How Can I Tell If A Skin Infection Is Bacterial Or Fungal

Eczema is a skin status that affects many infants and children. Although its symptoms of dry, itchy and flaky skin are usually mild, eczema tin become more than than just a nuisance. The more than severe forms of this condition tin lead to skin infections when leaner, viruses and other germs enter the body through bleeding and cracking pare.

A pare infection can look a lot like the more serious form of eczema, making it difficult for parents to decipher their child's symptoms. Luckily, there are a few guidelines to follow. If your lilliputian i is suffering from swollen, itchy, crusty and/or oozing peel, here are three ways you can tell if they have eczema or a skin infection.

Await for Visible Signs of Infection

Examining your child'southward pare for signs of infection is the first step in determining whether your child is experiencing more than eczema. Of course, this isn't always piece of cake. Eczema is typically itchy, blood-red and scaly. When it's flaring, the skin may even announced weepy, oozy or crusty from all the inflammation.

Withal, peel infections acquired past bacteria ordinarily nowadays with a ruddy, hot, swollen and tender rash that often is accompanied with pus. Pare infections caused past viruses ordinarily event in reddish welts or blisters that can be itchy and/or painful. Meanwhile, fungal infections usually present with a red, scaly and itchy rash with occasional pustules. Overall, if your child has pus-filled blisters, yellow or orange-colored crusts, swollen ruby bumps or streaks of redness spreading beyond the skin, it's possible that they've contracted an infection.

Check Your Child for Other Symptoms

Children who've adult an infection oftentimes experience other non-skin related symptoms that y'all can await for. The biggest telltale sign of an infection is fever. If your kid has a chop-chop spreading rash and a high fever, it's important to seek immediate medical care. Flu-similar symptoms — such every bit achiness, fatigue, full general malaise and chills — also are signs of an infection.

If your child has swollen lymph nodes or is lament of a sore throat, it's also fourth dimension to contact your pediatrician. In full general, fifty-fifty if your child isn't running a fever, a departure from the normal symptoms of eczema may betoken that something else is going on.

The Rash Isn't Responding to Regular Treatments

Near kids with eczema accept an established treatment routine. Putting ointment on babys leg This may involve applying ointment or moisturizer, giving your kid specialized baths, using wet-wrap therapy or undergoing another treatment prescribed by your pediatrician or dermatologist. While at that place is no cure for eczema, these treatments usually can provide some relief from its symptoms.

If your child'due south skin rash seems to worsen in response to their handling routine though, this could be a sign of infection. Why? Treatments for eczema might but beal an infection more.

Whether your kid has a bacterial, viral or other form of infection, the treatments differ from those prescribed for eczema. Antibody creams and pills are used to care for bacterial infections. Antifungal creams and pills are used to treat fungal infections. And antiviral creams and pills — or just simple supportive care — are used to care for viral infections.

Overall, when in dubiousness, talk to your pediatrician or dermatologist. Or, in the example of loftier fever or other serious symptoms, seek urgent care. Not everything that is reddish and swollen is an infection, only it's always best to make sure.

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