This is a lengthy review...you can skip reading this if you don't have eczema. The only advice I can give if you do not have eczema is to help prevent the type of eczema I developed by always wearing disposible gloves when washing dishes or using household cleaners.
Review: Aveeno Eczema Care Cream
I finished my first tube of
Aveeno Eczema Care Cream about two weeks ago (I can tell from my manicure LOL)
I bought it from
Pharma Plus for $12.49 CDN
This is special cream to treat a skin problem called
eczema.
I have a bit of eczema on three of my fingers on my right hand. The symptoms of eczema that I have is very dry skin that is easily irritated from soaps, cleaning products, even some moisturizers.....the skin becomes really itchy at times and when I scratch it, the condition worsens and often the skin gets raw, might bleed or some clear fluid comes out. When it got pretty bad at times, I didn't even want to go out because it looked terrible.
Here is the back of the tube for more information
How I think I developed eczema
I started having eczema on my fingers around 3 years ago and I saw a dermatologist. The dermatologist noticed it was only on my right hand and since I'm right handed he pointed out that I must be doing something that I am doing with my right hand only.
In hindsight, I believe my dermatologist was correct in guessing that I got eczema due to not wearing disposible gloves when using household cleaning products. I would use gloves for more harsh products such as surface cleaners for the bathroom....but for washing dishes for example, I did not wear gloves.
Also, I adopted my guinea pig Bobo without knowing how allergic I am to guinea pigs. I started developing allergic reactions to him around 2-3 months after I adopted him. I really love him so I decided to keep him and just wash my hands frequently after petting or holding him. But, if you have eczema you know that frequent washing of hands is very irritating.
So I believe my eczema was also triggered from my allergic reaction to my pet.The lesson you can take home is, wear gloves when washing dishes and using household cleaners. And try to use mild (more environmentally friendly) soaps and cleaners also.The creams I have used to try to get rid of my eczema
I was only prescribed one cream by my dermatologist, which is Elocom (mometasone furoate).
I have used so many moisturizers/oils to help my eczema but none have worked....even my favourite moisturizers (pictured below) did nothing to help it :(
Verdict
I highly highly recommend the Aveeno Eczema Care Cream.
This cream has prevented my eczema from flaring up. I know this for a fact because my eczema flared up very easily and rather often no matter what creams I had used before. For the whole duration of the time I used this cream, I am happy to say that I did not experience any severe itching that would lead to my eczema flaring up again. There were a couple of times my eczema prone fingers got a bit itchy, but even when I scratched them to my heart's content (I can't resist an itch!), the eczema did not flare up like it always did before.
I used this cream only on my hands: everytime after washing my hands and before bedtime.
A few days I did not have this cream with me (when I was on my short vacation) and I had to resort to my regular Aveeno moisturizer as a handcream. Sad to say, my eczema prone fingers started to get severely itchy again and it started to flare right back up. So this is when I knew that the Aveeno Eczema Care Cream really worked.
I also know it really works because the skin on my right hand has consistently been very well for the past month and a half I was using this cream...so much so that I don't think anybody can tell I had eczema before.
There is still a bit of dryness particularly when I hop out of the shower before I moisturize. But once I moisturize everything looks fine. I can still feel that the skin is not 100% healed like perfectly normal skin but it's about 85%-90% healed and I will keep this up in hopes of getting rid of my eczema completely.
I also want to point out that about two months ago (before I started this cream), I started to be more mindful of what soaps I was using to wash my hands (I use
Dove handsoap) and making sure that I wear cleaning gloves
at all times when I clean dishes, countertops or when using any household cleaning products. This is very important.
I wanted to note that if you do not have eczema, do not buy this cream. It seriously will not help your skin be any "better"/softer than before. I say this because I had to use the cream on both my hands even though I do not have any eczema at all on my left hand. The skin on my left hand has not changed at all compared to using the other regular Aveeno moisturizers (which I do highly recommend for regular/dry skin).
Products I'm currently using
Although I will absolutely repurchase the Aveeno Eczema Care Cream, I wanted to try out two other new creams that also treat eczema: the baby version of the Aveeno Eczema Care Cream (my curiosity stemmed from the ingredients being slightly different than the adult version I have just reviewed) and Cetaphil's Restoraderm.
I have had such tremendous results from Cetaphil as a teenager when another dermatologist had told me to use Cetaphil moisturizing lotion to combat a sudden onset of severe dry skin. Cetaphil lotion was the only thing that worked at curing my dry skin and I tried soooo many products. So even to this day, a full decade later, I am still very faithful to the Cetaphil brand and the dry skin on my body never came back.
One thing I want to point out is that I like how Aveeno packaged their eczema care creams into a tube. That way I can easily toss it into my purse (which I always do now). On the other hand, I don't like the idea of pulling out the Cetaphil Restoraderm cream out of my handbag because I honestly don't see many people carrying around handcream in their handbag which has a pump! It just takes up lots of room and the pump is usually for bigger sized bottles which aren't as portable.
I will compare Cetaphil Restoraderm and Baby Aveeno Eczema Care with this Aveeno Eczema Care Cream and let you know which of the three worked best for me :)
