My name is Nav.

My beautiful baby boy was born a perfectly healthy baby. As a working mother, I had a perfect plan for him: breastfeeding/formula supplementation for 6 months, food introduction at 4-6 months, and then traditional milk and so on, and I stuck to that plan.

At 6-8 months, we started noticing blisters on his tummy area, nothing too severe. We kept it natural. At 8 months, he ate something at a restaurant, broke out in hives, was taken to ER, and our journey to food allergies, severe eczema, seasonal allergies, and digestive issues started.

What follows is a documented progression of my son’s condition along with pictures to illustrate just how severe his battle with eczema has become. (Please note that some photos may be too graphic for younger audiences.)

6 Months Old
At six months of age, minor eczema on scalp and face:

1 Year Old
At one year of age, skin tests showed allergic to every type of legume, grains and nuts, life threatening allergies to nuts, and delayed reactions to milk and wheat. Since it’s possible to get false positives at such young age, we didn’t change his diet much and his skin had mild eczema. We still fed him everything except foods that gave him hives or showed up high on the RAST and skin prick tests, such as cashews.

2 Years Old
At two years of age, body folds (such as neck and back of legs) covered in darker skin discoloration, and eczema on tummy area, inner arms, behind knees, diaper area, and neck, but nothing we still couldn’t control without medication. I do not have photos of his eczema at this point because it just wasn’t concerning enough to us.

3 Years Old
At three years of age, sudden clearing in winter, but severely hit in March:

Starting from this:

To This:

*Please note that this was before we were using steroid creams. Although it looks very similar to Red Skin Syndrome, I strongly believe that it was not, because we were not using topical or oral steroids to cause it. We had started using them at this point to control his eczema.

…And Eczema Takes Over Our Lives

Mom quits job and flourishing career to manage son’s severely worsening eczema, keeping him at home full time, attending multiple doctor appointments, getting blood work done on various diseases, cooking allergy friendly foods and changing our lifestyle to a hypoallergenic one — read, read, read, track, track, track, stress, stress, and more stress. At this point son taken out of school due to infections, eczema flare-ups and basically uncontrolled eczema.

4 Years Old
At four years of age, still struggling, and on a very limited restricted diet called “Anti-allergy” diet. No top 8 allergens in diet, but a slow introduction of legumes and other veggies.

At age 4.5, scalp, ears and face full of eczema, along with dispersed eczema all over body.

Now 5 Years Old
At five years of age today, under control, but still a struggle. This is when I found enough time, had enough insight into the condition, and knowledge from reading research papers and studies to start sharing my experience.

My hope with this blog is to help other mothers out there with kids with eczema. Eczema is not a single point disease, it requires a strong management plan from all angles. So, you’ll find my experiences, my knowledge, my opinions, latest research, my recipes, and my emotions on this blog! Feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me for questions or comments.

Love,
Nav