Effective Treatment for Molluscum Contagiosum- The Fastest Cure for Dealing with Lesions
Know your options when your child is diagnosed
You notice some pimply looking lesions on your child's legs. A quick trip to the doctor and you reach your diagnosis: molluscum. Molluscum is a skin virus commonly found in children. A quick search on Google will overwhelm a parent with possible treatment options, many of which are conflicting. In most situations, the treatment is simple- do nothing. Let the virus runs it's course.
Unfortunately, molluscum can take years to disappear and leave your child to deal with unsightly marks for months that can cause bullying and ridicule among peers. The virus is also highly contagious and can be passed from child to child. If you are a parent with multiple children at home, preventing the spread of molluscum is tiresome and labor intensive. Baths will have to be taken separately, as well as keeping clothes, sheets, and bath towels all separated. Lesions spread through contact and are aggravated by itching. If your child contracts it in the summer months, bandaging or covering the lesions with clothes will be more difficult. So what to do?
Here are several popular treatment options:
1. Cryotherapy: Freezing the lesion with liquid nitrogen. This is performed in a dermatologist's office. The primary problem with this method is that it isn't fast. By the time the body reacts with an immune response, other crops of lesions may have popped up.
2. Homeopathic Remedies: These abound on popular parenting forums and websites. Most include some sort or bandage, wart removal, or other creams. These treatments certainly won't harm your child, but may not speed the elimination of the virus.
3. Cantharone. It is a blistering agent that can only be administered in a doctor's office. A drop is placed on each lesion. Within several hours, a blister will form, initiating an immune response from the body to the site of the lesion. The virus is active inside the lesion. In order to prevent spreading, you may be instructed to pop each blister with a sterile pin, to ensure that no liquid erupts if it were to pop on it's own. Each blister can then be applied with a topical antibiotic ointment and re-bandaged.
The advantage to Cantharone is that it is fast and effective. Though mildly uncomfortable, within several days, each lesion will become a scab. The fast treatment prevents the virus from spreading to other places. Since the virus lives only on the skin, eradicating any active lesions essentially stops the virus.
Other treatments are slower and by the time the treated lesion has disappeared, the child usually has spread it to another spot on his or her body through scratching.
If your child has molluscum, ask your doctor about Cantharone as a treatment.
-Julie DeNeen
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