Friday 30 May 2008

Learn To Love The Cold

Having survived minus 40 degrees and a cold Arctic wind, you'd think I'd be fine about having cold showers.......but ohhhh nooo.

The rashes hate cold water, so when am itchy I dunk my body into the cold water. However it REALLY is a big mental psyche up. I turn on the tap and watch the water flow, take a couple of deep breathes and in I go.....and as the cold eases the itching, it helps to also make a lot of weird noises.

Think it might be easier to have an ice pack in the fridge.

Anyway off to see the doc next week to see if she can make any sense of this.

Monday 26 May 2008

The Best Defense

Nails
I've cut my nails soooo short that I can't even peal an orange or open a can of tomatoes using the ring pulls. Yet my skin can still find an edge to cut into the skin.

My best friend therefore is a nail file to smooth out the rough ridges.

Recommend filing in one direction, smoothing off the edges every other day. Thank goodness I'm female, so that I can file my non-existent nails in public where ever I am.

It also acts as a minor distraction as it is a two handed operation. The more intense the itch, the more I file my nails.


Bath and Sleep
Had an itch attack today so I tried a bath with Balneum Plus. This has helped to alleviate my itching in the past. It did not today. So I sent myself to sleep focusing on thanking God that I was not at work today and that my nails were so short that it was difficult to scratch anyway. Meditation on other things is good to remove the focus off the itch.

Thursday 22 May 2008

Reducing Stress

Stress will certainly exacerbate the eczema condition.

Mentally I might not feel stressed from lack of sleep, but my skin will certainly tell me about it. I have just had a number of months without good sleep and I am suffering.

I have just had in the last 2 days, 2 nights of good sleep and my skin is feeling better.

Eating badly and drinking poorly are 2 other ways to stress the body without realising it. It is very easy to eat junk food and to drink less. I am now trying to drink at least 2-3 litres of water a day. I have found when my body is itchy at night, particularly the neck, the itching eases off when I drink a glass of water.

So now top of my "get well agenda is" eat healing foods, drink plenty and sleep well.

Short Term Cures

Steroid Creams - Yuck
Western doctors have great short term relief for eczema......steroid creams and anti-histamines.

I started from using very weak concentrations to now far more potent doses. I will not use them any more because this is NOT a cure. It is temporary relief. As soon as I stop using the creams, the itching rears its ugly head and seems to hit even harder.

Each eczema sufferer will have a cure for them and it is just finding what that cure is. A life long dependency on steroid creams is not a cure to me. Scratching or thinning the skin. I guess it is going to be scratching for me.

Antihistamines
This is as far as I will go now with western recommendations. Like hay fever suffers, this can dull the itch and provide some relief. I dislike introducing chemicals to my body as all have a side effect, however after a number of sleepless nights, I take the antihistamine.

Effects that I have suffered from antihistamines: I never take them during the day because the ones I take cause me drowsiness. I tried one of the non-drowsy types and it caused me heart palpitations. I will never switch products again and stick to the one that does work for me. Drowsiness I can tolerate. I have now taken one anti-histamine to ease the itch for the day.

Bedtime
Bed can be scarey. One lies there trying to clear the mind.....that is when the itching can seem to intensify. And when one is asleep, hands move automated by the head to the itchy places. Before you know it, the skin areas are sore and the bed feels like sand paper. During the night, I keep a multitude of creams and powders to hand (some seen in the image, alongside skin droppings)

Prickly heat powder is great becos it can make the skin feel like it is burning and hopefully gives enough temporary relief from the scratch cycle to stop itching. Pain is better than itch. It is probably why you'll see an Eczema sufferer scratch and try to dig the skin off their flesh. You see:

Itching = Bad
Pain = Good

Itch + Scratch = Relief and then pain
Therefore Itch + Scratch = Relief + Good

However friends hitting your hand and telling you not to scratch is irritation and therefore more itching.

Friends if you want to help an eczema sufferer please give our hands something to do as a distraction

Eczema Woes

Today, I decided to create a blog about skin ughs. Well one in particular that I am badly suffering from at the moment: Eczema.

Psychological Effects
In public places, bad eczema is a cause for concern to the people who are near you. Seeing someone constantly scratching, flakes of skin flying off, one cannot help wondering if the ailment the poor person is suffering from is contagious. Either that, or seeing their skin red, raw or flaking.

Personally, seeing one's own skin in total chaos: red patches; dry patches; cut patches from one's own dagger nails is a challenge for one's own head. Feeling the irritation and dryness is another that plays on one's mind. The body can feel sore; the arms tired from constant scratching and the head can feel misplaced from lack of sleep.

A typical eczema sufferer can have low esteem and not want to go out socially however an eczema sufferer has to balance all these and learn to carry on living life. Everyday I have to tell myself it probably looks worst to me than to everyone else. And in my workplace and people I meet, I apologise to them as I dig up my arm, face, neck, body or legs.

I constantly want to remove the dry skin which causes bouts of scratching and the cycle goes on.