Thursday, August 29, 2013

Baby Ringworm

Yes, you read that correctly.

My baby got Ringworm. From what? We really don't know. We assume that it is from her little blow-up swimming pool. Although we changed the water almost daily, we never scrubbed down the sides of it during the 2 or 3 weeks we used it. But that's just a guess. I told her pediatrician that she wasn't wrestling with any highschool boys - "where could she have possibly gotten it!?" She told me that she could have gotten it anywhere and that it is pretty common.

Common? I have read all sorts of rare and awful things that your baby could get whilst reading articles online and chapters in my baby books. Never had any mentioned Ringworm.

By the way, be rest assured that Ringworm IS NOT A WORM. It is a fungal rash.




This rash started on her left shoulder and just looked like a little flakey skin, so I didn't worry about it. Within 3 days, her back looked like this! I text messaged the above picture to my pediatrician. He thought that she just had some eczema, and told me to treat it with hydrocortisone cream and a moisturizer. Since we were leaving town, I made an appointment to see a pediatrician the next day to be sure. She thought it looked like Ringworm. 

So we conducted a little experiment, and I treated the right part of her back for eczema and the left part of her back for ringworm. The next day, we noticed a considerable improvement on the left side. By day 3, the rash was nearly gone and the right side looked the same, so we are sure it was ringworm. I treated her whole back for ringworm for another week and it cleared up easily. The rash never bothered the baby at all.

How strange.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi, my 5 month old might have ringworm too. On his face! The first dr thought eczema but didnt clear up with cream his cheek looked worse. Second dr has done skin scrape test & sent to lab and says results can take 1 to 2 weeks. She doesnt want to prescribe antifungal
until results are back. im going to go to another dr as i cant wait that long. what antifungal did you use & any side effects?

Hannah said...

sorry it took me a few days to get to your post. I hope your little guy is doing better! and I can definitely understand not wanting to wait. my pediatrician said that there is no harm in treating for ring worm if it isn't ringworm, so she had me try it out without knowing for sure. She couldn't get a good enough scrape to even perform a test on, and hearing your story, i'm glad she just recommended the cream.

I used Lotrimin antifungal ringworm clotrimazole cream over the counter. It's next to the jock itch and other fungal stuff. My pediatrician said to get 1%, so that's what I got.

she also told me to put aquaphor on it afterward because it is a very dense moisturizer. You can guy aquaphor baby or just regular aquaphor. i just bought the regular stuff. it got much better quickly.

make sure that you wash your hands after you touch his ring worm so you don't risk spreading it somewhere else on his body.

hope this helps!!!