Hi,
I am new here. It feels good to see that my son is not the only one out there with KP! I would appreciate any advice or words of wisdom!

I suspect that my toddler son may have UO after extensive internet research. He definately has KPRF. A little background - as a baby I had also had red cheeks. My mom just always said they were nice and 'rosy'......yeah right!!! I outgrew the redness at some point - I can't remember when - probabley by age 6 or 7- it was never that bad. Today my cheeks will become flushed easily if I am hot. My son's face gets red if he is hot or upset - including his eyebrows. He does not itch his eyebrows and he has not lost any hair. If he is not upset, he is really quite pale - including his eyebrows. Does this sound like UO? Can toddlers get it?

My question is, if you have UO are your eyebrows always red or does it come and go? Does hair loss always occur? Does it progressively get worse with age? People talk of scarring - when does that occur and what type of scarring occurs? I have a dermatologist appointment for my son coming up soon, should I request any type of treatment? Any other suggestions?

Thank you so much in advance. I am really trying to keep this all in perspective as things could be way worse!

Hi Quentin

I can understand your concern about your son. I have UO but my symptoms did not appear until puberty. this seems to be the case for a lot of people on this forum however I have read of it showing up in childhood also.

For me the symptoms of UO were redness and KP bumps around the eyebrows (especially the outer third). This redness became permanent and gradually the hair on the outer third disappeared. There is a picture of 'my eyebrow' somewhere on the UO forum that I posted a while back. My eyebrows always itched a lot and I believe I have caused further hair loss through scratching them so much!

UO and atrophoderma vermiuclata (AV) are part of the category 'keratosis pilaris atrophican faciei' in that both conditions atrophy or scar the skin.

UO and AV are part of several syndromes and can often occur with other congential defects. My youngest son was born with a major congenital heart defect and at age 11 I noticed his eyebrows also getting red on the outer part and some hair loss occuring on just one. Like your child this redness was not constant but often seemed more noticable at nighttime. About that time I came in contact with Annuu on the forum. Annuu is a NZ pharmacist and had developed a product for KP using extra virgin cocount oil. I began to use this on my sons eyebrow when it sometimes became red at night and found that in the morning the redness had gone. After a few times of doing this the redness stopped and hasn't come back. I am not sure if it was coincidence but others on the thread below have reported improvement for their children also:

What's worked for your kids?

I also took my son to a derm but they said it was too early to say what was happening but agreed his eyebrows were not symetrical. I am pleased to say however that for the last few months there has been no redness. I believe that hormones have a lot to play in this condition and that if he can get through his teens without the redness starting up again he probably doesn't have UO. You may well find that your child's redness subsides at around the same age as yours also. At this stage I think it is very much just watch and see but also keep abreast of products that work on the KP bumps that cause the inflammation and subsequential hair loss.

UO is not all that common so it may be that your child has just KP bumps on their face. Wishing you all the best.

Hi Anne,
Thank you so much for answering my post. I appreciate all your information and suggestion of Annuu's cream. I am going to email him right now. I wish you the best and your son as well. Thank you.

Anne, have you tried the stuff on your own brows? Does it work on adults?

No I haven't - at 45 the inflammatory stage of UO is finished (stopped in lated 20's/early 30's for me). I just have redness from scarring.

Annuu has a website/email link shown under some of his posts. He is a nice guy and would answer any questions you had with the cream.

What I liked about it is that it is lovely and gentle - many people have sited EVCO (extra virgin cocount oil) as helping their KP so it may well be useful for UO also in its inflammatory stages.

As my son has not been officially diagnosed with UO I hesitate to say it is a treatment for it but it certainly would do no harm to try it.

Let me know if you can't find Annuu's email and I will search it out for you.

Gidday folks,

Just in case you aren't too sure which cream Anne was referring to above, it was Koru kp Oleum that helped the redness in her son's eyebrows.

Kind regards,

Annuu

Anne, what do you know will take the redness out of the scarring you have? I'm in the same boat as you, post-inflametory, some bumps every now and then, and redness, kind of shiny in direct light from scarring I suppose. I want the red out of the scarring, or minimized.

Hi Redbrow

Unfortunately PDL is the only thing that has helped with the redness. I agree with you though that the downtime is a real nuisance.

I have had two treatments but it has taken me 7-10 days to look near normal even with concealer on so it is quite a mission getting that amount of time off work and also shutting myself away while it heals. The last time the lastest Candela Vbeam pulse dye laser (with cooling mechanism) was used. However bruising still occured.

Because I also have red scarring on my cheeks from AV I will probably try for another go as it is the only thing I know of that works of the damaged blood vessels.

All articles I have read recommend PDL as the choice for vascular redness.

I will try and find the post I did a while back that showed my eyebrow after two treatments and post it below again.

Hi again Redbrow

This is a picture of me (will probably delete in a couple of days). The eyebrow and cheek area used to be really red - now after PDL treatment they are kind of dark pink.

It is so hard to get an accurate idea of colour though with a photo.

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