Hi,
I just had to write a reply to you and hopefully it can be comforting for you to read it. I would have loved to be able to be part of something like this when I was your age since I have always found myself quite lonely with my problems.
English isn't my first language, so excuse me if there are lots of spelling/grammar mistakes!
I am 33 and has had eczema since I was one, and your story could have been my own.
I used to be very self conscious about my skin, worried about what people thought I looked like and that always used to make me sad.
I am now a married mother of 2. I live a happy life and work as an elementary teacher.
Even though my skin still can drive me nuts, I am content and have accepted the fact that this is something I am stuck with for the rest of my life and that I just have to treat myself as good as I can to make it durable.
The worst thing that can happen to me apart from getting "normal" infections in my eczema is that I have cold sores (herpes simplex) and that can sometimes spread into my eczema and cause terrible infections.
Apart from that and my dry skin, it's the itching , and often it feels like "for no reason". I often don't even realize myself that I am scratching...
Night time scratching has always been a problem for me, but less of one since I have started seeing to it that I clean my hands and fingers carefully before night time. I never have long nails and always put ..what do you call it in English..alcohol gel (???) on my hands/nails. Gloves have NEVER worked for me, they always come off in some mysterious way. My skin infections are few and far between now and I think it might depend on my #clean nails".
Silk pjs (especially Dermasilk) have always been the best for me all though i prefer to sleep naked even though I am greased up to my ears in oily/fatty creams.
The only thing that helps me if I am having a super bad nettle fever attack (wrong words maybe, but what i mean is a really bad scratch attack) is to keep cool and to try to get my mind off my skin. Weird as it may seem, and still at 33, eating some ice cream and focusing on the ice cream in an almost meditative way can stop my attack.
Nettle fever attacks on neck and face, I some times stop with a numbing cream (called xylocain in my country), that makes me loose my sense of feel and stops the itching.
I have figured out that for ME, it all depends on what shape my health is in. If I am calm, happy, have no colds or other infections, if I don't have my period and if the temperature and weather is right, then I am at my best (of course), and then I am like any other person: I can swim in a pool without reacting, I can eat raw carrot, spray perfume on my body and wear a shirt with a tickeling collar!
But if I have a cold, is stressed or unhappy, have my period or what not, a loose hair against my skin under my shirt can set me off.
What I have also learned after almost half a life with this skin condition, is never to "under treat" my self. I have had my periods when I haven't been treating myself as I should, skipping certain steroids and being too lazy to put creams on. That's a no no for me. I have to face the facts that I need the treatments, if I follow them I end up getting better at the same time as I am open to try new stuff, prepared that it might not always work for me.
I have many trump cards up my sleeve that works for me, so please feel free to ask!
Take good care of yourself and remember: You're not alone
//MrsCizzi