Eczema improving with age, or steroid creams a problem?

[Sherocon]

Hi I'm new here, I just wanted to get some other people's experiences and opinions on this.

I've had eczema since I was about 13 or 14, progressively got worse until years later I started to suspect my diet. I cut out dairy food and 90% of it started to disappear. I still get the odd patch but compared to what I used to have its fantastic, except on my fingers. It persisted there quite badly and has resulted in infections. So since I work in a hospital and hand hygiene is important I used steroid cream quite often to avoid break outs, probably too much. Eventually I started to get hard, flaky skin on my fingers and they seemed hot a lot of the time, one of the doctors commented that maybe I would be better off without the steroid creams.

So I stopped using the cream for a week so far and I have no eczema, my fingers seem to be much better, its very unusual. I'm wondering has anybody else had anything like this happen? Can my eczema improve with age or maybe steroid creams causing a reaction the whole time?

I look forward to some input!
Thanks for reading.

[Marcie Mom]

Hi!

I don't know of steroid cream causing eczema, but I've heard the one of the side effect is fragile blood capillaries - not sure if that's linked to the hot sensation. Steroid cream shouldn't be used as a prevention for breakout though, moisturizer help as additional layer to protect against irritants or check about TCI.

Overall, good that your skin improves!
Mei

[eczemanewcastle]

Hi Sherocon - it certainly sounds like it was the steroids causing the problems rather than fixing them. This is definitely possible!

Glad to hear that things are better, long may it stay that way.