5 Tips to Make Traveling with Eczema Stress-Free

Effectively treating eczema at home may be challenging, but it’s possible when armed with your arsenal of skin care, natural eczema treatments and trigger-free foods. The question is, what do you do when traveling with eczema? It’s far too easy for eczema to flare up if your daily skin care regimen is neglected. In addition, it’s not unheard of to have an exacerbation of eczema from ingesting “hidden” trigger foods when eating out in restaurants. If you or your little ones suffer from eczema, travelling can be problematic and stressful, but can easily be controlled with a little planning.

Below are some suggestions to keep eczema symptoms under control whether you are in flight, on a train rolling through the hills of Tuscany or spending the night in a hotel or at a family member’s home. Here are our top tips for traveling with eczema and without stress.

1. Don’t Leave Home Without These

• Your favorite skin care products – vacation is NOT the time to experiment with a new natural eczema cream.
• Your own soap and shampoo to avoid perfumes, dyes and loads of other triggers that may lurk in other products. Use natural eczema bath products that won’t dry out your skin.
• Your own towels and a set of sheets to reduce the risk of reacting to chemicals and dyes in laundry detergents used by extended family members or hotels. I also travel with a mini bag of soap nuts so I can do my own washing while away for extended periods of time or try a natural laundry detergent for eczema.
• All prescription medications with your name clearly indicated on them as well as the contact information for your home pharmacy in case any refills need to be made.
• Skin safe snacks that are free of any known food triggers. Most food found on the road or in airports is highly processed and can contain a host of triggers, so it’s best to bring your own snacks to be careful. Not sure what to pack? Here 100 Days of Real Food shares their Real Food Tips: Top 10 Travel Snacks to provide some ideas. We use reusable snack bags because I find the plastic type so wasteful.

2. Bring Travel Friendly Products

If traveling with eczema by air, remember that current TSA guidelines only allow you to bring liquids, creams or gels 3.4oz in size or smaller on board an aircraft. Anything larger needs to be packed in your checked baggage.

Product Suggestion: Manuka Honey Skin Cream, now renamed Organic Manuka Skin Soothing Cream, comes in a 2oz TSA friendly size that is a wonderful choice when flying. It soothes irritated skin and is a 100% natural eczema treatment – no strange ingredients here.

Keep in mind, with tighter regulations on what can be transported onto airplanes, you may want to take unopened packages of medication or you might have to discard it as a safety measure at security checkpoints. Check the airline’s website prior to travel to know what is and isn’t permitted on your flight.

3. Being Informed is Key

Be proactive and research where to go in case of a severe exacerbation of eczema. Being armed with the following information beforehand will spare you and your child much stress if a problem should arise when travelling with eczema.

• Where is the closest emergency room or urgent care clinic?
• Where is the closest pharmacy? Be sure to bring your home pharmacy’s contact information in case a quick refill is needed.

4. Maintain At-Home Regimen

Now that you’re all prepared for your trip, remember to maintain your at-home skincare regimen to ward off a flare up once you embark on your journey.

• Bathe or shower as you normally would.
• Apply skin cream at the same times throughout the day. Keep small travel sizes in your purse or backpack to make this easier.
• Continue your treatments or medications as prescribed by your practitioner.

5. Tips for Traveling with Eczema AND Children

• Prevent them from scratching using ScratchSleeves and Scratch Mittens
• Distract them from their itchy skin with ideas from our post: Itchy Irritated Skin, Scratching Little Fingers – Part Two: Distraction Techniques

Keeping eczema prone skin free of irritants with your usual skin care, natural eczema treatments and the rest of these helpful tips will ensure your travel time is stress-free. The key is to plan ahead so you can enjoy your trip.

Do you have any tips for travelling with eczema you can share with us?