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!
Good to see some reasonable parents who have actually tried this and have seen the results have spoken over the crazies who initially reacted to this story.
One of the most important factors in clearing up eczema is diet. I have severe eczema and by cleansing my liver and blood and eliminating foods that I couldn’t tolerate my eczema cleared up.
I can’t believe that anyone would even suggest bathing in bleach, much less a baby! Why is it so hard to accept the fact that food allergens are a major problem for many eczema sufferers?
I am a microbiologist and my spouse has severe eczema. A few months ago he was hospitalized with what turned out to be a severe Staph aureus infection that caused septicemia (a blood infection) and then got into his spinal column, forming an abscess. It took weeks of I.V. antibiotics for him to recover.
As soon as I found out that the bacteria causing the infection were Staph aureus, I knew it came from his skin, probably through a scratch or open sore, of which he has many. His eczema improves when he is on antibiotics, but if he takes antibiotics all the time he is much more likely to end up with antibiotic resistant Staph, which could not be treated if he got another bad infection.
Bacteria cannot become resistant to chemical agents like bleach. DILUTE bleach is not toxic. No one is suggesting that you fill the bathtub with bleach and sit a child in there. Municipal drinking water contains bleach and most of us have stayed much healthier drinking water treated with bleach than people who live in countries where the water is not treated. Also, if you think immersing a kid in very dilute bleach is so dangerous, I hope you never let your child in a swimming pool. Of course, letting a child in a swimming pool without bleach is what is really dangerous! People get sick from swimming in untreated natural lakes, not from chlorine treated swimming pools.
The ability of bleach to kill bacteria at very low bleach concentrations that do not harm people is something that we should all be grateful for. When I travel to countries where the water is not safe I carry a very small dropper bottle of bleach. I add a couple of drops to the water (in my water bottle) so that it is safe for brushing my teeth, or even for drinking (after it sits for a few hours). Used correctly at the right low concentration, bleach is a good thing for killing bacteria that could kill you.
the bleach is to kill staph infection that is present in 90% of eczema sufferers.
Nobody has mentioned this yet.
Hello,
My son is 10 months old and he suffers from eczema. We’ve tried every cream on the market. Natural remedies, you name it. Nothing seemed to cure or soothe him.
His allergist told us about this study and we decided to try it. We only put 1/8 a cup of bleach in his baby bathtub. So far so good. He hasn’t worn socks on his hands in over a week. He’s worn socks on his hands since he was born so the fact that he hasn’t had to wear them for a week is great for him. He was so uncomfortable all day and especially overnight. So far this has been helpful for us.
I think whoever wrote this article is stupid! They obviously have no idea what it is to suffer from eczema. I have had eczema all my life… 22 years, and nothing has worked. I have tried everything out there.. lotions, oils, soaps, no fragrances, diet, pills, everything! You can imagine my frustration reading this since the author makes it seem so easy to find another solution for eczema. I recently started taking bleach baths and have found it to be positive. My skin has never been so soothed and calm before it was really amazing. So for those of you who have no idea what severe eczema do not think you can write an article on how to use alternative methods. The bleach bath has the possibility of helping so many eczema sufferers. I know for me it has made a huge difference better then anything the doctor has ever prescribed or anything else i have tried. So before you judge these crazy bleach baths but yourself in the position of someone who is constantly scratching at their skin making it bleed 24 hours 7 days a week. The bleach bath works!
Not only is this article replete with spelling mistakes, but the opinion in it comes across as so judgmental when it is obvious the author has not fully researched all her facts surrounding bleach and eczema.
This is actually an old medicinal treatment that goes back centuries, many people in the south have been curing their children’s skin ailments in this way, and there *IS* a safe way to do it, without harming your child, their skin or yourself.
Please research before you write….
I have suffered from eczema since a child. I read through the comments and most of the ones against a bleach bath are those who don’t even have eczema. And those who have kids with it, can’t even fathom how painful and itchy it is…u have NO clue how horrible it feels. You can look at it and feel for them, but bottom line…you DON’T know and if it was you with it all over your skin, I’m betting after trying everything and it all failing, you’d dip right into that bleach bath if it even meant a SLIGHT chance of relieving just half the pain eczema causes.
I have chronic eczema. I try all the suggestions, medications and do everything the doctors order, but I still suffer and I loose sleep constantly because it is so out of control and nothing is working. I have a lot of allergies and the eczema naturally flares up worse in the summer. But it will linger year round no matter what time of year. I can’t turn the weather off, I can’t move to some cold climate…it’s not as easy as changing a lifestyle to make your body work right.
I’d like to know what you think is a better alternative. Let them suffer or risk a little for a saner life. And I do mean saner, you don’t have a clue how it feels. I’m a adult and having a hard time coping…imagine it on a child. I’d risk 10 years off my life if it meant one with out eczema. And don’t think I don’t remember what it was like as a child…I was just as miserable. To this day I suffer from Major Depression…I don’t doubt growing up in pain contributed to that.
Until you have it, don’t criticize and that goes to the parents with kiddies who have it. You may THINK you know how it feels…but you don’t have a clue. Pour gasoline on your feet, light them on fire and put it right out. Then maybe you’ll begin to understand the fraction of burning, itching and pain that goes along with eczema.
I both surprised and appalled at how judgemental some are being about the bleach bathes. At the same time, I am so glad that there are people on here to stick up for the parents who have children suffering from this horrid condition. My daughter sufferers from allergies, asthma, and severe eczema. She is now 7 years old. She does have food allergies (eggs, tree nuts and oats). I had been to our physician, dermatologist, and allergist. We are now seeing an immunologist who specializes in the pediatric area of food allergies-asthma-eczema relation.
Once we saw her, I was surprised at all the misinformation that we had been given. First of all, people with eczema should never have the standard rast allergy test - they should draw blood and test directly. And NEVER have allergy shots (we had allergy shots for a year). Everyone had a differant opinion -don’t take to many baths, take as many as you can, don’t drink milk, diet doesn’t matter. We were so confused.
Our Dr. explained that dealing with eczema may always be a battle -unless she grows out of it. There is no known cure. The three conditions are usually linked in some way -and can be food related - but not always. Doctors are desperate to find a way to relieve patients. And the staph that 90% of people with eczema have on the skin is quickly becoming antibiotic resistant. BTW the reason for the antibiotic is the staph. In the population that do not have eczema only about 25% carry the staph. That is the itch-scratch cycle. Eczema is not contagious but that is how it spreads on thier body - they scratch her and staph enters and the they scratch somewhere else.
So to those of you that say I am poisoning my baby by having her soak in the bath with a 1/4 cup of bleach, I want you for one second to step in the shoes of the parents who are desperate - who watch thier child suffer by not being able to stop scratching. I want you to put the creams (steriod creams mind you) over the red scabby bumps, smear aquaphor all over them, wet some fitted cotton pjs, and the put a dry pair over them. All the while the child is telling you she is cold and asking why God made her this way (my answer is so that one day she will be able to help children just like her deal with something that they shouldn’t have to and what we go through makes us who we are).
Then I want you to put that child to bed - only to have her wake you up crying because she has scratched herself and there is blood on her pillow. Then I want you to rock that child and hold her hands while she sleeps so that she can’t scratch herself. THEN you tell me that you wouldn’t do anything you could to help her.
How DARE you judge! You are probably the same person who looks at us and pulls thier child towards them so that my little girl doesn’t accidentally brush against them. You have no idea what it is like - so if that little bit of bleach 2 - 3 times are week in a 10 to 15 minute soak - while she pretends she is a mermaid helps. I will do it. We will beat this and she will get better! But know what you are talking about before you post judgemental comments. I am sorry to rant and rave - I am stepping down from my soap box. Thanks
It’s loveley that many people who do not have eczema and are not scientists can quickly dismiss this kind of treatment as dangerous.
I have had Eczema since I was a baby; I am 24 now. I have Tried almost everything out there. Different grades of steroids, elidel, protopic, elimination diets, taking care to eliminate reactions from dust mites, holistic treatments, and none have worked so far, except limited results from steroids which are counter-productive.
I’ve done the nonsense with salts and creams and oils. I have have been trying these bleach bath’s for a couple of weeks now and they have shown the most improvement of any treatments I have taken.
As for your side effects listed, unless you pour a cup of bleach into a cup and drink it, then you wont have problems such as coughing up your organs. Obviously safety precautions need to be taken, which goes for all treatments, especially the ones for eczema such as steroids and other immuno-suppressants.
You might as well write an article condemning chlorine pools.