weird skin thing? allergies?

January 9, 2005

Hi Folks

I've got a mystery.

My two year old, full bio sibling to -Ira is being assessed for

tethered spinal cord, SBO and cerebral palsy. The MRI is next month, for

her spine.

She's been diagnosed with 'unknown genetic abnormalities, cause unknown',

and may have been drug exposed before birth. Her bio mom was in prison on

felony child abuse convictions, and drugs are readily available there too.

As well, an earlier head MRI (one year ago) showed frontal lobe atrophy.

She displays some symptoms of a child with neurological deficits, ie: head

banging, rocking, self stimming, and self abuse. (She picks holes in her

skin and watches it bleed, bites herself, etc.)

She also has very low muscle tone, a small dimple, and a fatty spot at the

base of her spine like her brother has, that turned out to be SBO related.

My instincts, which are usually on (I knew -Ira's diagnoses, long

before confirmed with MRI).

To help prevent further brain damage, she was prescribed and fitted with a

foam helmet that is covered with a coating that we think is latex. She

wears it only at night and when napping. We wash it each day with

antibacterial soap.

A few weeks ago, she started getting what we thought was cradle cap at the

very back of her head. We treated it, and it only got worse.

Over time we've used anti-fungals, antibiotics, both topical and internal,

and now an anti-fungal that is taken by mouth. (All at our pdocs

prescriptions). The last doctor we saw said it was a fungal with a nasty

bacteria on top of it.

It swells up, getting soft and mushy, then 'springs a leak' for want of a

better description, leaking from the hair follicles and a few pinpoint size

openings, and oozes red/pink smelly discharge, and then remains red and

angry looking, before starting all over again. Her hair has all fallen out

in a patch about the size of three oranges at the back of her head, and the

spots are growing in number, despite all the various concoctions prescribed.

I hope to get her into a dermatologist, but if my experience is anything to

go by (he said I had eczema when it was really a fungus my husband brought

back from his trip to Haiti two years ago) I'm not hopeful he'll recognize

it either.

Is is possible that it's a latex allergy gone wild? Or?

Ideas? Suggestions?

respectfully

Deedee

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