How To Travel Without Triggering a Massive Flare

Why Travel Can Trigger Eczema Flares 0:00

Hey team welcome back and I know you've already worked really really hard to calm your child's eczema and maybe the itching has finally stopped and the skin is finally starting to heal and you're finally sleeping again and now it's spring break and you want to travel and you want to visit family and you want to go somewhere warm and you want to make new memories and within 24 hours of arriving everything explodes again and the scratching starts and the redness comes back and the flare that you thought was finally behind you shows up again.

And most parents assume that it must be something that their child ate. But I've seen something really interesting happen many times with families. I've had clients tell me that their child's eczema has literally started to clear as they were driving home from the house that they were staying in over spring break or any vacation. And they're eating the same food and same supplements, same skincare. The only thing that changed was the environment. and today I want to walk you through how to travel without triggering a massive flare.

The hidden triggers that a lot of families never even think about and the things that you can do to protect your child's skin so you can enjoy your trip. And before we dive in friends, if you are heading into the spring break travel season, I am running a short spring break skin protection sale on my eXmo Safe Mineral Sunscreen, the Comfort Spray, and the Soothing Cream. These things are essentials while traveling all the time, but especially while traveling. And these are the exact products that we use for sun exposure, for chlorine, for sweat, and for travel irritation.

You can grab them all right now at the newly designed xmakids.com. The discount will be applied automatically through this Sunday, March 22nd. Okay, let's get into it. Is your child struggling with itchy nights and endless flare-ups? I'm Andra McHugh, mom of four and host of eczema kids. Here you'll find natural solutions that actually work so you can heal your child's eczema without steroids, without the overwhelm, and finally see calm, healthy skin again. Let's get into it.

Packing the Right Skin-Safe Travel Essentials 2:01

So when my kids were little and honestly my youngest my little guy just turned four last week which is wild to say out loud because traveling used to look really different for us and it has never been just throwing a couple of swimsuits and pajamas in a suitcase and heading out the door our packing was a little more extensive then and still probably more extensive than others. still today. We, you know, we bring the pajamas and we bring the skincare and we bring soap even. And back in the day, we even brought cotton diapers.

And I remember trips where my suitcase was just filled with things that most people don't think about. We had the extra cloth diapers, we had the inserts, the oils, the creams, safe snacks, those little glass baby cups that we like to use. Green sprouts, by the way. It has a glass insert and then a plastic on the outside so it doesn't break. Those are amazing if you have kids under two. And it probably looked a little excessive. And honestly, sometimes it still does. But when you have a sensitive kid, the environment really matters.

And the fabrics touching their skin matter, and the soaps matter, and the water matters. And the air inside where you're staying matters. And when those things change suddenly during travel, the skin can react very quickly. And yes, traveling sometimes meant bringing a few extra things. Like we still, you know, packing bags if you're going on an airplane is expensive. We drive a lot of places, so... The minivan is our oyster, but if we do go on an airplane, we're not bringing more than two suitcases.

Like we're not, because it costs an arm and a leg to bring them each way. So it just means we have to be really strategic with our clothes, which is just fine, especially kids' clothes. They take up no room at all. So, but I bring what I need so that I can sleep, so that my kids can sleep in, so that me and my husband can sleep. And more than a few years ago now, you know, I brought, everything that I could so that their skin would stay calm and that we could actually enjoy the trip. And that's still my biggest goal when we travel.

That's everyone's goal is to protect sleep so that you can actually enjoy the trip, be where you are. And you know, if everyone sleeps, everything becomes so much easier because it's not like, oh, then you come home and you can catch up on sleep. That doesn't exist. There's no... It doesn't exist. You have to sleep every night. And it's really easy to see why travel triggers flares. It could be the food, and sometimes it is. It's usually assumed to be the food. But more often, travel creates this stack of stressors, right?

Hidden Indoor Air Triggers in Rentals and Hotels 4:46

The new environment, the new water, the different foods, the cleaning chemicals, the sleep disruption, the indoor air quality as a whole. And all these things hitting the body at once can trigger inflammation. And one of the most overlooked triggers is the inside air. And I've seen this happen a lot. I've lived through it, not through travel, but just in regular life and moving. But if a family stays at a recently renovated Airbnb or an aunt's new house or you recently renovated or a brand new home or a hotel that was just updated and there's new flooring and there's new paint or new cabinets or new furniture or all of the above and within hours their child can start itching and new red patches appear and parents just assume it's something their child ate but then something really interesting happens because then they leave and they get back in the car to drive home and the itching starts calming down literally during the drive.

And I've had multiple parents report that their child's redness just literally started disappearing on the drive home. Nothing about the food changed. Nothing about the supplements changed. The only thing that changed was just the air that they're breathing. And that's because new homes and renovations release chemicals called VOCs. Those are volatile organic compounds. It's the one of the biggest ones is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is found in pressed wood furniture and cabinets and laminate flooring and adhesive and mattresses and synthetic textiles of all kinds.

These materials release gases into the air in a process called off-gassing. Adults could just notice this new house smell, but children with eczema react a lot more strongly. These are canaries in the coal mines. their immune systems are already very very sensitive and their skin barrier is already compromised and so the body responds with itching and with inflammation and I don't say all this to make you spiral, I say it so that you can be strategic when you travel because there are things that you can control absolutely while you're traveling and Honestly, it makes for a better experience when you just know these things and you do your due diligence in these areas.

And when you don't, you lose sleep, you experience flares, and it might not be the best vacation ever. And if you're going through the time and effort and money to book the vacation and do it, let's make it the most fun that it can possibly be. These few things make a big, big difference. One is protecting the skin barrier. Travel is not the time to experiment skin care or omit it. When I travel, I always, always bring our mineral sunscreen. I always bring the comfort spray. I always bring the soothing cream.

And I bring the oil as well because sun exposure and chlorine and bug bites and sweat can irritate sensitive skin very, very quickly. And those three products alone prevent a lot of travel flares. And two is to be aware of indoor air because we just talked about it. If you arrive somewhere and the house smells strongly of chemicals, you need to trust your instincts. Open the windows. Let the fresh air circulate. Spend as much time as you possibly can outside, which is fine. That goes along with your goals.

That's probably why you book the experience in the first place, but eat outside, like spend as much time as you possibly can outside.

Protecting Skin, Meals, and Sleep While Traveling 7:56

And if you're booking a rental that says brand new remodel, that means heavy off gassing. So don't book that one. Choose an older one. I promise you'll have a better experience because My goodness, do they feel those exposures so much faster than we do. If there's any Glade plugins or anything of that sort at a family member's house or an Airbnb of sorts, unplug those immediately. I have definitely done that at my sister-in-law's house. No, it's not comfortable, but it makes a difference. It makes a real big difference because scent equals phthalates.

And again, we're just talking about indoor air quality. There's things that you can do. That's one of them. Number three is just to plan your meals before you travel. This makes travel dramatically easier. Before leaving home, at least plan the first one or two days of meals. Nothing complicated, just a really short list of safe foods. And this helps in a lot of ways. First, grocery shopping when you arrive becomes very easy, you know, the most manageable that it possibly can. And second, if you're staying with family, that's how we travel.

We go and stay with family. Those are our resorts. Then you can send a list ahead of time and usually a well-meaning grandparent or an aunt wants to help and will happily get you at least the first two days of food so you can feed your kids in a way that won't trigger them. Just during this protective healing stage and that's where you are right now and that's fine. So instead of guessing they can just pick up the things like fruits and vegetables and potatoes and organic rice and Safe proteins like that way when you walk in the door, you already have food that works I mean when we drive somewhere I bring my insta pot.

I do. I'm sorry. I hate you You understand you're my people you get it it prevents a lot of flares, but ultimately I'm just trying to preserve my child's ability to Digest food and I just want to give them the healthiest food that I possibly can every meal but that's why I xma is anything anymore because I am just diligent about these things and Number four is we're protecting sleep. We're protecting sleep as best we can because sleep stabilizes the immune system and when sleep drops itching increases and we just protect that as much as possible when traveling.

We bring cotton pajamas, we bring a sound machine, we try and keep bedtime consistent, we just adapt to whatever time zone it is just immediately likely when you get in somewhere it's going to be late, right? It's going to be later than you want it to be. And you just go to bed. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what time it is. You just go to bed. And we shower before going to bed. I don't put my kids in the tub before traveling or staying with family because you don't know what that bathtub has been cleaned with.

You actually do know, you know, there's going to be some combination of bleach and unsavory chemicals. It's not going to be the baking soda and hypochloric acid that you're using at home. So skip that. You don't want to sit in the tub with those residues. So we just keep it simple. We oil, quick shower, moisturize, and then bed. And protecting sleep also means being prepared if someone gets sick because sickness on vacation is so real. It happens and it can derail sleep very quickly. We just went and visited my dad.

We drive there. And if you wouldn't believe it, my husband had a kidney stone, but he thought he was dying and went to the ER. And that was a bummer, but all is well. It's okay. But man, consignis derail a vacation super quickly. So I always bring Dream Spray just to keep things consistent and also just help with that indoor air quality also, and just also help with germs. And we bring small roller bottles of essential oils that we trust. and then a few homeopathic remedies like genexa, cold crush, or tummy relief.

Just hopefully you never need them. But having them protects sleep in a big way and prevents a midnight pharmacy run to get things that you don't even want to put into your child's body in the first place. So bring those things. And I bring a small kit when we travel.

What to Do If a Flare Happens on Vacation 12:04

We bring the mineral sunscreen. We bring the comfort spray. We bring the soothing cream. We bring the oil. We bring Castile soap for hand washing and for dishes for like water bottle tops, things like that. And we bring safe snacks. Powder bars are really good. You can get those online or on Amazon. The lemon ginger ones are like an eczema safe package snack that are great. Jackson sweet potato chips, seaweed snacks made with avocado oil. All those are travel friendly, eczema safe package snacks.

And if a flare happens, if your child does flare while traveling, you don't have to panic. Progress is not gone. Healing. It's not about never reacting again. It's about building resilience. And if your child flares but recovers quickly once you're back home, that is still progress. Not everything has been delayed. Not everything has been derailed by any, any means. That's a really positive sign. And if Right now, every trip leads to this intense itching and spreading rashes and long recovery times.

That usually means that the underlying system needs a deeper support. And that's when we start looking at gut health and inflammation and detox pathways and skin barrier repair. And that's the work that we do inside the eczema elimination method. because your child should be able to travel, your family should be able to travel and go to the beach and stay in hotels and go on adventures. The goal is resilient skin that can handle real life. We're going for pharmaceutical, food-free kids that can handle real life.

That's the goalpost. But before you're there, if you're heading into spring break travel, don't forget about the spring break skin protection sale running right now through Sunday on our mineral sunscreen, the comfort spray and the super moisturizing soothing cream. They're all eczema safe. They're all organic. They're all non-toxic and designed for sun and sweat and chlorine and travel irritation. The sale runs through Sunday and you can grab everything at eczemakids.com. Have an amazing spring break with your family's friends and I will talk to you next week.

Take care. Thank you for helping with my eczema. Love you. Thank you for listening today, friend. I know healing your child's skin isn't easy, but you're doing it one smart step at a time. If this episode gave you a little hope or a better night's sleep, leave a quick review so more exhausted parents can find eczema kids and finally rest easy too. Follow, share, and let's help more kids heal. Take care.