Protopic on the
Protopic ointment (tacrolimus)Liver, kidney and urinary systemProtopic ointment contains the active ingredient tacrolimus, which is a type of medicine called a topical immunomodulator. It is used to decrease skin inflammation in eczema.Severe eczema is thought to be partly caused by immune cells in the skin over-reacting to a stimulus and causing inflammation. Applying tacrolimus to the eczema suppresses these reactions in the skin, and improvement of the eczema is generally seen within a week of starting treatment.If you have frequent flare-ups of your eczema (four or more times a year), and your eczema gets better within six weeks of treating it with this medicine, your doctor may suggest you use this ointment as a maintenance treatment to help prevent flare-ups. In this case the ointment should be applied once a day, twice weekly (eg Monday and Thursday) to the areas that are usually affected by the eczema. Between applications there should be two to three days without Protopic treatment. If a flare-up does occur, the ointment should then be used twice daily again until it is controlled.