Early on in my search for soaps, I asked a local saddlery about products. I must have had the term “saddle soap” in the back of my mind – I figured I’d find soap products for washing horses that would likely be fine for humans, too.
I was surprised to find that all of the products available for washing horses were detergent-based, most using sodium lauryl sulfate. I did a little hunting on the web, only to find that horses are having eczema problems in recent years, especially certain breeds. Family pets get eczema, too – You don’t even necessarily have to wash them to expose them to detergents, they get significant exposure just from detergents in modern household dust.
And it sure seems to me from everything I have read that the underlying causes (plural) as outlined on my site are the same as in humans. Makes sense.
I hear myself say this over and over, but … Although my site is geared to parents of babies with severe eczema – people who need to see rapid and dramatic results for infants who have the most permeable skin – if you read and understand the underlying issues, it’s possible to make sense of and solve eczema in pets.
I don’t know if eczema in pets makes them less cute and cuddly and more likely to be abandoned or worse (especially since detergent-caused eczema would be present early on), or if current trends of offering more advanced medical care to pets would make caring for a pet with eczema more common. The information I can find about eczema in family pets is very sketchy, so I fear the former may be an issue. I’d love to know more about the problem from anyone who works with animals.
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