Moluscums

Look it up.... we have been battling these nasty little critters for about 5 months now with Matthew. At one point he probably had over one hundred down the sides of his body and they were starting to move onto his chest. They are caused by a virus that lives on top of the skin and are clever enough to spread themselves by causing skin irritation and so the victim scratches. They can spread just by touching the surface of the moluscum, you don't even have to break the skin and then touching another part of the body.
We have ended up having the dermatologist use a cream that burns them off. It causes the skin to blister in the area it is applied. He went a second time a couple of days ago and the new ones that have come up since the first treatment, and the ones that didn't go, zapped again. Poor little guy, the sides of his body are a real mess and he wants to scratch scratch scratch. We have learnt from the first time and have been wrapping his body in bandage during day and night so he can't touch the things.... although he can still scratch then somewhat through the bandage, he can't touch them and so he can't spread them. He thought it was fun the first night being wrapped up like a mummy. Now he cries when bring the bandages out in the evening ( we leave then off for a few hrs late afternoon so his body can get some air and they dry up ).
Summer is here and the pool we belong to open this weekend. We have had to buy him a swimming top... something like a very very light weight wet suit so that he, and no one else can touch them while he is in the water.... we suspect that the pool may have been one of the possible places he picked them up from last year.