Bleach Prescribed to Relieve Eczema Itching: Talk About a Toxic Bath!
Editor’s note: The following post was originally published on Green and Clean Mom. “Green & Clean Mom can inspire you to try a little harder, be a catalyst for change and to offer you some new tips and news on how to be the green, sexy and sassy mom…I know you are!”
The New York Times recently reported that a study was just published in the Journal of Pediatrics showing the children who took a bath in a half a cup of bleach per full standard tub were relieved of their eczema related itching. The bleach apparently had very little odor and the children were relieved of the itching. One article totes the solution of using bleach in the bath with children as “safe, simple and inexpensive…” and I’m trying to figure out how the hell this is safe. Something is seriously messed up about this and I’m feeling very sick over the idea of a child breathing the toxic fumes, having their body exposed to the toxic substance when bath time should be a safe place to play. Do the children drink the water? How does it not get in their eyes? How is this legal and okay? Time Magazine explains that using the bleach bath might sound harsh but it’s safer than exposing children to the antibiotics…
“The bottom line is that the more antibiotics we use, the higher the risk for something becoming resistant to them,” says Dr. Amy Paller, a study author, specialist in pediatric dermatology and chair of the dermatology department at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “The beauty of something like dilute bleach is that one doesn’t get resistance to it.”
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Eczema and Your Child
So what is eczema and why is that you would want to put bleach patches on your child’s skin or have them soak in a bath of bleach? The online eczema center compares a bleach bath at home to swimming in a pool but will parents correctly mix the solution and aren’t may pools trying to switch from bleach to safer alternatives? Besides not all bleach is the same and companies like Clorox have ultra bleach with high concentrates. Seems like a dangerous prescription for a doctor to give and easy mistake for concerned parents to make.
Both my daughter and my niece suffer from eczema so I understand the frustration and wanting to help your child. According to Keep Kids Healthy eczema is:
Atopic dermatitis, or eczema, is a common problem in infants and children. It usually begins between two and six months of age with very dry and sensitive skin that will then become red and extremely itchy. It often starts on the forehead, cheeks and scalp and spreads to the trunk, creases of the elbows, knees, and wrists. With scratching the rash may become raw, crusted and weepy.
Kids Health offers many solutions and helpful tips, none of which include bleach. Avoiding harsh detergents, clothing and lotions instead are suggested. I’m not sure I would call bleach a mild detergent or soap. A March 2009 study claims that food allergies are not to blame for eczema but instead says environmental and seasonal allergies might be playing a role in the increased number of children being diagnosed and suffering from eczema.
Eczema can be made worse by allergens like pollen, as well as irritants like soap or woolen clothing, according to the Institute.
“Research knowledge on eczema and allergies is growing quickly, so parents need to make sure that the information they are relying on is based on up-to-date evidence,” commented Professor Sawicki.
I’m not sure I agree with the study totally ruling out food allergies. Have you read Monica from Healthy Green Mom and her experience with eczema and food allergies?
Must Know Information on Bleach
If you decide to use this so called “safe” remedy I would really like to point out some information about bleach and poisoning - the dangers associated with bleach. From Right Health:
Airways and lungs
Breathing difficulty (from inhalation)
Throat swelling (may also cause breathing difficulty)
Pulmonary edema (water filling the lungs)
Eyes, ears, nose, and throat
Severe pain in the throat
Severe pain or burning in the nose, eyes, ears, lips, or tongue
Loss of vision
Gastrointestinal
Severe abdominal pain
Vomiting
Burns of the esophagus (food pipe)
Vomiting blood
Blood in the stool
Heart and blood vessels
Hypotension (low blood pressure) develops rapidly
Collapse
Skin
Irritation
Burns
Necrosis (holes) in the skin or underlying tissues
Blood
Severe change in acid levels of the blood (pH balance) which leads to damage in all of the body organs)
Many children I personally know with eczema also suffer from asthma and allergies (my daughter) and if I used this bleach remedy it would likely throw her into a horrible asthma attack. Chlorine bleach has even been linked to childhood asthma but a year after this study was released another study comes out telling parents that it is okay to put their child in a bath with chlorine bleach - what? The American Academy of Allergies and Asthma even lists Chlorine Bleach as causing dermitis and irritating the skin. Personally, we opted out of taking my daughter to swimming lessons due to the high chlorine odor and what we felt it would do for her lungs; why would I put her in a bath of it and let her breath it?
Natural Alternatives and Solutions for Eczema
There are a number of other alternatives that I would personally consider but everyone should contact their doctor and feel comfortable with their choice for treatment. Personally, using probiotics and other natural alternatives and food changes to help “heal the gut” as well as avoiding all thing harsh on babies skin, using botanical solutions for pain relief and even seeking alternative medicine. I like how Dr. Amy Well’s explains eczema and that creams and medicine doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Dr. Amy Well’s offers some great suggestsions for helping naturally cure and deal with eczema.
Read more at Green and Clean Mom!
I’ve heard that coconut oil is soothing on eczema…and it’s definitely non-toxic!
Wow whoever was responsible for letting that article out should be kicked in the head! It is amazing to me the stupidity! I’m freaking out right now! This is like a bad joke or something right?
I concur,it seems crazy to take a bleach bath for several reasons (drying out the skin,pain to open sores,toxicity etc).However,i wonder what the difference is from a swimming pool.Factualy,atopics do carry several times the amount of staph than normal.I’m gonna give it a try…..wish me luck ! as far as probiotics go,they seem to have lost their luster as far a eczema relief goes,even deemed potentially dangerous… http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=93375 …..enter probiotics eczema at medicinenet if link doesn’t work….good luck to all in finding relief !!!
There are safe, food-grade, baby friendly products available that are proven to relieve the itch and irritation while improving the appearance of the skin affected by eczema. Go to http://www.malibuwellness.com, click the ACNE buton and read the testimonials. These products are green, contain no harsh ingredients and are based on pure L-Ascorbic Acid as the basis for normalizing skin. I agree with Emily; I am shocked that the article was published. Bleach is about the worst oxidizer there is and can literally kill the layers of skin on an adult much less a baby. Eczema is a difficult disease and painful to watch your baby suffer with, but it can be managed in a safe and effective way.
Our daughter had infant ezcema and we found great relief using olive oil in our baths. The only problem was she was slick, and we had to be extra careful lifting her out of the tub!
Her excema started out as a symptom of food allergies and later was aggrevated by contact to irritants. I could only imagine what bleach would have done to her baby skin!
You are very right about the ezcema/asthma relationship, a year or two later we learned she had asthma and to this day (she’s 8yrs old now) she has asthmatic attacks to strong chemicals - including bleach.
This is one of the worst ideas i have ever heard. If you have eczema you know how bad it hurts to get bleach into the eczema…. This is like torture to those that have eczema… trust me i have it it sucks to have it but there are better ways to get rid of it then bathing in bleach!!!!! People need to wise up
Why does the study’s author think it is a this or that alternative? Either use bleach or use antibiotics that are causing bacteria to become resistant? Why on earth would you prescribe antibiotics for eczema to begin with?? I can’t believe that woman is a ped. derm and is the chair of the derm dept. at Northwestern! Eczema isn’t a bacteria. What about other options - like diet. High doses of vitmain D3, fish oils and probiotics. Even gluten and dairy free diets can enhance a person’s immune system to help with the symptoms.
The thought of a baby sitting in bleach is so disturbing. Not only are they breathing it in - they are getting this stuff directly on their genitals. Not to mention, the warm water opening up pores and allowing the bleach to enter the body through their largest organ - their skin! I hope no one actually tries this completely flawed treatment suggestion.
I’m shock at all the misinformation written here so far.
Also, I’ve tried it and it works. The inflammation on my baby’s skin is dramatically reduced after just a couple of baths of a chlorine concentration of 0.005%. The anguish you feel seeing your baby with scaly sensitive skin is heartbreaking. I’m glad someone has finally discovered something that helps relieve eczema.
This is a subject I take very very serious! We have been through three loooong years with our now 4 yr old son who has been through so much…too much for a little one to endure. We have tried everything in fact, I was desperate. Doctors and children’s hospitals could not help and told us he was a “gray area”, resorting to high potent meds and creams including steroids. STEROIDS as a 1 yr old until he was 3…how awful. We had to have an endocrinologist wean his body off. Now… I have been following all of this “crazy” talk of the bleach bath and fully understand how desperate we become for answers and help. I would NEVER be able to do this to his little body. It is, like you said, a TOXIN! *******Our son has been cleared of his Eczema 95% by starting him on our beloved Vidazorb Children’s probiotic. It has been shown to help people for so many things and this…out of everything we tried has really really really helped him! He is now a happy and healthy 4 yr old without pain, suffering, itching and bleeding everyday and night. I want to shout this to the world…it CAN help…and if not, what do you have to lose? It is certainly a safer option than a toxic bath. Sorry…I don’t mean to sound so opinionated, but this is my little boy and if he can be helped without antibiotics and toxic baths….I am on a mission to help other little ones to get well too. Caroline (if interested you can email me onemommyslove.gmail or check out vidazorb.com
No No No No a thousand times No.
I get why it could work. My skin cleared up in the summer - Houston hot, sticky, humid Houston summers - when I was swimming. Be it a chlorine pool or salt ocean water it cleared up. It didn’t clear as much when I was swimming in fresh water rivers and lakes.
I know it sounds wrong that drying agents would make atopic better. Basically they reduce the swelling allowing a)you to move without fissuring the skin b) the skin to actually heal.
My vision of horror was different than you all’s. When I was in lower elementary 6 - 8 yo, someone cleaned a scrape from a fall with rubbing alcohol or Hydrogen peroxide. I experienced a new sensation - not itching in that area. My skin always itches on some level it is like a white noise in the back ground that you get used to. Flair ups are like a million fire ants crawling under my skin and biting. But when they used that alcohol or Hydrogen peroxide it stopped. For a blistful few minutes that area didn’t itch.
For the next few years my parents had to keep rubbing alcohol and Hydrogen peroxide locked up. I would take bottles and pour them over areas of raw red skin with deep fissures. Yes it burned but then for a short period of time nothing no burn no itch. Can you imagine the damage if I had done that with bleach? I would have if I had made the connection between it and not itching.
I have a deep fear of fire/burning. My father was burned in a kitchen fire in front of me with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his hands leg and foot. Still my parents caught me nearly scalding myself because hot water also stopped the itch on a temporary basis. Once they caught me boiling water to put in a foot soak they used.
This is a very bad idea.