Wet Wrap Therapy

At National Jewish Health, the therapy program relies heavily on wet wrap therapy.

This involves a 20 minute "soak" in the bath tub followed by a "smear" of a thick layer of ointment/creme/medicines/steroids on the child's ENTIRE body, which is then covered with a layer of WET clothing, including tube socks over the hands & feet.  The final layer is warm pjs and dry socks on the hands/feet.

Vinnie wears exclusively 100% wool or wool/silk blends that have been lanolized for his normal clothing.  Anything else we have tried has irritated his skin.

The wet-wrap therapy is done with 100% COTTON clothing.

Obviously this poses a problem for us.  So, I went out & bought a set of cotton pjs and a fleece sleeper for Vinnie to do a trial run to see if maybe the "barrier layer" of cremes would be sufficient to protect his skin from irritation.

We did our first trial run this morning.  Vinnie did NOT like soaking in the tub.  He did NOT like getting the lotions smeared on him.  We did triamcinilone steroid creme on his eczema spots and CeraVe lotion on his clear skin.

When we finished dressing him, it only took a few minutes for Tim to calm him down and he was happy.  He was a little embarrassed about leaving the house all wrapped up but we made him comfortable & he was able to enjoy Chic Fil A for lunch while shopping at Target. (he had to eat with a fork, instead of his fingers)

He took a nap on the car ride home and it was right around time to take off the wrap (he wore it for 2 hours) when we got home.  His skin showed NO signs of irritation, which is wonderful.

We kept him dressed in long sleeves and socks/shoes all day, so he wouldn't be able to scratch & undo any healing that took place.  At dinner time his skin still felt moist/soft.

After dinner we did another soak/smear/wet wrap routine.  Vinnie did okay with the bath, he was pretty upset at first but eventually calmed down and didn't want to get out.  He cried pretty badly during the smearing and dressing in wet clothing though.  Tim was able to calm him down and get him to bed pretty quickly though, so we'll see how his skin is tomorrow.

UPDATE: 3/15/15 AM--Vinnie slept well during the night & woke up with no irritation.  The pjs that had been wet were mostly dry but cool.  We tried to leave them on him but he was quickly scratching under them, so we switched him back into his regular wool clothing.