Method: Oatmeal and Bleach Baths

I"ve had such severe eczema for so long that I feel like I've gotten so much advice on how to control it. Whether it be from my dermatologist, allergist, GP, or folk advice from the internet, I'd like to share with you what I've found helps. My Methods posts are all life changes I've made for my eczema, and while I can't guarantee that they'll work for everyone, they've worked for me.

Today I'm going to talk about baths. When your skin is really flaring up, showers can be painful. If your skin is very raw, then the stream of water hitting your skin can hurt so incredibly badly. In those cases, and cases where I really need to cool my skin, I like to take a bath. A lot of my eczema stems from stress, and baths are very emotionally soothing. If I add skincare ingredients to my bath, I'm killing two birds with one stone.

NOTE: Do not take hot baths. The hotter it is, the more it can cut into the barrier on your skin that you've been able to form. Take lukewarm baths, and only take them for about 20 minutes. That will let the ingredients in them soak into your skin while not letting all of the ingredients that you've been putting on your skin wash away. If you're getting white and wrinkly, it means that your barrier has been washed away, and you are bathing for too long.

Colloidal Oatmeal Bath Treatments

Whenever I feel super itchy and raw, this is the thing I add to my bath. It's very easy to have an oatmeal bath -- you just open the packet under the running faucet while you run the water. Often, if I've had a very stressful day, I won't be able to sleep at night. That, or I'll wake up scratching like there's no tomorrow, and I'll be so upset about being so itchy and sensitive that I can't calm down. In those cases, I run an oatmeal bath. It's so soothing to just sit in the tub for a little while -- I like to put some earbuds in and listen to music, or read a little, or even do sudoku.

The oatmeal makes the bath a bit beige and cloudy, so when you get out of it, you can still feel a little film on you. Don't worry about that, it'll only keep the itch away for longer. I've found, at my very worst, it can stave off the itch for a few hours, but when I'm at my worst, so little helps. I've found that this is the most effective treatment. For best results, follow with a colloidal oatmeal moisturizer as well as your normal cream.

I would say that for people who are prone to eczema breakouts, keep a box of this in your bathroom closet. When you're feeling the pain, this is the best, most lasting relief I've found. The name brand for this is Aveeno, though there's a whole bunch of drugstore knockoffs that work just as well. It comes in a box of 5-8 packages, and I highly recommend keeping at least one package around to put out unexpected fires.

Bleach Baths

Having eczema means that we're extremely prone to infection. All of the itching, the open wounds, as well as the fact that our skin barrier is compromised, means that we're very prone to staph, herpes, and other skin infections. I had a huge problem with recurring skin infections a couple years ago, and one way that I helped defeat them was decolonizing my skin with bleach baths.

A bleach bath sounds very scary -- we have sensitive skin already, and you want to put bleach on it?? But really, it's no different than swimming in a pool. You can put a capful or two of bleach under the faucet while running a bath, and it's actually LESS chemicals than they put in swimming pools. I was a little skeptical of even that, but what irritates my skin when I swim is the chlorine, not the bleach. The bleach, even at that tiny amount, kills bacteria that's living on the skin. This is very helpful for people who are prone to staph infections, like I am. When my skin is open for a long period of time, I try to take a bleach bath once or twice a week, and then once every two weeks after it's died down a little.

The downsides to a bleach bath are that bleach is drying, so you have to have a serious moisturizer afterwards, and then (I had to) put an ointment on top. I put Cetaphil cream (in the jar) on, for nourishment and then put some Aquaphor (jar as well) right on top, to seal in as much moisture as possible. This leaves your skin really sticky and ointment-y, so I recommend doing this after you get home for the day, and wearing loose cotton pajamas afterwards.

Another downside is that it makes you smell like a laundromat. I hate fragranced skincare items, because fragrance is so irritating to your skin. That said, I wish I could put something on to cover the bleach smell. As it is, I put my moisturizers and pajamas on, light a candle for the smell, and watch some television for the evening. I definitely wouldn't recommend this as a morning bathing option -- you need multiple hours to let the bleach smell fade off you, and the moisturizers that you should use afterwards don't soak in for a very long time.

Those are the two treatment baths that I take! Do you have any special bath treatments? I love baths because they're so soothing, and the amount of time that they take makes you slow your routine a little bit. As someone who's afflicted with seasonal, allergenic, and stress-related eczema, a little bath break is just what the doctor ordered!