Here’s my completed Eczema Tracker. Having gone through this process I think it’s a great method for busy parents who want to have a quick monthly overview of their eczema baby’s daily activities.
Eczema Tracker October review and new November Tracker
Listed below is my detailed review of my October eczema tracker. My now ready November Tracker is further down the page. For a comprehensive picture of an eczema journal, an Allergy Overview should be added. Mine is indexed for every 3 months although I’m thinking I’ll update the next one to 6 months to match our regular doctors appointment. This should help to monitor the progress of my little boy’s allergies and symptoms so that as he grows and they change *for the better hopefully* and I can see positive improvements.
Bring it on November! We are ready for more healing and growing and fun days to come!
Making Sure Skin Friendly Activities are fulfilled Daily
activity tracker eczema November tracker
This may first appear to be a nonessential section. But as you delve in depth into different therapies beneficial for eczema, you will realize that normal activities are important to complement your moisturising and medication regimes.
It is often said that stress, pain and discomfort can cause eczema flares, so being in a happy mood could reduce the itch intensity. Especially crucial for babies and young children is to have a daily dose of sunshine, fresh air and naps.
Weak gut health can manifest itself on eczema skin. Often, parents have mentioned to me that constipation or diarrhoea results in baby’s eczema skin acting up.
Staying on track with skin friendly diet
The only supplement Corey is taking is probiotics. All other beneficial nutrients are gotten from his food intake. So naturally I wanted to make sure he is having sufficient fruits, vegetables and water. This month I used a dot to denote whether I felt he had enough of the item. I’m thinking it would be even more useful to have a comprehensive legend like A (Alot), E (enough), L (little) and N (none). I also realized I omitted proteins so I’ve added that to my Eczema November Tracker pictured below.
Overview of medications and medicated creams usage
I found this the most useful section of the whole tracker. Our doctor’s instructions were to only use meds and creams maximum twice a day. The goal is to keep reducing our usage as Corey’s skin gets better and better. So that as his skin grows he will stop being dependent on these altogether.
At the height of Corey’s infections (which you can read about here), doctors told me his eczema is for life. Of course I feared a lifelong dependence on these medications, or worse developing side effects. But as I learnt from Corey’s allergist to use them safely without side effects, his skin got better and we reduced our dependency on them. This tracker also gives me an indication if he is using on certain persistent areas so I can highlight to his doctor for more advice.
Usefulness of an itch scale
I have been in two minds about keeping the itch scale in teh November Tracker, simply because it has not been as useful as I envisioned. However, it does indicate to me that on those really itchy days we’d have to step up on the skin healing diet and creams to bring it back down. Therefore it is staying on the November Tracker for another month so I can evaluate.
November Eczema Tracker
As described above, I’ve made a few small changes to my November tracker. Added a section for healing goals and notes. Notes would be used to record health anomalies during the month like falling sick and infections which should be useful in evaluating what happened on certain dates.
I like to think my doodling has improved 🙂
One of my main goals this month is to get this stubborn baby to drink more water!
If you try this and have new ideas for me to improve, do hit me up at amanda@projectsimplicity.sg. I would love to hear your successes or feedback 🙂
1 comment
Dear Amanda,
I am Bobby, Marketing Manager from Hyphens Pharma. I chanced upon your recent posting of your eczema tracker and I love it a lot myself. It’s very detailed and colourful and I think its really helpful for parents like myself to track our kids’ flare-up and non-flare days.
In addition, I was wondering if you have try out an application called “iControlEczema” that can be easily downloaded for free from apple or google store. The iControl Eczema App was developed by us and it helps to track and manage patients’ skin conditions more effectively too. Doctors benefit from this App as the tracking of their patients’ condition allows for better clinical assessment and follow-up treatment.
With that, I was hoping you can give us some valuable inputs on the app if you have the chance to try it out yourself. Have a great week ahead.
Many Thanks