Support Group

For parents who’d like to explore support groups, there are various ways to do so:

#1 You can fill in the (sharing your eczema story) form and indicate in the last question your willingness to join the support group and I’d put you in the private google group “Best Parent for E Child”. Alternatively, you can email me at [email protected]

#2 The second last question in the form is asking if you are ok with the information you filled in to be published as an interview. The purpose of that is to let other parents who come to this blog know you (and you know them when they do the same) and to build a community of parents who support each other. You can see under the comments section below for how a published interview looks, and your email will not be disclosed.

Over the past 6 years, the comments on this page themselves have come to serve as a source of support for parents – parents read what the best moments and challenging times are like for other families, and feel less alone in their struggle.

#3 I’m involved with Singapore National Skin Centre’s quarterly support group sharing sessions; please get in touch with me if you’d like to be placed on its mailing list! Update in 2021: Activities have been put on hold due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Here is a collection of devotionals that I have created in the hope that it will provide a little comfort and joy for parents caring for their eczema child.

Marcie Mom Top 10 Eczema Tips

Top 10 tricks to keep baby’s fingers busy

Top 10 reasons why parents with eczema child have a tougher time

Top 10 Cooling Places to go with your child in Singapore

Top 5 tips to help your eczema child sleep better

255 replies on “Support Group”

Meet a New Parent! – Amilyn

Child’s name – Gwyenth

Diagnosed with eczema – Oct 2018

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Best Parenting Moment – When she is waiting for you to be home to make her to sleep. Greatest Challenge – The ever changing phase of their life

Hi Amilyn! Thanks for dropping by my blog and your sharing reminded me how close it felt when sleeping with my daughter. We co-sleep when she was young, mostly to keep her from scratching. If sleep is a difficult time for managing the scratching, check out my sleep cartoons to have a laugh 🙂 I drew lots of them cos on one hand while it was nice when she’s sleeping peacefully, most of the nights she woke up many times. I hope all gets better for Gwyenth soon, take care!

http://eczemablues.com/tag/sleep-cartoon/

Meet a New Parent! – Jackie

Child’s name – Charlotte

Diagnosed with eczema – May 2018

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Greatest challenge by far has been trying to manage the eczema of my 9 month old daughter and battle her allergies. I think that the best parenting moment is just enjoying my children in every way possible

Thank you Jackie for dropping by my blog and hearing your sharing reminded me of what I went through – the 2-3 month till one year old was the most difficult period, due to difficulty to communicate with the baby not to scratch and wondering about food allergies as we started solid foods.

Hang in there; and when in doubt, don’t be afraid to ask the doctor what is the next step and what to expect 2-3 weeks from consultation. The skin condition should see improvement with treatment. I do hope that you have found a doctor who you trust and can work with, hugs!

and p.s. yes, we still have to enjoy our parenting moments, don’t let eczema ‘scratch’ too much off our quality of life!

Meet a New Mom! – Lindsey

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Hi Eczema Blues, I have just come across your awesome website through support on theme forest of all places. Have you seen our website? you can read my eczema story on our homepage

We are an eczema support website where people who either have eczema or care for someone who has can share their experiences to help other. We welcome guest posts if you would be interested in writing one for our site or we could write one for yours? This will help raise awareness for eczema and help promote both our websites. I hope you don’t mind me contacting you.

Kind regards
Lindsey
OurEczemastory

Thanks Lindsey for dropping by; will drop you an email and will think of how we can work together a little later, am struggling with this new theme! Going crazy, redoing the layout, it’s 5 years of posts to go through to “right” the layout! Keep in touch, good weekend!

Meet a New Parent! – Srabani

Child’s name – Oza

Diagnosed with eczema – One year old

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – When he was 3-4 years old, he was suffering from oozing eczema, but now with much blessings he only has dry eczema. He is now 8 years old.

Meet a New Mom! – Tan Yisin

Child’s name – Sonya

Diagnosed with eczema – Her eczema start when she is one month old. She is 13 months now and still fighting with really bad eczema.

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Ahhh… the best moment is whenever she is not scratching lah.. haha Greatest challenge .. when her eczema start , everyday looking at her wound I’m so scared and depress I feel traumatic. But after so many months, I feel that I’m so much stronger now , some middle of the night wake up and saw blood like crime scene , I can be very calm , clean her, bath her, moisturise and continue to make her sleep. I feel like I’m a nurse. I’m interested to buy your story book, where can I get it? I saw a few sample page of the story! I love the story so much!

Thanks Yisin for dropping by my blog and sharing your story! Totally understand about bedtime – Marcie is 8 years old now and we still struggle with sleeping well every night – no crime scene, but still scratching and unable to sleep well through the night.

I’d email you about the storybook – not available for sale, only for borrowing at public library. I printed some, will let you know about the postage and printing cost if you want a copy sent.

Take care, keep up your optimism!
Mei

Meet a New Mom! – Hayley

Child’s name – Luca

Diagnosed with eczema – Luca was diagnosed with a small patch on face at 8 weeks old but whole body at 6 months

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – We overcame the challenge of tongue tie to exclusively breastfeed after a very troubled start and managed to reach the 2 year mark with a eczema friendly diet for both myself and my son. Going through topical steriod withdrawal (TSW)

Meet a New Mom! – Wendy

Child’s name – Caden

Diagnosed with eczema – My Son is 6 mo and his name is Caden. He was being diagnosed with eczema when he’s about 5-6 months.

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Greatest challenges is to figure out what my boy cries is for. Best parenting moment will be as of now, able to communicate with my boy and he responds even though he might not understand.

Wendy, thank you for dropping by my blog and understand that 5-6 month is a difficult period to care for an eczema child – a period when the child doesn’t understand why not to scratch but yet has enough physical strength to do much damage through scratching. Hope things get better for you soon, take care,
Mei

Meet a New Mom! – Michelle

Child’s name – Noelle

Diagnosed with eczema – My daughters name is Noelle, she was our first child so everything was new to us. Her skin was very dry, red and flaky after she was born. We were told it was normal due from the vernix caseosa (typical shedding of a protective barrier on a babies skin after birth). However, it never seemed to go away, the redness kept getting worse, the flaking was getting worse. Around three months old she broke out in almost measel type symptoms back in March 2015. Our daughter had her skin tested along with allergy testing. No doctor in our area has ever saw a case like hers.

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Making her laugh. When you are working parents it is hard to rush to grab, your child from , daycare, make them dinner, clean up, laundry, make lunches, bath them, then it is almost time for bed. It was hard for me to not be more involved in her daily life and to see her first experiences. Treasure each moment even if it is 5 min and make that the best five min of their day. My challenge I am fighting is making her happy and comfortable and too hopefully one day finally figure out what triggers her eczema so hopefully one day I can try to keep this managed and her feeling like a normal kid, enjoy life and feel good inside and out.

Thank you Michelle for your sharing and what you went through reminded me of my journey – being informed via a standard hospital discharge note that the rashes were probably nothing, eczema getting worse, struggles in the first year (my daughter had along with eczema, had HFMD, chickpox, shingles, impetigo) and more importantly, our wish for our children to have a high quality of life despite the eczema.

I want to encourage you – to take care of yourself, your marriage, never giving up the optimism.

Blessings and tons of hugs!
Mei

Meet a New Dad! – Carl

Child’s name – Both myself and my son have Eczema from birth. Im now 46 and my son is 19. He has it worse than me and we have been in and out of hospital for 19 years. I set up an facebook group and blog to try help other people with Eczema. Hence I found your website.

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Best parenting moment… When I convinced my son to change his first ever job in a kitchen as his Eczema went wild with all the grease and steam in a kitchen job and he agreed. He found a better job and is now happy and the Eczema is under control. ( STILL PAINFUL AND SORE ) But better. Greatest challenge…. Dealing with the guilt that i have passed this horrible thing to my son. And dealing with his emotions and feelings and worries.

Thanks Carl for dropping by my blog and there’s no need to feel guilty about passing on eczema – think of all the wonderful things that you’ve passed and still passing to him. Focus on the positive. My daughter has eczema from her dad, and she didn’t feel any bit angry with him. Life is so much more than eczema, focus on all those other things.. I’m doing that myself daily, being not the optimist/ chirpy person, I’m trying to change my mindset daily to focus on how to be positive and bring that to people around me, at home and at work.

Take care, and best!
Mei

I’m selling marine essence beauty bar which have proved to drastically improved eczema, even on babies..
Fee free to view my fb page “healthier lifestyle by fafa rarah” for more information.

Meet a New Mom! – Lauren

Child’s name – Bradley

Diagnosed with eczema – currently 2.5, but was diagnosed when he was 3 months old.

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Not sure about best parenting moment, but by far our greatest challenge is helping him to stop itching. we are so desperate and we try anything and everything, with little to no success.

Hi Lauren,

Totally understand how difficult it is.. and itching is very difficult to stop as sometimes it is also a habit; we tried a lot of distraction methods and trying to keep the little one’s fingers busy when she’s young. Now we simply ask her to stop scratching or go moisturize. Hope all would be better soon, take care!
Mei

Meet a New Mom! – Sherryl

Child’s name – Yszy

Diagnosed with eczema – 2014

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Best moment: I see her confidently interacting with others around her. Greatest Challenge: Seeing the insecurity in her especially when her eczema flares.

Thanks Sherryl for your sharing and I know how it feels about observing whether eczema has affect our children’s social & emotional well-being. Hope the eczema flares will be less and less frequent, and all will be good, take care!

Meet a New Mom! – Veronica

Child’s name – Benjamin

Diagnosed with eczema – February 2017

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Best Parenting Moment: When Ben is scratch-free is the best moment. Greatest Challenge: Daily struggle to control him from scratching

Hi Veronica, thanks for dropping by my blog. Hope Benjamin’s eczema would get better real soon, totally understand the difficulty with controlling scratching. My daughter at 7 years old is still scratching, even without the eczema flare-up. It has become an inconvenient at best or unsightly/ harmful habit, with possibly falling ill a few times with the scratching.

Fingers crossed and pray that Benjamin will be scratch-free more and more often!
Mei

Meet a New Mom! – Sze Ting

Child’s name – Jayvier

Diagnosed with eczema – Diagnosed at 1.5mo. Still with condition at 3mo

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – To see the smiles of children. To be unable to mange eczema condition

Thanks for sharing Sze Ting, and it is a difficult period of caring for a young child with eczema + closer to the period of feeding solids which may cause anxiety as to which foods (if any) are a trigger.

Will email you and hope things get better soon!

Hugs, and thanks again for your sharing, and helping another parent reading these comments to feel less alone in their struggle,
Mei

Meet a New Mom! – Victoria

Child’s name – Sierra

Diagnosed with eczema – 6 years old

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – When my daughter realised sharing food/toys/attention is even more fun!
Greatest challenge is eczema, it affects her enjoyment of life in humid Singapore.

Thanks for your sharing and yes, totally agree that we don’t want our child to miss out on enjoying their childhood due to the discomfort and itch from eczema. I was glad that my child managed to remain cheerful and over the years, I’ve learnt that taking it one step at a time, and not putting eczema as the focus helps 🙂

Take care and Happy New Year!

Meet a New Mom! – Nadia

Child’s name – Ayoob

Diagnosed with eczema – Hi. My son was diagnosed at birth with eczema…just like his sister he was born with a patch of eczema on his hand. His name is Ayoob and he is 10 this month. It’s “under control” now but his asthma …diagnosed at 18 months is another story.

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – It’s been a long road with many steep inclines but there’s been many, many best moments and many, many great challenges. He has been hospitalized over 9 times in the first 4 years of his life…for his eczema and asthma. My best parenting moment was when he was 6 and he had a bad flare up…I was up all night helping him rub his itchy, bleeding body and by 5am tears just sprang from my eyes. Seeing my baby in that state again was too much. That’s when he hugged me and said “Mommy, it will get better. Don’t cry I’m ok”. His strength at that moment was the best parenting moment….but I think he was parenting me lol

My greatest challenge was when he was 11 months old and he had eczema herpaticum, he was on drips and tubes and once a day the specialist would come in and clean his blisters and all I could was hold him. The herpes virus recurs every time his ill or when he gets hurt. It is currently in his eyes and will be admitted tomorrow morning. I’m once again feeling so helpless and completely out of my mind with worry. It’s a blessing that I found this website and reading through some of the stories has given me renewed hope and strength.

Thanks Nadia for your share!

It’s very heartwarming to hear of your best parenting moment and agree that some times our kids are the ones who give us strength! My daughter has remained cheerful during her “babyhood” and “toddlerhood” despite the eczema.

Do read the stories from other families in the series “Someone has eczema and managed…” the posts can be found in the category
http://eczemablues.com/category/living-with-eczema/

Thank you again for your sharing, take care & hugs,
Mei

Meet a New Dad! – Michael

Child’s name – Brody

Diagnosed with eczema – Since baby

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Brody (7 yrs) has been dealing with severe eczema since he was a baby. After several visits to the peds and several creams/lotions later, I could not get an answer to why his skin was so bad. This past December I met with an allergist and had him tested for food and environmental allergies. He unfortunately tested allergic to Fish, Soy, Egg Yolks, Dairy, and Wheat plus several environmental as well. So we began food avoidance and it seemed to start to clear up. However, we are still dealing with a lot of scratching and broken skin. I’ve tried so many moisturizers from Aquaphor, Vasoline, and Vanicream but all of them contain alcohol which O am not a fan of. I am hoping to start and reach out to other parents that deal with this to look for other options for moisturizing his skin. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Thanks Michael for dropping by; it is good that with the allergy testing, steps can be taken to avoid these allergens. On the creams to use, thanks for highlighting alcohol.

You can read this article on Paula’s Choice that discussed about good vs bad alcohol
http://www.paulaschoice.com/expert-advice/skin-care-basics/_/alcohol-in-skin-care-the-facts

Basically, fatty alcohols are ok – cetyl, stearyl, and cetearyl alcohol

I’ve also looked up a previous blog post on moisturizer selection and of the brands covered, looks like Physiolgel has the least alcohol
http://eczemablues.com/2015/09/selection-of-moisturizer-ii-moisturizer-and-ingredients/

It’s also a brand that I use daily for my daughter (she’s also 7 years old, eczema since 2 weeks old).

Be sending you the email link to the mailing group, and also feel free to check out the G+ collections and community
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117884122675439165710
https://plus.google.com/s/mei%20marcie/collections

Take care, and hope Brody outgrows some of the allergens soon,
Mei

From: Denise
Hello. God healed me of eczema and now I just want to tell the world how that happened and how to get healed. Since I was first introduced to the internet, I’ve spent many hours reading about eczema and what others had to say in the comments sections. I tried nearly everything and nothing helped. Now, when I see advertisements for steroid creams and hear stories about how others are suffering, I shake my head and want to scream, “NO! I have an answer.” Those same websites that I would consistently browse looking for a cure, I’m now going back to spread the word to everyone I can that there is an answer for eczema. You can be healed! The only way that I know to get the information out is to put it online. My website is very new, so it won’t come up in a google search yet. Please type in the address bar http://www.howtohealeczema.com. If you take time to read it in its entirety and do what it says, your life will change. God Bless You

Thanks Denise for dropping by my blog; glad to hear that you’ve found a way to manage your eczema. It may work differently for each individual, but always happy to hear of someone finding what works for them, have a good week ahead!
Mei

For those interested in reading more skin disorder blogs, do check out this link:
http://www.healthlisted.com/top-skin-disorder-blogs-you-should-be-reading/

I’ve learnt about the link from HealthListed.com team below:

Hi Mei, Just a quick email to let you know that I featured you in a recent article named: Top skin disorder Blogs You Should Be Reading In 2016.
Once again, I hope your inclusion in the list drives some new readers to your blog and I look forward to staying connected! Regards, Tobias

Meet a New Mom! – Mindy

Child’s name – Major

Diagnosed with eczema – Since young

Best parenting moment & Greatest challenge – Greatest challenge is a prep before his club feet operation & his legs had to be covered in casts & that was the time the haze was at its peak. Both legs were seriously scaly.

Your sharing will help others!