Problem: Article: Most eczema sufferers are allergic to one or more thing, including certain foods and chemicals. One or more of these items may actually cause an eczema flare-up as part of the allergic reaction. If you know what items can trigger a flare-up, avoid them. If you aren't sure what items are causing your eczema flare-ups, try to keep track of when flare-ups occur, what you were doing, wearing, and eating in the days leading up to the flare-up. Some food items to avoid are those that are commonly known to cause allergic reactions, such as: dairy, soy, citrus, peanuts, wheat, fish, eggs, corn and tomatoes. You may also want to avoid processed foods, especially those with added sugar. These types of foods can cause inflammation. A soak in a warm bath for 10 to 15 minutes will help your skin absorb the moisture it needs. But you can also add other items to the bath for specific treatment purposes. Bleach Baths Add cup of bleach to a full bathtub, or cup of bleach to a half-full bathtub, then soak for 10 minutes and rinse off your skin. You can have a bath like this 2-3 times per week. The bleach acts as an antibacterial for your skin and helps decrease the possibility of infections. Baking Soda or Oatmeal Baths You can add baking soda or oatmeal directly to the bath water, or you can mix them with water to form a paste to apply directly to your skin. Either method should help to reduce the intensity of itching caused by eczema. Vinegar Baths Add 1 cup of vinegar to your bath water before a regular bath. Vinegar also acts as an antibacterial and can help prevent infections. Salt Baths If you're experiencing a flare-up, and you find bathing or showering painful or uncomfortable, add 1 cup of table salt to your bath water. The salt water helps to eliminate the discomfort so you can stay in the water long enough. A wet wrap is pretty much exactly what it sounds like a wrapping of wet fabric around an affected area. Normally wet wraps are used when you're experiencing a flare-up and are applied after the area has been cleansed and moisturizer is applied. Several layers of wet fabric are placed on top of the skin (and moisturizer), followed by a layer of dry fabric (to keep the moisture in). Wet wraps can create a cool sensation that relieves itching. They also prevent itching because of the multiple layers of fabric.
Summary: Learn your triggers. Try a special treatment bath. Apply a wet wrap.

Problem: Article: To understand electronegativity, it's important first to understand what a "bond" is. Any two atoms in a molecule that are "connected" to each other on a molecular diagram are said to have a bond between them. This means that they share a set of two electrons with each atom contributing one electron to the bond. The exact reasons for why atoms share electrons and bond are a little beyond the scope of this article. If you want to learn more, try this article on the bond basics or WikiHow's own How to Study the Nature of the Chemical Bond (Chemistry). When two atoms share a set of two electrons in a bond, they don't always share them equally. When one atom has higher electronegativity than the atom it's bonded to, it pulls the two electrons in the bond closer to itself. An atom with very high electronegativity may pull the electrons all the way to its side of the bond, barely sharing them at all with the other atom. For example, in the molecule NaCl (sodium chloride), the chloride atom has a fairly high electronegativity and the sodium has a fairly low one. Thus, the electrons will get pulled towards the chloride and away from the sodium. An electronegativity table of the elements has the elements arranged exactly like in a periodic table, except that each atom is labeled with its electronegativity. These can be found in a variety of chemical textbooks and technical articles as well as online. Here is a link to an excellent electronegativity table. Note that this uses the Pauling electronegativity scale, which is most common. However, there are other ways to measure electronegativity, one of which will be shown below. If you don't have an electronegativity table handy, you can still estimate the strength of an atom's electronegativity compared to the strength of another element's atom based on where it is located on a normal periodic table. Although you will not be able to calculate a number value, you can evaluate the difference between the electronegativities of 2 different elements. As a general rule: An atom's electronegativity gets higher as you move to the right in the periodic table. An atom's electronegativity gets higher as you move up in the periodic table. Thus, the atoms in the top right have the highest electronegativities and the atoms in the bottom left have the lowest ones. For example, in the NaCl example from above, you can tell that chlorine has a higher electronegativity than sodium because it's almost all the way in the top right. On the other hand, sodium is far to the left, making it one of the lower-ranking atoms.
Summary:
Understand that chemical bonds occur when atoms share electrons. Understand how electronegativity affects the electrons in the bond. Use an electronegativity table as a reference. Remember electronegativity trends for easy estimations.