Hi, I have just discovered this site and registered and would like any advice anyone can give me for my 3 year old son. He has Keratosis Pilaris on his cheeks, arms and the fronts of his thighs. Since he was diagnosed with this condition, we have used a few creams prescribed by our doctor, but none seem to help that much. Does anyone have any advice for me and also has anyone had a child who has this condition and has grown out of it. I really want to clear his skin up, although his cheeks are not as bad as they have been, his arms and thighs are particularly bumpy. The redness is not so much of a problem, it is the pimples, which often have white heads in them.

Thanks for anyones advice.

Lisa

My four year old son had pretty severe KP on his cheeks since he was about a year old but now finally they are fading. Our pediatrician says it always goes away on the face and bumps lessen with age. Our 10month old however has them really bad on the backs of his calves. Does the Eucerin Plus really work?

Lisa-

First, what has your doctor prescribed and how long did you try them out? What is your current regimen? Have you tried the Neutrogena Bump Minimizing lotion yet for the pimples?

Kelly-

I forget to respond to your question about the Eucerin Plus. I have been using the Eucerin Plus on my son for over a year now and still use it (switch off with some other stuff too) and liked it. The reason I have continued using it is besides the fact that the bumps are much better that it seems gentler and does not make it redder while the bumps smaller. With that being said, all kp skin is different but good luck to you.

I posted in another thread--but wanted to post here to say, Eucerin Plus has worked the best for my daughter. We use the kind in the aqua tube--the thick cream--not the lotion. It contains urea which seems to help.

Visited the dermatologist for the 1st time yesterday, and she said continue with this regimine. Moisture is key--and she said she would see us back in about 10 years, when my daughter enters puberty and becomes more self-conscious about the KP! We discussed loofa, steroids, and LacHydrin all of which she said would be intolerable for my daughter--who isn't even 2 yet.

Oh, the battle continues!

Hi again,

Thanks for the advice re the above creams for my son's KP. Do i get these on prescription in the uk?

I have tried regular eucerin before and this does not seem to be working. I am currently using white soft parrafin bp, is ok, but not making much improvement. I use E45 bath oil in the bath, does anyone know if this can irritate it? I also use a aloe vera liquid soap to wash his body with, this is from forever living products. This does not seem to irritate his skin, I wash him using a small sea sponge.

My daughter who is nearly 8 mths old seems to have quite sore cheeks at the moment, with a redish rash on. I am hoping it isn't the start of the smae thing. Should I use Eucerin plus on her if I get it, is it ok for general sore, dry skin if she doesn't have KP.

Thanks Lisa

My 2yr. old son was recently diagnosed with Keratosis Pilaris as well. The dermatologist said that it is the worst he has ever seen on a child this young. He has minimal bumps and pimple-like areas on his cheeks. His arms are almost completely covered from shoulders to wrists and his legs the same from hips to ankles. We've not started on the whole regime, but have started with AmLactin. Has anyone used this before? We have only used it for 2 days and has already started to soften the roughness on his skin. Any tips would be GREATLY appreciated!

Thanks! Cody's mom 2003

Like another mom said, the key to kp is (1) moisturizing. And on top of that you need to (2)exfoliate with those aha/bha lotions. With children this young it really is not necessary to do manual exfoliation. The LacHydrin, Amlactin, and others prescribed by doctors is similar to the non prescription Eucerin Plus, the Neutrogena Bump Minimizing Lotion, and others. They all have some sort of aha or bha which helps to exfoliate the kp. They contain urea, lactic acid, salicylic acid, or whatever else to help slough exfoliate the skin. I use a cream moisturizer 2X a day and also use an exfoliating lotion 2X a day and a year later his skin is much more under control. Another thing is since it is almost fall and winter when the air is so much drier due to the heater running and the cold temps, I use a humidifier at night while he is sleeping to keep the moisture in.

Some of these lotions seems to work for some and not for others. However, you do need to try these out for at least several weeks before you can say it is working or not. When I first tried some of these my son's skin was all red and irritated still. It did take time for his skin to get used to it. He had the red bumps on all limbs and on face it was all red and pimply too when we first started this process. What I noticed helped with the specific acne-like pimples that sometimes showed up was the salicylic acid in the Neutrogena lotion (which is also in acne products). Another thing I do to help the pimply spots is to a couple times a day use hydrogen peroxide on a q-tip (read it from another poster to heal kp that has been picked at) and hold it there and then put something on there to help heal. The kp pimples that do show up now seem to go away rather quickly.

jacobsmommy- my son is almost 20 month's old and has KP on his cheeks, arms and legs. lately it seems like he's gotten a lot more bumps on all of these areas. i used eucerin plus for about a month and it kept the reddness under control but did not minimize the bumps. about a week ago, i started using Lachydrin 5 on his face and after a few days, his face got really red and a couple bumps got really inflammed (big, ***** white heads). i stopped using the Lachydrin 5 temporarily but was wondering if i should switch to Lacticare Lotion since it only has 5% lactic acid where as the Lachydrin has 12%. i'm just not that comfortable using all these chemicals on my son especially since he's so young. i almost wonder if i should just stick to regular lotions/creams until my son is a little older. i also tried the Neutrogena Skin Smoothing body lotion for about a week on my son's arms but it seems like the amount of bumps have increased. i have noticed that his KP gets worse when i put sunscreen on him though and that lotion does have SPF 15. is it typical for the KP to worsen when you're trying out a new product?

also, dermadoctor.com recommended using Triceram which has hyaluronic lotion as one of the ingredients. has anyone had any luck with that?

thanks for any input.

As for the Lachydrin, I am not that familiar with it since I haven't used it personally but thought that that the Lachydrin 5 had 5% of the lactic acid and the 12 had 12%. So if you had used the Lachydrin 5 you should have used the formula with the lower %. For my son on his cheeks what I have been using is the Lacticare 5% (and this should be the same strength as what you used but different fomulas of course).

Anyway, has your son ever had the big pimply ***** ones prior to this or is this the first time? You are his mom and should go with your gut instinct but if you are trying out something new you should give it time to see if it works for your child. It is hard to say with new products, your skin can take a liking to it right away or in my son's case when we first started these different products on him, it did take over a month and then some for things to start really improving. At first I did not have much patience and would try something and if I didn't see improvement right away I would switch and continue with different products. I think that is why it took so long was because I didn't give it a chance. Also, some kp comes in peaks where it looks better for a while and then it has its period where it looks worse despite the same care maybe.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, due to my son's age I really do try to stay away from the strong prescription stuff and use stuff that has less stuff in it. However, at the same time since it sounds like your son has more than a mild case of it he does need the exfoliating lotion to help that kp come off. If you need some other product ideas you want to try let me know since I have tried some that is for sure.

If your son's skin seems to worsen when you use sunscreen on him then it could be a possibility that there is something in there that does not agree with him as with the sunscreen in the Neutrogena.

Lastly, what have you been doing besides using the Eucerin Plus to treat his skin? Have you been also moisturizing him? If you have any other questions feel free to email me.

i tried to email you directly but it gave me a message that it was not permitted by you. anyway, i may be mistaken about the Lachydrin 5. i looked for it's AHA % online and recall a website saying that it was 12% but i probably confused it for the 12% Lachyrdin. in any case, he got some pimply bumps when i first started using the Eucerin Plus on him. i discontinued use until the the ***** bumps went away.

i was looking online for some product info just now and found the EWG's (environmental working group) site and there was some unsettling information about the products that a lot of KP suffers are using. particularly for young children, i'm not sure if these products should be used on them. Eucerin Plus Creme got a pretty bad score because it says it may damage the skin and may increase risk of skin cancer. urea and bisabolol are 2 ingredients that may increase exposures to carcinogens. anyway, you can read the report at http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep/...prod_id=901453. they also have a link for the 10 best and 10 worst moisturizers and you can look up almost any product out there. i wasn't able to find any info on Lacticare Lotion though but i may try doing a search for specific ingredients in the lotion.

as fas as moisturizing goes, i've tried aveeno, aquaphor, jojoba oil, and olive oil. i may try out some of the things from the EWG's best 10 list. i would definately like to know what are some of the things that you've used and had success with. i'm thinking that perhaps i should just stick to moisturizers and wait to use exfoliants until my son is a bit older.

orkidoll-

I tried emailing you and it also says not pm allowed (mine is set up to receive them so there must be some glitch). My email is scsymalla@yahoo.com and we can discuss some of this stuff.

We took our 2 year old son off of milk products for ONE day and had nearly a 50% reduction in his bumps. Since the two weeks that he has been on soy milk he still has some bumps, but his skin is so much smoother. My holistic doctor also recommended that we exclude gluten (wheat) from his diet. Something to think about...

colinsmom,
I've been wondering if food allergies could aide in flare-up of kp. We've tried taking milk products away before, but it didn't change the appearance of kp. But we do know that cody is allergic to a couple of foods and some medicine. Thanks for mentioning food allergy on this post! I'm going to talk to our Dermatologist about seeing an allergist as well. Maybe he's allergic to more than we know. Thanks again!!

Cody's Mom,

I spoke with a second doctor today (who is also a holistic md) and she believes kp is from a fatty acid imbalance (in addition to food allergies for some) which can easily be altered with nutritional supplements. I honestly don't know how they test for that as I am just doing research now and trying to figure out how we're going to tackle this issue. It's funny how so many "western" doctors have told me that his condition is genetic, that I must have it or his father...but nobody in our family has it. It makes me crazy how they say to just put some lotion on it and live with it...especially after seeing a huge change in his condition by taking him off of dairy.