looking for advice on forced air heat caused eczema

[jpdemoso]

I’m a 41 year old male who has small patches of eczema my whole life. They would be random and only a few. Hydrocortisone would always take them away. I only get them in the winter. In June I moved to a new home which has forced air as my heat. Up until now I’ve only ever lived in a house with baseboards. Within days of turning the heat on in October I started to become itchy everywhere. My scalp, side of my head, ears, chest, back, arms, legs, and in every crevice you can think of. After two months of this I went to a dermatologist and he diagnosed me with extreme eczema. He put me on a tapered prednisone for a month and gave me a steroid cream. The prednisone worked great except for two problems. Once I went off it the itching came back and two it caused retinopathy in my left eye. So I’m fairly certain it’s the forced hot air heating my home sucking the moisture out of my skin causing the eczema. I have a whole house humidifier and have used over a dozen lotions daily to try and prevent this but nothing seems to work. I’m desperately looking for any advice anyone can give to help me keep this itching at bay when we turn the heat in. Thanks so much for any advice!

[hainoroc]

Hi there,
My daughter has hand eczema which was diagnosed as atopic eczema. She had it months after we moved into a new house. I first thought it was the air furnace and I closed the vent above her bed. I used humidifiers for a while but with no success. It seems that eczema gets better when we travel to warm exotic places and she spends more time in the ocean.
I would suggest check the air vents and furnace for any mold or anything that can make you allergic. Take a vacation and see if any improvements. It's worth it if you feel miserable. Good luck to you and hope you find a way out. In our case we are still looking for a cure or a reason.

[jpdemoso]

Thanks so much for the reply. I have since actually moved away from the theory that the heat forced air is causing my issue. I’m starting to think it’s the water now. Where we moved we have hard water and a water softener. I’ve never lived in a place that either. I’ve read where hard water can cause skin issues, but I actually don’t think it’s the hard water. I think it might the softener. Maybe the extra salt in the water drying out my skin. When it gets cold enough here and my skin starts to get bad again I’m going to bypass the softener and do some testing.