Her thumb is red raw - urgent!

[JoAnn&Aimee]

This morning I noticed that Aimees left thumb was practically red raw! She uses this thumb for sucking when she is tired. I've tried countless times to remove the thumb and give her a dummy but she just spits the dummy out and within minutes starts sucking her thumb again. She doesn't do this EVERYTIME I remove her thumb from her mouth. It looks really sore, my first thought was it was a burn mark as it looks that bad but I know it is the thumb sucking.

As she is staying at my parents tonight I will take a photo of the thumb tomorrow and post it up so you can see it. I don't see my HV again until 7th January and I am very reluctant to leave Aimee until then. I would phone my doctors surgery but trying to get an appointment on the day you phone is like trying to get blood from a rock. At best it would be next week for the first available appointment.

She doesn't appear to be in any pain, she is still her usual giggly smiley self and the fact she is still sucking her thumb for a few minutes while she gets to sleep says it can't be hurting that much!

I have no idea if this is a common problem with thumb sucking. I am lucky in the sense that Aimee doesn't require a dummy. She only uses one when she is upset about going into her pram to go out and that is only occasionally and doesn't last long. Also she doesn't suck her thumb for often and when she does it isn't for very long.

Any advice would be helpful! I will post a photo of her thumb tomorrow, it looks awful!

 

[kalia]

Call your doctor surgery and ask for an emergency appointment for a baby. Call first thing in the morning, as soon as they open. They have to keep a certain number of appointments back until that day. And sometimes the key to getting them is knowing to say that you need an emergency appointment rather than just asking for an appointment.

From what you say of her behaviour it doesn't sound like a big problem but i am no medic so get it checked out by a health professional asap.

I sucked my thumb as a child and since having a baby have discussed this with many friends. All of us who sucked our thumbs on a dedicated basis rather than occassionally had disformed thumbs and some still do now as adults even though they stopped sucking it a long time ago. So it is very likely that sucking her thumb will cause effects on the thumb, just so you know.

 

[angelcake89]

It might not be much help but OH's daughter (from previous relationship) is a constant thumb/finger sucker even at 4. She will happily suck her thumb until it's red raw and the skin is peeling off. The only way we've found to get her to stop is to put something bad tasting on her thumbs, and we smother her thumb with nivea moisturising creme which seems to soothe it a bit because it's just really dried out.

 

[pilkers]

My little brother was a thumb sucker. He used to suck it so much that it went red raw. When his teeth came through he sucked away on this thumb and ended up with a huge blister where the teeth had been rubbing on the thumb.

It was an absolute nightmare... the only we could do was to put something on his thumb...like mittens etc to stop the sucking... trouble is once they get to a certain age they learn to remove the mittens!

Good luck with it