Treating Impetigo That Won’t Go Away

Our five year old son has been battling impetigo for the past couple of months. We’ve had it on the run several times, and actually thought it was completely gone at one point, but it’s kept coming back. Admittedly, a part of the problem was inconsistency on our part when treating the problem early on.

Treating impetigo, in the beginning

We first started treating his impetigo with Bactroban (mupirocin) ointment accompanied by regular pHisoderm baths. When that didn’t knock out the infection, he went on two rounds of Zithromax Z-Paks (azithromycin). The Z-Paks seemed to do the trick, and the impetigo seemingly disappeared.

Convinced that we had won, we stopped with the Bactroban. Unfortunately, the impetigo came back shortly thereafter. It’s unclear whether he got re-infected or if the original case never completely cleared up. Regardless, we started treating him again.

Treating impetigo, one more time

At this point, we were applying the Bactroban more or less daily. When the impetigo didn’t improve, he went back on a Z-Pak. This time around, there was no improvement, so we got referred out to a dermatologist.

The dermatologist suggested stepping up to twice daily Bactroban treatments accompanied by daily baths with a hypo-allergenic soap. He also recommended putting some Bactroban in his nostrils and on his anus once per day (nostrils first!).

When the dermatologist’s suggestions didn’t help, we went back to our family doctor who recommended that we try a new oral antibiotic. This time around, we went home with a prescription for Omnicef (cefdinir). We’re about halfway through that prescription and have seen a huge improvement.

As of today, his sores are on the mend, but we’re still hitting them Bactroban twice per day, and will continue to do so until we can’t find any spots to treat. We’re hopeful that we’ve finally got the upper hand, but we aren’t holding our breath. While we’ve dealt with impetigo in the past, it has never been this stubborn.

As an aside, we haven’t seen any red urine (a known side effect of Omnicef) this time around.