severe eczema

[avocado23]

Hi. I’m a girl in secondary school suffering from severe eczema which I’ve had pretty much all my life. As i a baby, it was very bad, to the point where I was bribed to get in the bath with jelly beans (it hurt my skin so much). It’s worsened dramatically over the last year, and I’ve lost track of the amount of doctors or the amounts of cream I’ve been prescribed to use for it. The pain is getting to be almost unbearable sometimes, the low point being where I can’t move limbs or bend my stomach. I’m currently using epaderm and aveeno for moisturising, sudocrem and hydrocortisone for open or rashy areas and aloe Vera gel for extreme irritation. As you can probably tell, I’ve tried a LOT of creams.

I’m just so sick of creaming up to 4 times a day and seeing or feeling no difference, but if I stop my flaky, dry or open skin gets worse. I can’t use soaps or shower gels, or wear pyjamas (the condition drastically worsens at night) that I like. I can’t remember the last time I slept all night without waking up, because I’m scratching or just opened a wound and it starts to bleed. Everyday my bedsheets are bloodstained from the wounds I open from scratching in my sleep, and I’m beginning to dread showers because I almost cry in pain when the water hits my open skin. At night I wear gloves to prevent scratching as much as possible (sewn onto the ends of pyjama tops or on a string inside of them) but I wear holes in the fingers from the persistent scratching in my sleep and they don’t help much at all. I’ve gotten special permission to wear leggins in PE at school because I feel so disgusting and don’t want to show my eczema. I look in the mirror and hate my skin so much because it looks appalling. I don’t wear the out-of-school clothes I want to wear because it reveals my eczema. It’s almost summer now and I don’t know what to do, because I feel so disgusting and dry that I don’t wear short sleeved tops or shorts. I wear jumpers as much as I can and pull down the sleeves to cover my hands up. My eczema is becoming a major thing in my life now, and it makes me fustrated, upset and depressed. Sorry for the big paragraph, but I just wanted to rant about my eczema and how hard I’m finding it, physically and emotionally.

[Marcie Mom]

So so sorry to hear of your eczema condition.. my daughter sometimes use Tubifast at night for more moisturizing and limit scratching; maybe it's worth finding out what is triggering the eczema, and visit an experienced dermatologist/allergy doctor to try other treatments to calm down the eczema. Diet also play a role, do see if you can find an experienced doctor to offer some help. Take care, hugs!