How to Treat Eczema without Steroid Cream

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for AVEENO. I received product samples to facilitate my review and promotional item as a thank you for participating.

October is National Eczema Awareness Month and unfortunately Eczema is something I’ve had to deal with quite a bit over the last ten years. When I became a parent, my first son had such severe Eczema that our pediatrician nearly put him into a “wet suit” full time. His skin was cracked and bleeding and his Eczema patches had gotten so bad that some areas were infected.

I never had eczema as a kid so this was new territory for me. I grew up on the East coast where it’s usually pretty humid and this was great for my skin. When I moved west my skin gradually went downhill as it adjusted to the dryness and unfortunately I ended up dealing with some eczema flairs of my own after a while.

We tried just about everything. Some things worked, some made things worse. In the beginning we resorted to prescription steroid creams just to get things under control but that wasn’t something I was comfortable doing as a long-term solution. Eventually I got smart and I learned how to treat eczema flair-ups without steroid cream and began to take measures to prevent an eczema flair-up from happening in the first place.

Here’s what we did:

Limit anything that irritates the skin. You have to play around with this a bit. For us that meant switching to a fragrance-free laundry detergent and getting rid of any skin creams or lotions that had fragrance in them. Those two things on their own made such a huge difference. We started using a more mild soap and I cut out soap all together for my kids — the were young enough at the time that they could get clean enough with plain old water.

Add moisture to the skin. Eczema really dries out the skin so the first thing you have to do is get some moisture back in. Our pediatrician recommended multiple baths a day for my kids during an outbreak. When possible we added epsom salts or colloidal oatmeal to the bathwater.

Seal in the moisture. Once you get that moisture in there you’ve got to make sure it stays there. To do that, you need a really good quality cream without any fragrance or other irritants. Your skin begins loosing moisture almost immediately when you get out of the bath. Towel dry your skin and get some cream on it within minutes of getting out of the bath to keep as much of that moisture in as you can. My kids tended to have Eczema flairs around their ankles (we later learned that was because their socks were keeping sweat against their skin so we switched them to sandals during the summers). To give them an extra layer of protection, I’d often put on an extra thick layer of creme before bed and cover their feet with a thick sock to keep the moisture in.

Aveeno Eczema Therapy Care Kit

We went through dozens of treatments over the years while we were trying to find something that worked on our Eczema. More often then I want to admit, we’d end up going back to the prescription steroid cream just to get a handle on a flair-up. When Aveeno asked me to try out their new Eczema Therapy Care Kit I was curious. Aveeno is one of the few brands my kids and I can use on our skin and we’ve used their lotion almost exclusively for the past ten years. We alternate with straight coconut oil but sometimes it’s just easier to have a cream.

The Aveeno Eczema Therapy Care Kit involves a two part process that perfectly follows the treatment plan I was given by my own doctor.

Step 1: Soak in a natural colloidal oatmeal bath treatment. 
Step 2: Seal in the moisture with an Eczema therapy moisturizing cream. 

I love that everything comes together in one package so you don’t have to buy multiple products. The kit comes with enough for 6 bath treatments and includes a 5 ounce size cream. There’s no fragrance to the cream so it doesn’t smell floral (which usually means my skin won’t like it) or medicinal (which means I won’t like it). It’s steroid-free and fragrance-free (which is essential if you are dealing with eczema). I’ve been using the Aveeno Eczema Therapy Care Kit for about a week now and haven’t had any negative skin reactions. The one Eczema flair-up that I have right now is doing much better and my skin doesn’t feel nearly as rough.

I’m heading to Vegas for the ABC Kids Expo next week where the climate is much drier then it is in San Diego so the moisturizing cream in this kit is definitely coming along with me.

I’d definitely recommend giving the Aveeno Eczema Therapy Care Kit a try if you are dealing with Eczema. I love the convenience of this product and it was gentle enough that I was able to use it on my skin. Check out my video review below (and please be kind and ignore my baby fat. I think I need to start pretending my baby is younger then she is):