Eczema Stories

My memory of eczema goes back to a very tender age when I was about 6 years old, which was 1999 (Oops! Didn’t mean to give my age away that easily). I was then living in a relatively big township, along the coast in KZN. The temperature in the area was usually very high and pretty much humid, making it almost unbearable to reside in that area, but my parents worked in the nearest towns and I guess as a little girl, my siblings and I didn’t really care that much at times. The only problem is it would get to me, because too much time spent in the sun meant for the next week or so I would not really play outside with my siblings and our friends because my skin would be swollen and “rash” would be all over my body.

I remember always crying telling my mom “Mah, kuyaluma” meaning ‘Mom, it’s itchy’, as young as I was I could see the frustration on my mom’s face because she had already exhausted all her options. We went to all the GPs around the area including Empangeni and Richards Bay.

When I was really young my GP, who in my understanding, was the one who could really ‘handle’ my eczema. He unfortunately had to relocate overseas. He was the best GP ever, he would give me sweets including my siblings who would always accompany my mother and I (I’m pretty sure they loved him too even though they can barely remember him).

The sad part was all the other doctors gave me the same creams which were ineffective, and I’d end up refusing 90% of them they prescribed because they were not helping me at all. Up until our nanny said to my mom we should use “imbiza” (traditional medicine) which was sold by some lady in the township. The taste was so awful, I’d cry every time I had to have just a teaspoon of that stuff. It of course didn’t help. I, however, do not blame my mother for trying every option we had.

As the breakthrough would usually happen during spring and summer, I slowly started to understand myself and my body. It would be so bad in my joints, my neck, face and I would get swollen from the scratching.

We then moved to Durban when I was 12, and my sister and I went to boarding school in a small town called Vryheid. The condition was really better, my eczema wasn’t that bad. In fact it disappeared for the first six months, and then the cycle began to repeat itself. It was however bearable, until I was 16. I went home for school holidays, and my mom said to me someone had referred her to a dermatologist. I didn’t really know what a dermatologist was, so I asked her and she explained. She had already booked an appointment so that that Saturday we could go see the dermatologist. In my mind, I had accepted that this thing was a part of me and no-one would be able to help me.

To my surprise, this dermatologist knew exactly what the skin problem was, in fact he told me that it had a name and it was called “eczema”. He even showed me pictures of people who had eczema and I could relate 100%. The journey to recovery started then and there. He explained everything to me, and the one thing that got to me was that eczema was not curable but you had to learn to live with it and keep it under control.

My life changed, my self-esteem picked up, I was confident and for the first time in my life I could look in the mirror and say ‘Minnie, you are beautiful’. It was true, eczema is incurable, but I knew what to do and what not to eat and in that way I could control myself.

I know how it is like to live with eczema, how it crushes your self-esteem, how insecure it makes one feel and in turn I want to educate people about eczema because I have found out that a lot of people are still not familiar with it specially in the homesteads. It makes me happy to share my journey living with eczema and I hope it restores hope in a lot of families, especially mothers who have children suffering from eczema.

Take control of your life!!!