’m afraid they will have to suffer this throughout their lives.
Hi Loretta,
So sorry that I just saw your post! Hope your son have not had a repeat of eczema herpeticum. I don’t think there’s a family history for herpeticum but eczema kids are more prone to it and the herpeticum virus (like any other virus) can be spread. How’s your daughter? And dont doubt your own parenting!
Hugs,
Mei
My daughter was just diagnosed today with eczema herpeticum. Im very worried since its herpes. The doctor gave her some antiviral meds but that’s all. He said nothing about being contagious and didn’t explain anything at all. So here i am looking for anything i can read about it online. So thanks!
Hi Jennifer! Sorry to hear of the herpeticum! Definitely no sharing of towels and be careful to give her away from anyone with cold sores, I freak out everytime I see someone on the train with sores cos I do think they spread quite easily, at least from what I’ve heard from other eczema sufferers. Also that it recurs quite often.. hope that doesn’t happy for your daughter, hugs!
Mei
Hi, I am one of the “victim” of eczema herpeticum. I was only diagnosed after I went to see a competent dermatologist. I was on meds for 4 months and was getting better but the symptoms reoccur. 🙁
Sorry to hear that it recur..do careful not to share towel with anyone though, take care!
Mei
Hi carl i just wanted to know how you are getting on now as i got diagnosed last month with eh and have had two bouts of it the 1st was very bad and now im on daily antivirals but very worried as i dont know whats to come 🙁
Hi Sherlina,
I am sorry to hear about your diagnosis.
I was on antivirals meds for quite sometimes too.
And was prescribed with Potassium Permanganate (to use during shower) – This was to treat the eczema and Aqua – to apply after shower (Lotion)
I can see a clear change when I change my lifestyle;
-eat healthier (more vegie/fruits, drink more water)
-exercise more
-clean environment (have my house clean everyday)
I also have my allergy profile done just so I can avoid anything that might trigger reoccurrence.
Thanks so much for your response and help to Shelina, Shelina take care and hope you’d find some answers and help for your herpeticum, hugs!
Found the reply mei. Thank you carl for replying i have been on daily antivirals for a few months now but have noticed a few poping up on my arms randomly while on the antivirals
Glad to hear again from you Shelina and hope that all is under control, hugs!
I am waiting to hear back from the Dr. regarding the culture test we did on my 11 month old daughter. Both my husband and I have HSV 2 and I am so distraught about this thinking I have given this to my daughter. I am not sure how I could have given it to her…I took a bath with her and maybe that was when it happened. My heart is broken…I don’t understand if she will have this for life like my husband and I do, or if it will go away and not be transferred to someone else?
Don’t blame yourself, hugs! I’m not sure if it’s possible to get rid of the virus.. may be more of a case of building a stronger immunity to reduce the chance of it recurring? I only know that my daughter had shingles (very rare for a child of preschooler age) and it happened when someone in her class had HFMD and she was showing signs of coming down with flu.
Hugs!
Mei
My son is suffering from eczema herpeticum, he has boils in his hands and legs. now we are applying on him fucicort oinment, cetaphil moisturizer and omnicef antibiotics. its almost 10 days now, hope he will get well soon.
Hugs! I hope your son will recover too! I’m not sure about the risk of recurring in kids, but do check with the doc if there’s anyway you can minimize that risk, hugs.. understand it’s very tough time to go through this, take care of yourself too!
Hi am late 30,s I have had a topic eczema all my life, but 7 days ago I got these symptoms, phoned albulance to take me to hospital, they were not interested of the pain I was in. So I made my own way to A+E at St Thomas as they have a dedicated Dermatology department. Have been admitted here for 5 days and on the mend. Was prescribed Flucloxacillin 500mg and Valaciclover 500mg.
Hi Shahid,
Thanks for sharing and hope you got better soon! Do also check with the doc if you should take any preventive measures to reduce the chance of recurring, take care,
Mei
Hi all my son too has aso had herpeticum ezcema 3 times in last year and has currently just finished anti viral treatment but thing is he finished treatment yesterday afternoon and by last night it had all flared up again, so telephoned hospital to be told take him to your GP tomorrow, he also suffers with discoid ezcema so his skin is in a terrible state and you cannot use steroid creams whilst on anti viral treatment
Sorry to hear of this Karen! I know that when my daughter had chicken pox, and just a month ago Shingles!, her eczema got worse. We’re fortunate to survive chickenpox without any med, not that I didn’t want to, but wasn’t aware of the risk then.
Have a good weekend, take care,
Mei
Thanks for the blog. I never know there is this kind of ezcema until reading this. My girl just had chickenpox last week, she still in recovering period (11 days now), the pox has stopped and but still some itchy pox to heal up.
My husband just got coldsore but didnt touch her at all. We went to see pharmacist and said this was chickenpox. Sometimes it is so hard to judge, but I do hope it WAS chickenpox !
Hi Pei! Thanks for dropping by my blog, and to play safe, remember not to even share towels 🙂
Hi,
My daughter just got eczema herpeticum this past week. She is 4 and has had terrible eczema since birth. I don’t know where she contracted the virus, but she started itching spots that looked far worse than normal eczema on Wednesday. Thursday, the pediatrician told us “it is viral herpes”, gave us aciclovir and a topical steroid and that’s it. I was frustrated and have done a lot of research on it to find the “eczema herpeticum”. Thanks for the blogs and stories everyone – I have been very scared, but find comfort in hearing other moms’ stories.
Thanks for dropping by my blog, and hope Cassidy is better now. Your doc did give you what’s commonly prescribed.. maybe too busy to explain more and I’m glad you found some comfort from reading this post 🙂
Keep us updated on how the condition goes, keeping my fingers crossed for you it’s one-time and then be so behind it for your family.
Hugs!
Mei
My 10 year old daughter had this 4 years ago, the doctor kept telling me it was chicken pox but after she got really bad we discovered she had this.
It’s awful, it ended up so bad that she lost the top layers of skin off her legs and caught a secondary infection, she was off from school for a month while we dressed and creamed her legs 3 times a day. My heart goes out to anyone suffering from this.
My daughter has had eczema since she was born and it is showing no signs of easing up, they have also stopped telling me that she will grow out of it. I had never heard of eczema herpeticum until she got it.
Hi Rhonda, Thanks for dropping by my blog and leaving a comments, and sorry to hear of such bad experience in treatment of herpeticum 🙁
Hugs, and pray that your girl won’t get it again!
Mei
With the herpes eczema is there blisters is that how u know?
Hi Tiffany!
My girl hasn’t had eczema herpeticum before, but from what I know, if the rashes progress to blisters with prolonged fever, definitely require visit to doctor.
Take care!
Mei
My 5 month old had it covered her whole body! The dermatologist said if she gets a fever or stops eating rush her to ER! (Or a children’s hospital)There is no point in taking th to a doctors office she said because they would just send her to the children’s hospital!
Oh dear Kira, hugs! Is it eczema herpeticum? It is pretty serious and absolutely right that for emergency, your child will require hospital care. Is there any medication? Hope your child will get better soon. Your child has eczema? Infected by cold sores of another? Be very careful of sharing towels, lots of hugs and hope to hear everything is going well for you.
Very informative article! My son had it and now he is on the antiviral for 6 months.
Hello. I realize this post is a few years old but I thought id try anyway. I was wondering how your son is doing now? Has he had another outbreak? Was he still having outbreaks while on the meds? Did he have a history of eczema? Im trying to find some answers but it seems pretty hard to come by since most posts are few years old. Some info would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.
Hi Jus, thanks for dropping by by my blog; I’d email the email who have responded to this post and see if they can help to answer your question.
Maybe you can share the situation of your child so it’d be easier for them to share specific to your case.
From what I know, eczema herpeticum happens for those with eczema as the virus penetrate their skin barrier which is defective. As it’s a virus, there’s a chace of recurring. Some parents have shared that their kids have to be on the anti-viral med for quite a few months (likely in different dosage).
It’s possible for flare-up while on the med, but from what I’ve read so far, not that many parents reported that. Mostly is a relapse months later.
Take care,
Mei
Hi ive had two attacks so far of eh and now ive been put on 500mg aciclovir everyday but im still seeing a few poping up from time to time on my arms and hands mainly. Is this normal im very worried im going to be on this drug for life
Hi Shelina, I contacted Carl to help with your question. I’ve read in some forums that even some kids have to be on medication for long period o.w. relapse. Did you share your concern with your doctor? Take care, hugs!
Thank you mei
Welcome Shelina and glad to be of some help 🙂 (Carl’s reply in his comment further below). Hope you’re better since you first dropped by this page in April, take care!
Hi mei i cant seem to find carls reply
Hi Jus my son is not doing too bad now he hasnt had an outbreak for some time now although we do have to keep antiviral cream to hand at all time just in case – he is still suffering severely with discoid eczema and has many steroids for it but as soon as we see the signs of herpeticum all steroids must be stopped and anti viral given instead which works wonders but we were also lucky as he never actually became ill when he has had it.
Thanks Karen for dropping by to share!
Hi Karen. I’m not sure if it was you I asked all the questions to. I thought it was Ana. Anyhow first off I sincerely hope your son gets better. We have been on a crazy roller coaster ourselves with eczema, staph infections, and EH. My breastfed LO had eczema starting at 3 months then broke out with pustules and a fever at 7 months. That’s when he was diagnosed with EH. Not long after being discharged he had another bad flare. This time also testing positive for mrsa. Since then I have changed my diet DRAMATICALLY! Doc says he has no current visible mrsa infection but it can always be dormant, as anyone can get it anywhere. (Ca-mrsa). Anyways he was put on a suppression dose of Acyclovir. He still breaks out, not the full blown pustules but patches of tiny clear fluid blisters. All while still on his meds. My search is to figure out if other people have noticed things or foods that cause flares of the EH? Does anyone still flare while on the acyclovir. Has weather changes helped, etc. Anyone reading this, if you have any info, help, or anything at all it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the response.
Hi Jus,
I contacted a few parents who have shared in this post to help with your question. Ana did respond, scroll all the way to the end for her reply to you
http://eczemablues.com/2012/04/eczema-herpeticum-what-is-it-and-is-it-dangerous/#comment-38010
Hope it’s been helpful 🙂
Mei
Have you figured anything out yet? When I responded to this post, my daughter had just been diagnosed and I was very concerned. This was a couple years ago and she hasn’t had it since or had any complications. She had a severe history of eczema all over her body. It’s gotten better as she ages (now 6 1/2) and her skin is just dry not bumpy and red.
I’d be happy to answer any other specific questions you have, as it was hard for me to find answers too 🙂
Thanks Pam for dropping by to help 🙂 Good to hear that your daughter’s eczema is better! She’s about a year older than mine, who doesn’t have much eczema now but very bad biting and pinching skin habits 🙁
Take care!
Mei
I realize this was posted years ago, but my son is just going through this. It’s now been the third day on Acycolvir but not seeing much improvement. How long does it take to start seeing improvement?
Hi Jennifer, sorry to hear of eczema herpeticum for your son. I looked through the comments of those on this page, and seemed like 2 weeks is about the time for improvement. I searched online too, seemed that 2-4 weeks is the norm. Perhaps, after a week if there’s no improvement, you can call the doctor up? I see that there may be secondary infection, so sometimes antibiotic also prescribed
http://www.bad.org.uk/shared/get-file.ashx?id=197&itemtype=document
https://patient.info/health/atopic-eczema/eczema-herpeticum#nav-4
Take care, and hope he gets better soon!
Mei
Thanks for always reading my post! And commenting! Thanks again!
Yeesh, I had this once as a kid. Was in Germany and had it diagnosed & treated by a competent doctor though I never knew what it was. I didn’t know it could progress to the organs. Definitely important to catch it in time.