The Rash

It started out innocent enough...


Jayce seems to have an allergy to something (possibly the cleaner?) at our favorite indoor play place, Monkey Joe's. More often than not, he leaves the place with red patches on his face and hands. We take a bath when we get home and they are gone by the next day, even without a dose of benedryl.

So, I was not surprised in the least when he got the same rash on his face Thursday afternoon after playing for over 2 hours at MJ's. However, we didn't go home for a few hours and I didn't think to wash his face and hands with anything afterwards.

This is what it looked like Thursday night, right after a bath:



Friday morning the rash was still there, but it wasn't concerning me at all. Jayce rubbed it a bit, so I put some benedryl cream on it and didn't think another thing about it. We went to a playdate that morning at my friend Denise's house and went out to Chick-fil-a for lunch.

At 5:00 PM, Jayce throws up. And continues to throw up for the next 7 hours. The rash started looking pretty bad by this point. We had to give him at least three baths because we weren't quick enough with bowls and towels. I am sure our wiping his face and chin did not help matters, but what could you do? He hunkered down on the couch all night, hugging his Snoopy puppy and watching Charlie Brown movies on TV. He drank juice and water and soda in between spells, so I thankfully wasn't worried about dehydration.



Saturday he woke up feeling much better, but the rash was horrible to look at and it seemed to really bother him. He started scratching and rubbing it against his shirt and would.not.stop. I tried putting several different bandaids on it, but there were several issues with them:





-first of all, the adhesion on the bandaids seemed to make it worse. Now we know (pointed out to us by our fabulous doctor) that Jayce has an allergy to those particular bandaids. Whoops!
-we couldn't keep the bandaids dry because Jayce has a drooling problem.
-the bandaids weren't big enough to cover the entire area
-and two brands we tried just fell right off
-the chin is a really hard area to try to bandage!

I dug into my arsenol of drugs collected over the years (but seldom ever used) and came up with:
-Aquaphor
-Carmex
-Elidel (for ecsema)
-vanicreme
-calamine
-hydrocortisone 1%
-vasoline
-neosporin
-benedryl cream

NOTHING helped. I think some of the above stuff would have helped if Jayce hadn't immediately rubbed it off on his hands 2 seconds after application.

On Sunday, I was squeamish to even look at his chin.

I finally fashioned a gauze/bandaid contraption that he seemed to tolerate well. I was worried about infection by this point, so my main priority was to keep it covered to prevent the spread of germs and to prevent him from rubbing any more skin off.



(And yes, he still is in the same shirt and still on his same spot on his couch. We quickly found out that water touching his chin made him scream so we suspended all baths for the rest of the weekend)

Monday morning rolls around and I take him to our family doctor. He reassures me that its not MRSA, Staph, or Impetigo (don't you love the internet to get our minds racing??) and that its just a rash from "contact dermatitis" that Jayce has rubbed raw. He prescribed us some medium-strength steriod, told me to give him some claritin to control the itching, and he would be good as new. And he was right! The stuff stopped Jayce from needing to rub it constantly so it has a chance to heal now.

Already healing by Monday afternoon:




So, whew... I'm glad things seem to be on the mend. NOW I'm ready to start 2009 :)