How To Control Your Ezcema (My Experience of Eczema)

Member Name: sy2kgbr

Product:	My Experience of Eczema
Date:	27/05/01 (1624 review reads)
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Advantages: n/a

Disadvantages: Can restrict you from doing certain things.

Eczema. The dictionary says that it's "an inflamation of the skin", but what does that really mean?

Well, it starts off with dry skin. The skin becomes itchy, and so of course the natural reaction is to scratch. The skin becomes red, and if you scratch it enough, it breaks, leading to infection. That's when tiny bubbles of pus occur above or below the surface. When they burst, and 'weep', this is called 'wet eczema'.

Eczema is found where there is heat - some common examples are behind the elbows and knees, or on the head. (For me, it's my hands and leg.) It is caused by two different factors (or a combination of the two):

1. Hereditory
2. Enviroment

If someone in your family has eczema, asthma or hayfever, then there's a good chance that you might develop eczema. I'm not quite sure how the link works, but it does.

Enviroment is a major factor, usually taking place in the form of allergies. Some of the common ones are dust mites, long-haired animals, pollen and dairy products.

I have had two different types of allergy testing done.

1. Blood tests
2. Patch tests

Blood tests are quick and without pain. A blood sample is (usually) taken from your upper arm and sent off for analysis.

Patch tests are incredibly annoying. They get the results, but you have to hate them.

'Patches' are secured onto your back using strong medical tape. The 'patches' are small metal discs with samples placed into them. The first time you have a patch test, several samples will be provided by the hospital because several people turn out to be allergic to them. You will also be asked if anything else should be included.

You have to endure having these uncomfortable things attached to your back for several days. You can't wash your back because that would ruin the test. So instead, you smell. (Hope you weren't planning
on leaving the house!)

After the couple of days are up, you go back to the hospital, where the patches are taken off. (Happiness!) However, a nurse will then play 'join-the-dots' on your back with semi-permanent purple ink. Your doctor will take a look, and record where reactions have happened (because of the 'join-the-dots' game he/she can tell what you have reacted to).

You are sent home patchless and smelly, but you're still not allowed to wash in case your back has a delayed reaction to any more of the samples. You return in a couple of days where your back is stared at again, and a nurse will attempt to get rid of the purple ink.

However, because it's semi-permanent, and because she/he doesn't want to irritate the red marks on your back (the reactions) it's not very effective. Don't even think about going swimming for at least the next week.

When your results come back, you might find that it's going to be easy to avoid the allergies you have. On the other hand, you might be given a list as long as the Great Wall of China just like me. My allergies include: cobalt (found in most metals, including coins), dust mites (which are *everywhere*), pollen, sodium benzoate (no beer for me) and cocamidopropyl betaine (oh the joys of finding a shampoo without it). There are lots more, but I won't bore you with them. (This opinion is long enough to send you to sleep anyway.)

One of my friends found out that she was allergic to animals when was quite young. Being one of those animal mad people, J. keeps lots of different animals. She'd rather wrench her leg off than say 'bye' to any of them.

If you paid attention to the tenses in that paragraph, you'll have worked out that J. still keeps several animals (right now it's two horses and a dog, but in the past there have been kittens and numerous furry creatures). Because of her allergies, she takes antihistamin
es each day. Not a perfect solution, but at least it helps keep her asthma under control.

Allergies aren't the only eniviromental factors for eczema; another common cause is stress. Exams... work... Whatever stresses you out could also have an effect on your skin. Swimming can also be bad. I'm contradicting just about every doctor in the country by saying that;) However, it can. It's the chlorine that does it, so if you want to swim, it's the perfect excuse to book that holiday abroad so that you can go swimming in the sea. (Try that in the UK and you'll freeze to death!)

Anyway, your doctor will prescribe creams to help you. The most common one is hydrocortisone, which is very mild. If that doesn't work, you are given a stronger cream and gradually you climb that ladder. You are also given creams to help with infection (e.g. fucibet) and to moisturise (e.g. Unguentum Merck). Sometimes you get given Oilatum bath emulsion, but this is usually for younger people.

There are alternatives to steriods, such as homoeopathy. This has a lower success rate, and personally I found it a waste of time, but I think my negative attitude had something to do with that...

Another option is UV treatment. Last year I tried UVA treatment for my hands. I'd read about it while studying health physics and suggested it to my skin consultant.

Basically, this involves putting the affected part of your body into a UVA or UVB machine. There are small ones (like the one I used for my hands) ranging to big full body sized ones. The part of your skin with eczema is coated in this white watery liquid to help the skin absorb the rays, whilst the non-affected parts are coated with some sort of gunky vaseline type cream to block out the rays. You have to wear goggles to protect your eyes, and the whole treatment is carefully controlled. You're not supposed to have over x amount of Ultra Violet rays a year because that can be
harmful.

Personally, this worked for a while, but eventually it started drying out my skin. It was then that the PUVA nurses (PUVA sounds really stupid, doesn't it?) decided to discontinue my treatment.

At one point my skin consultant decided to book me into hospital for a week to see if that would help (she was trying to block me from allergies in the real world) but there was no noticeable effect. My eczema tends to flare up whenever it feels like it.

If you've got a friend with eczema, then you're probably a very good one for managing to read all this. But anyway, there is one thing you should know: never tell your friend to stop scratching! He/she already knows it's bad for him/her, but eczema can be incredibly itchy at times.

With the right treatment, you can control your eczema and stop it from running your life. If you're an eczema sufferer reading this, then all the best. If you don't have eczema, thank for you for educating yourself about it, and I hope you never get it.

~* Thanks for reading *~
~* sy2kgbr *~

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