Any experience w/Molloscum?

[Tattylou]

@mjkacmom I know devastated seems like a strong word, but I'm talking about a 9 year who is counting down to a Florida trip and really the pool is one of his favorite parts. We live someplace with snow on the ground now and we don't have a pool. It is a novelty. I do appreciate what you are saying though and we can definitely try to make the best of it.

 

[Skellingtonj]

Yes both kids had it. It stinks. We used an anti itch cream when it was bad. My oldest had it on the back of her knees in the summer. It was tough. Most important thing is to not share towels. Make she she’s competely dry when she gets out of the shower, bath, etc. we swam when she had it. It’s not contagious just annoying. Good luck!

 

[Tattylou]

The primary care doctor just call me. She says that the pool water is not the issue- it is all the surfaces around the pool that his wet molluscum could touch that would transmit it. She says as long as it was covered in waterproof bandages there should be no risk of transmission. I still may keep him out bc it does make me nervous. I will check with the dermatologist again too.
We are in the middle of New England winter and so my kids are in clothing from head to toe. Both doctors said it can take 7 weeks from contact until it shows up so I have no idea where it originated for him and especially bc he is not near any pools or really having any body parts exposed.
Thanks all for the input.

 

[Marchand63]

The primary care doctor just call me. She says that the pool water is not the issue- it is all the surfaces around the pool that his wet molluscum could touch that would transmit it. She says as long as it was covered in waterproof bandages there should be no risk of transmission. I still may keep him out bc it does make me nervous. I will check with the dermatologist again too.
We are in the middle of New England winter and so my kids are in clothing from head to toe. Both doctors said it can take 7 weeks from contact until it shows up so I have no idea where it originated for him and especially bc he is not near any pools or really having any body parts exposed.
Thanks all for the input.

Another New Englander, we still have no idea how he got them. He was only kid, not in daycare, winter in MA so just some random contact. It happens.

 

[emer95]

My daughter had it when she was 13. It was a nightmare. She had over 100. We had them frozen 6 times, and we tried pricey, experimental things (tea tree oil, Thuja, among others). Nothing worked until apple cider vinegar. I put it on gauze and taped them over each one of her spots every day. It would take a long time each night and caused her enormous discomfort (she used to say she wanted to punch someone while I did it). But they were gone in 3 weeks. We had been fighting them for a year and a half.

Good luck to you! I know how much it sucks, and I also know how much kids look forward to swimming on vacation.i hope this helps!

 

[Tattylou]

My daughter had it when she was 13. It was a nightmare. She had over 100. We had them frozen 6 times, and we tried pricey, experimental things (tea tree oil, Thuja, among others). Nothing worked until apple cider vinegar. I put it on gauze and taped them over each one of her spots every day. It would take a long time each night and caused her enormous discomfort (she used to say she wanted to punch someone while I did it). But they were gone in 3 weeks. We had been fighting them for a year and a half.

Good luck to you! I know how much it sucks, and I also know how much kids look forward to swimming on vacation.i hope this helps!

Thank you! We have done the apple cider vinegar too. We started with that before the freezing and it did help, but the derm opted to freeze them bc there were so many .....so that is where we are at now. We shall see. Thank you. It does really suck!

 

[stitch'sgirl]

I haven't seen anyone else mention this treatment, but our dermatologist "scraped" them off my son's back. He only had about a dozen or so, and that was 12 years ago. They used numbing foam and then used a scalpel to remove. I remember him being pretty traumatized by the treatment, but they were gone and did not come back.

 

[desamnik]

my daughter had it when she was 6, pretty sure she got it from her swim class. We went to a dermatologist at a well respected hospital in Boston, and he dabbed random bumps with something in a small bottle. She had already had them for about 3 or 4 months by the time we got to him, and they were spreading quickly. After the first treatment she never got a new one, and they quickly disappeared, I think we went to him 3 times. OTOH, our PCP said there was nothing that could be done for them and it could take up to 18 months for it to clear up. Water is most definitely how they are transmitted, and your child should not go into a pool, that is just selfish. Life is full of disappointments, and dealing with them is part of growing up. Exposing people to this knowingly just seems wrong to me. Also, if your son goes in the water, he will then be dripping when he gets out, so there is the contaminated standing water.

 

[scrhsa]

My middle dd had them when she was about 4 or 5. Mainly on her bottom, upper legs. My doc said to use a needle to take the core out and to use Eucerin lotion. They never bothered her at all...well, until I had to pick them out After, just now looking them up, she didn't have them near as bad as the pictures. They were just teeny, tiny little knots. She told me that it was the knots inside that kept it spreading. Man, if she had had to have them frozen off at the doctors, she never would have set foot in a clinic again!!!

 

[bushdianee]

My family had an outbreak of them about 2 years ago. My then 5 yo niece had several of them on her face and neck. The doctor gave them cream which really didn't help. She was getting teased in school about them so he ended up freezing most of them off. Then my great niece who was 8 had one near her eye which was removed surgically. Another niece also had one removed from her eye, she had also had one on the back of her knee and one on her arm that she ended up picking at until they fell off. The one on the back of her knee left a decent sized scar. My sister who is the mother of the 5 year old recently had a large one on the edge of her eyelid. She left it alone until it started falling off and pulled it the rest of the way off. She ended up with an infection that took a couple of antibiotics to clear up. All 3 girls were taking swimming lessons at the time.

 

[hegsag]

My daughter had molluscum that she got from the Y swimming pool....she was a swimmer. I think it would be fine for your son to go in the pool while on vacation as long as the spots are covered with waterproof bandages. We did this with my daughter when she had them and was in swim classes. I also used waterproof tape as an added precaution.

 

[Music City Mama]

My younger one had them about 4 years ago (so, I guess around 7 years old). There were probably about 20 on the inside of his elbow and the inner arm near the elbow. I tried everything. I thought apple cider vinegar was working at first. We'd douse cotton balls in the vinegar, and tape them on before he went to bed. They'd dry up and seem like they were going away, but they never really did. Finally, one day after months of having them, I pushed the "seed" out of one of them using a q-tip. Once I did that, the rest miraculously went away in less than a week. We were told it was okay for him to swim as long as they were covered in waterproof bandages. Since they were confined to one area of his body, it wasn't too hard to do that. He shares a bathroom with his brother and managed to not transmit them to him, thankfully.

 

[Skippy918]

My son had it a few years ago. I don’t know where he got it from. We did go to the dermatologist and she used the beetle juice treatment. We went 3 times for treatment and then they miraculously disappeared.

 

[firefly_ris]

Yes, all of my children had it at one point... it started when I brought my firstborn home from the hospital in 2010. In many adults one can just look like a small zit or something else, so my theory is that a nursery nurse or someone at the hospital had it and accidentally gave it to her via skin to skin contact or something. It is viral and can re-appear, which it did not long after my son was born in 2011, he picked it up even though I had taken so many precautions, etc. We would get rid of it then about 12-15 months later it would crop back up... just in time for my daughter born in 2013.

Apple cider vinegar would work well if it was a small/just emerging spot for my daughter. The ACV had almost no effect on my son. My pediatrician used the "beetle juice" a few times. I had a few larger ones frozen off here and there. For my youngest we finally saw the dermatologist and she gave us some kind of prescription cream that is sometimes used for skin cancer patients (I'm out of town so can't go check the actual name but I can come back tomorrow and post it), telling me that there would be a 50/50 chance of it working depending on how her body responded, and that did the trick for her.

We were very careful about not sharing towels, no one bathed together, I sprayed the tub down after each bath, I kept cropped up areas covered with bandages or clothing -- all of that DID help but my dermatologist also said because it's viral, it may just have to run its course and it can stay in the body for 12 - 18 months (which is how I'd think we got rid of it then a year later surprise!)

During all of this time no one (neither the ped nor the dermatologist) told me not to put them in the swimming pool... my MIL has a pool and my kids have a large amount of cousins and 2nd cousins that they would swim with a lot and never passed it around. I did typically bandage over the spots though, or at the least have my son wear a swimming top (his were mostly on his upper arm and shoulder).

Anyway... haven't seen a fleck of it since 2015 but I'm very aware of it now.... did no permanent damage to any skin or anything like that, but what a major, giant PITA that was. Argh.

 

[Runnergal]

My 5yo ds had this on his legs. The dermatologist treated them with some type of chemical. We had to go back a few times but they eventually scabbed over and went away.

Then, this year, my 4yo got a few around his eyes, including on his eyelid. They looked kind of gross and were itchy so I was desperate to find a solution. The derm would not treat ds’ face, so I took him to an ophthalmologist, who suggested we try the heartburn medication Tagamet. He said he couldn’t guarantee it would work, but to try it and if it didn’t, he would refer us to a surgeon to remove them. I could not find the name brand in my drugstore, but the generic name is cimetadine. I gave ds one tablet a day. They started to clear up in a few weeks and were totally gone in two months. I was amazed.

 

[Tattylou]

@Runnergal I had not heard of using tagamet before...maybe I'll look into that. Thank you!

 

[lsyorke]

My 5yo ds had this on his legs. The dermatologist treated them with some type of chemical. We had to go back a few times but they eventually scabbed over and went away.

Then, this year, my 4yo got a few around his eyes, including on his eyelid. They looked kind of gross and were itchy so I was desperate to find a solution. The derm would not treat ds’ face, so I took him to an ophthalmologist, who suggested we try the heartburn medication Tagamet. He said he couldn’t guarantee it would work, but to try it and if it didn’t, he would refer us to a surgeon to remove them. I could not find the name brand in my drugstore, but the generic name is cimetadine. I gave ds one tablet a day. They started to clear up in a few weeks and were totally gone in two months. I was amazed.

Tagamet is also used in children for warts. Takes time but works surprisingly well. DS had mollucsum treated with extract of the blister beetle. 2 treatments and they were gone and never came back.

 

[aprilchem]

All 3 of my kids had it. One of them we took to the dermatologist and had the beetle juice put on, but the other ones we just ignored them and it eventually went away. We did keep them covered with waterproof bandages in the pool though.

 

[firefly_ris]

I checked that prescription, it is Imiquimod 5% cream. Just in case it's useful.

 

[Daisyde-lites]

You could try molludab, It's a small bottle of clear liquid that you apply. You can purchase it online from Amazon. It cleared up in 2 weeks for my son.