h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After our daughter had suffered terrible, weeping eczema for several months, I discovered quite by accident that the cause of her affliction was the cream prescribed to cure it.

Her condition started after I used Sudocrem to treat nappy rash, though at the time we thought the nappy rash itself was the first sign of the eczema. She was prescribed aqueous cream for her 'sympathetic eczema', and later Diprobase when the first didn't seem strong enough. She was constantly on steroid treatment, which was the only thing that really seemed to help, and had oilatum in her bath every night.

When I noticed that her condition one day actually seemed to worsen during the half hour after I had applied the DiproBase, I immediately washed her skin and stopped using all the creams, just a little olive oil from time to time. During the next week her eczema cleared up completely.

I tried re-introducing each of the products individually at times, and each time her eczema came back.

The sudocrem link I didn't discover until two days ago, since she was potty trained by the time we solved the problem, and also quite by chance we'd bought baby savlon when the sudocrem ran out.

Two days ago I used sudocrem to treat a sore patch on her skin and she got eczema again.

I told all my friends what I'd discovered, and both the children I knew with eczema turned out to be allergic to these products.