Eczema Treatment

Oxford Online Pharmacy Eczema Service and Information

If you or your child suffers from eczema, Oxford Online Pharmacy provides an online consultation with our GMC registered doctor. Please select your medication and complete the online doctor's questionnaire. Your answers will then be assessed by the doctor and a prescription will be issued, subject to approval. If you already have a private or NHS prescription, then select the medication specified on the prescription and send the prescription to us. Our pharmacist will then dispense your medicine and send it to you in discrete packaging.

Introduction & Symptoms

Atopic eczema is very common in children affecting one in five children and can continue into adulthood affecting one in twelve adults. Eczema causes the skin to be red, dry, cracked and itchy and usually affects areas with folds of skin such as the inside of elbows and knees, and around the neck and eyes and ears. This type of eczema varies in severity and sufferers can have flare ups leading to sore, cracked and bleeding skin.

What Causes Eczema?

The exact causes are unknown, but it usually affects people with allergies and runs in families. It often occurs in people who also have asthma and hay fever.

The Treatment of Eczema

Symptoms can be eased with various ointments and creams, which can be used to control dry skin and swelling and redness during severe flare ups. Atopic eczema improves with age and disappears in 53% of children when they reach 11 and 65% of children by the age of 16.

Other Types of Eczema

Contact dermatitis is inflammation of the skin, usually caused by irritants or allergens. If you can avoid contact, your symptoms will disappear. Otherwise, ointment and creams should help.

Discoid eczema usually affects adults and sufferers get circular or oval patches of eczema on the body, but not on the head or scalp. Treatment usually consists of antibiotic cream or tablets.

Dyshidrotic eczema or pompholyx causes tiny blisters to erupt on the hands and sometimes on the soles of feet. It can clear up by itself. You should avoid contact with irritants and creams and ointments may help.

Seborrhoeic eczema causes red scaly skin on the sides of the nose, eyebrows, scalp and ears. It is also associated with dandruff when anti-dandruff shampoo is recommended.

Varicose eczema occurs on the legs often around swollen veins. Keeping active, compression stockings, ointment and creams can ease symptoms.

Authored by Stuart Gale, on 14 October 2018. Reviewed by Robert Bradshaw, on 14 December 2018.