Dear readers,

Yesterday I was contacted by a mother with wet eczema on het areola. She had
previously nursed three children for a long time without any problems. This
baby was 7 weeks old. She told me eczema was one of her  health problems,
but she never had it on her breasts before. She had had three cures of
peniciline from her GP already, the last two amoxilline. They didn't work.
She was putting bactroban (20 mg mupirocine) on the open spots, but that did
not seem to help al lot either. The whole thing started with a little open
spot because of her rubbing her breast when it was itching.
I suggested she ask her GP to make a culture ( is that the right word?), to
make sure it is bacterial, which he obviously thinks, ond if so to find out
which bacteria, and also to find out if it is not a fungus. I also suggested
to ask her GP to try Daktarin (Myconazol) for herself and the baby (who was
not having thrush she said), because I find it very odd there is no healing
after so many antibacterial things have been tried already. Even suggested
her to go to a dermatologist, although she didn't seem to have very good
experiences with such a physician in the past. I also suggested it might be
a dietary thing, she could try skipping all dairy products from her diet for
a while and see if this would helps ( she already had eczema as a baby).

Is there anybody who could help me out with this, there is nothing in the
literature to be found about wet eczema. Is it bacterial or a fungus or
perhaps both? And what should she do about it?

Siemian Berghuijs, IBCLC, Zoetermeer, the Netherlands
<[log in to unmask]>