Bleach baths may help children with eczema

27 April, 2009 - Participating in a clinical trial in 2006 changed 7-year-old Ben Kieffer's life.

Ben had suffered from severe eczema since he was 5 weeks old, with relentless itchy, painful flares of the skin condition. He also took many courses of antibiotics to treat related infections.

"His calves were covered in scales and his hands would crack and swell with infection," Jennifer Kieffer says. "It was really tough for him, but we saw a big change almost immediately after he joined the study."

The trial was carried out by researchers at Northwestern University, in Chicago. Ben's improvement was remarkable, but, even more remarkable is the fact that the treatment he received was not a high-tech, expensive new drug or topical cream.

In fact, it's about as low tech and inexpensive, as you can get. When his eczema flared up, Ben soaked daily in bath water containing about 60ml of household bleach.

He still takes frequent bleach baths, even though his eczema is much better. His mum says the baths have made all the difference. And is impressed that such an improvement costs only a few pence.

Before you try this at home, talk to your GP or your child's GP about it.

Bleach baths for eczema

According to the National Eczema Society, UK, as many as one in five school-aged children have eczema, known medically as atopic eczema. The skin condition is characterised by itchy, inflamed skin that often becomes scabby and raw from scratching.

Many experts believe that frequent scratching, which breaks the skin, makes eczema sufferers more susceptible to skin infections, including difficult to treat ones like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Paediatric dermatologist, Dr Amy Paller, led the trial - alongside Dr Jennifer Huang and colleagues - and claims that about 90% of people with eczema  have staphylococcus on their skin, compared to only about 25% of people who don’t get eczema.

Staphylococcus infections have traditionally been treated with antibiotics, but bleach baths can also kill the microbes that cause infection.

Paller now recommends bleach baths to all her patients with moderate to severe eczema.

This is the first time researchers have conducted a formal study to examine the treatment.

Thirty-one children between the ages of 6 months and 17 years, including Ben Kieffer, were included in the study. All had moderate to severe eczema and were also infected with staphylococcus. They were all were being treated with a 14-day course of antibiotics.

In addition to the medicinal treatment, half of the children took bleach baths and the other half took placebo baths without bleach.

For the purposes of the study, children took bleach or placebo baths twice a week, but Paller says more frequent baths may be useful during eczema flare-ups.

After three months, the reduction in eczema symptoms among the children who took the bleach baths was five times greater than in those children who took the placebo baths. The results were so dramatic that researchers stopped the three-month study early so that all the children could benefit from the bleach baths.

During the study, children who were randomly assigned to the bleach-bath group also dabbed a topical antibiotic up their nose (where staphylococcus bacteria often harbour). But Paller says she has many patients who don't use this intervention and still improve with bleach baths.

The study appears in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics.

"This is not going to be a cure for everybody," says Paller.  "But there is certainly a subset of patients who will benefit tremendously".