It's not a pretty sight...

Carolina has molluscum. This is going to be a long story...

Sometime last summer (fairly soon after VBS...) we noticed a couple little inconspicuous bumps on the inside of her elbow, over a few months they multiplied... there still weren't many, and her doctor diagnosed them as eczema (which she does also have). A few months later there were more of them popped up around her elbow, tummy, and arm, and I took her back to her doctor, at which point she diagnosed them as molluscum - she didn't seem worried, said there was nothing we could do, it would go away on it's own. Fast forward to December when it appeared to have taken over the left side of her torso, and we decided it was time to go to the dermatologist. Good grief, we waited too long. We found out that there are options for treating it, although they can be painful and expensive or unresponsive. The one we settled on wasn't any of these, and it didn't even bother her. The way it works though is to send the immune system to attack the spots and they all kind of inflame and open up creating lots of scabs. In the places where there were a large concentration of them, it became giant sores and scabs which became infected and we had to put her on antibiotics. The medicine seemed to be working but it made her poor little body look awful. Last week she developed a huge rash on the entire back side of the affected arm which hurt her and scared us quite a bit. Back to the doctor, where she was taken off the initial meds for a period and is now on a steroid cream to basically counteract the immune system which is sort of over-doing it's job. She's a very good sport about it all, and doesn't mind the doctor at all. So at the moment we are on the steroid, off the molluscum meds, and waiting and watching until the next appointment to determine our future course of action. So now you know. It's not fun, it's nothing I'd ever heard of, and it's sad on my poor baby.

Waiting room conversations:

How it currently looks - improved:

We are praying we don't have to have the more intense intervention.