Mum Finds £7.99 Solution to Baby’s Severe Eczema that Made Her ‘Claw’ at Her Skin until She Bled
A mother whose baby suffered with eczema so bad it caused her skin to bleed and’weep’ found a solution thanks to viewers on TikTok.
Leigha Sorrell, 24, who works in recruitment, made videos asking for help after her little girl, Delilah, now 10 months, started to scratch her sore skin constantly and suffered allergic reactions to a number of eczema creams.
In so much pain and discomfort, Delilah would claw at her skin until she bled, withLeigha having to co-sleep with her for months to prevent the baby from scratching through the night.
By Jessica Lindsay
Taking to TikTok to document Delilah’s skin problems, Leigha racked up over 10,000 followers and 117,000 likes on her videos, finding a high street solution, Balmonds, through advice given by viewers.
‘It was really awful to see my baby in pain, not knowing what to do to solve it,’ said Leigha, who lives in Harlow, Essex, with Delilah and her partner, Chey Douglass-McCarthy, 24, a business owner.
‘As her mum, I just wished it was me instead of her, she’s such a happy baby and her temperament didn’t change but we could see it was affecting her by her scratching all the time and making herself bleed.’
Delilah had painful red patches all over her body
Delilah had painful red patches all over her body (Picture: PA Real Life)
Delilah was two months old when Leigha first noticed what looked like a rash on her baby’s belly. A doctor confirmed it was eczema and she was prescribed steroid cream, but the situation only worsened.
Leigha said: ‘We hoped it would be a simple solution but things got really bad. The eczema was weeping constantly and it was so sore which was horrible for her.
‘I worried about Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW) so I started trying another cream that the doctors said would be good for skin but Delilah was allergic to it.’
Following her allergic reaction, Leigha said that her baby’s skin became ’10 times worse’, with sore patches of dry and red skin spreading across her face and body.
Baby Delilah eczema flare-up
Mum Leigha said she felt ‘helpless’ due to the condition (Picture: PA Real Life)
Yet trying alternative products gave Delilah more painful allergic reactions that would ‘burn’ her skin and result cause even more severe spells of eczema.
Things escalated further in June when then six-month-old Delilah woke up with what Leigha described as ‘the worst flare-up’ she’d ever experienced.
She said: ‘As a mum, you just want to take that pain away from her, I was trying everything to find a solution but I just didn’t know what to do.q
‘Nothing worked, everything we tried made her skin worse and now she was completely covered in what looked like a huge rash all over her body.’
Delilah eczema flare-up on torso
After trying everything from topical lotions to scratch mitts to ease Delilah’s discomfort, Leigha decided to document her daughter’s journey online and make videos asking for advice.
Within a month of creating her TikTok account, she’d received thousands of tips and messages of support from others with eczema.
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‘I had a lot of people recommending different things to me and everyone was saying to not use steroids, which we stopped using,’ said Leigha. ‘Someone recommended trying Balmonds and it was around the time Delilah’s skin was really bad.’
As other creams had given her little girl a painful allergic reaction, Leigha didn’t have ‘much hope’ that the remedies suggested by viewers would help, but was shocked to discover that the £7.99 Skin Salvation balm didn’t cause any issues.
Leigha said: I didn’t think it would work because nothing else had. We tried it on her skin and her eczema cleared up in two days.
‘It hasn’t been back since which is crazy considering how bad her skin was before.’
Delilah eczema improvement
Delilah does get some dry patches, using the product each day keeps things manageable, and Leigha says she is ‘over the moon’ with the results.
‘The difference in her skin is like night and day,’ added the mum.
‘She’s back to normal now and is doing well, which is all I can ask for.
‘People don’t realise how difficult it is – I constantly worry that if I use a certain type of washing powder or try her with a new food that it’s going to somehow cause a flare up with her skin – but I’m just so glad that she is no longer in constant pain.’
Chey pictured here with baby Delilah
Eczema affects around one in ten people in their lifetime, but for many it can be resolved by using emollients and moisturisers that hydrate skin and help it retain moisture.
Others, however, find that certain ingredients used in traditional eczema treatments (such as petrolatum or liquid paraffin) don’t help with symptoms – or if there’s an allergy, even make them worse.
In these cases, products like those from Balmonds can offer an alternative way to heal and protect the skin. The brand’s flagship Skin Salvation ointment uses beeswax and shea butter rather than mineral oil and is dermatologist-approved for sensitive skin.
Yet effective relief from eczema isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. Some feel that GP-prescribed creams work well for them, while others swear by the likes of Childs Farm, MooGoo or Aveeno.
It’s all about what works for you, but if what you’re doing isn’t working, seeking advice from fellow eczema sufferers is a good place to start.
Source: Metro.co.uk
