Infant Folliculitis.

What in the world is infant folliculitis?  Well for starters it's what Deuce has... poor baby.  Folliculitis is an infection of the follicles of the hair that is caused when bacteria gets trapped in the hair follicle.  Yuck.  So last Monday while we were in Knoxville, I noticed a few bumps on Deuce's arms.  They looked like bug bites and I just assumed that was that. 

By the next day, there were more on his legs (like quite a few more) and I was a little concerned but not too much.  He didn't seem to notice them.  I kind of just chalked it up to some sort of heat rash.  We had been swimming a lot and I had been lathering him up with sunscreen so I figured it was the sun or the lotion that was causing this reaction.  So I kept him out of the sun as much as possible for a few days.  They didn't really get worse, but they weren't getting better either.  By the time we were winding down our trip, some of the bumps looked like a zit and were opening when he fell down or was playing and rolling around. {Not opening like disgusting, oozing, nastiness or anything, just like he had scratched himself.}  Still, he didn't seem phased at all.  He was not scratching them and seemed oblivious to their existence.  The poor little guy already has childhood eczema so I already had the cortisone on hand and I had been applying it all week.  While we were on the way home on Sunday, I told Ed to google it and see what he came up with.  Stupid, I know.  We found articles on everything from chicken pox to Lyme disease!  {Hello, freak me out much? We had just been trekking through the mountains of Boone and walking through creeks and in tick heaven.} I decided to call the nurse and see what she thought.  I called at about 9pm Sunday night and she told me to come in the next day.  So yesterday we took him to the doctor.  Dr. Davis walked in, looked at him and said, "Was he in a pool at all?" Uhhh, only all week long. 

And that was it.  His skin is so sensitive that even the teeniest bit of bacteria in the swimming pool probably caused it.  For everyone else, our skin can tolerate it, there is no reaction and when we shower it washes right off.  But for Deuce, I let him swim and then hang out and dry off and then swim some more and so on until he had a bath later at night.  That's all it took for his hair follicles to become infected.  So anyway, we are now having to apply a topical cream (Bactroban - that is made by my company, GSK) and hope that it clears up.  If it has not gotten better within 10 days, we will have to put him on an oral medication.

So note to all parents:  wash your kid with antibacterial soap and water IMMEDIATELY after taking them out of the pool to prevent this gross, bumpy infection!!!  And this is why you are supposed to rinse off before you get in and after you get out of the pool  AND Bactroban is not cheap....

And sorry for the absence lately.  We were on vacation for 10 days so I have lots to catch up on!!

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