Dealing with a raging diaper rash…

I am so excited to tell you all that I cracked the code on my daughter’s diaper rash!!!

She just turned 13 months and while her bum is different from a newborn, some of these principles may apply so I thought I’d share them all.

For context, we’ve been battling eczema and other skin rashes/issues for months now and then this diaper rash popped up a few weeks ago. We are also on a food allergy journey which comes into play here in ways I’m not completely sure but I do think it’s part of the root cause.

I’m embarrassed about this next part, but at her 1 year old check up at the pediatrician I asked about it. The pediatrician thought it looked like strep, and swabbed it and sure enough it was positive for strep. I didn’t know that perianal strep was a thing, and I don’t know why but this feels so embarrassing. It’s like, what is a more basic job of a parent then cleaning their bum! Of course I am giving myself grace as you should too if you should ever find yourself in this situation. It did not come from just not cleaning her well enough. I think that unfortunately there was some underlying irritation and skin breakdown that allowed bacteria and yeast to proliferate.

So we came out of there with prescriptions for oral antibiotics and nystatin ointment.

Over the next few days it seemed to get worse or at a minimum stay the same. The nystatin ointment didn’t seem to do anything, if anything made it worse.

I tried a bunch of other more natural options and the needle was just not moving. (Allimax, medi honey, manuka honey, colloidal silver, Maty’s diaper cream…you name it, I tried it.) I was feeling extremely defeated.

Finally I stumbled upon a Reddit thread talking about the crusting technique. This involves using ostomy powder first and then a barrier cream. The problem is that if you have too much moisture a barrier cream won’t stick and then won’t provide a barrier and you just continue to have a nasty mess.

The ostomy powder absorbs the moisture, so that you can then make a barrier cream stick. Let me tell you, with a one year old, there is a lot more space that needs a barrier so it’s very important to get that layer on there.

I used a homemade cream—just non-nano zinc oxide and jojoba oil. I randomly had the zinc from a few years ago when I tried making my own baby sunscreen.

After a few days of using both the ostomy powder and the zinc cream I was able to go to just using the zinc cream. One other thing, you can’t be shy about getting it in there all the way to the exit if you will.

As of now I’m still using the zinc cream and I’m going to stay vigilant in this maintenance mode. Since we are still battling the food allergies, the skin irritation could come back and flare this up again.

Cross your fingers for us!