4.45am wake up. I feel really hot and webs of hands very very itchy. Trying and failing not to scratch. I’ve applied barrier cream but the itchiness is overwhelming. Skin in the webs of my fingers is now red, broken and weepy.
Stomach feels really gurgly. Only over an hour until my alarm. 😦
I’m happy to announce that my skin is still looking good. With the change of season, I did have a couple of weeks where they were itchy and red but that is going down.
I’m still taking the herbs, I’m down to half a sachet twice a day and hopefully I will be able to get that down to half a sachet per day.
I’ve found that Aveeno is wonderful, I’ve been using it for a while now and it doesn’t aggravate my skin, it leaves it feeling soft and there is no slimy/greasy feeling once it’s been applied. It is most expensive than others on the market, but I just use it on my hands so it lasts longer.
I havent been having anymore acupuncture – due to finances – and I did find that the skin rash flared up a lot in the first couple of weeks of me stopping. My doctor, George, says that the acupuncture cannot cure it – but it can help it flair up a little less. Ideally, I need to find what’s triggering it but I’ve still had no luck with that. My only idea is that it’s stressed/worry induced.
I’ve now got wordpress on my phone, so the updates should be more frequent but the typos could be worse!
I’ve just finished my period and whilst I was on, my hands were a little itchy. I have a couple of dry patches.
Also, it’s got colder. I’ve always found a change in season does tend to make my hands crack. I’m down to half doses on both of my sachets -am & pm. It would be good to get down to one sachet only – the evening one – so that my rash is still benefiting from it.
I’m still being pretty healthily too, exercise and good food. I’ve recently joined a gym with a pool and went tonight. We’ll see how my hand react.
Any tips, creams, ideas….do share.
I made it through last night in fact I slept pretty well and only had a bit of rubbing. Today has been hard as it’s been really hot, so i’ve been trying to keep myself cool.
I have a few blisters on my right hand, which is disappointing – I was hoping they’d be gone this week. I had a bit of an itchy patch when I got home after work, I tried really hard not to break the skin but I think I have in some small areas. It was all too much and I wasn’t strong enough not to scratch. Sometimes I justify it to myself – like when you’re trying not to eat cakes, you’ve gone a whole day without one so you deserve one small one right? Well, its like that with the scratching. Except it’s really bad!
You can see the improvements to my thumb from the last image a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve also got another hand cream (because the store was out of simple) called Aveeno. They have an intensive dry range, which I might give a go after this one. It’s quite nice on my skin, but it always feel nice when you try something new.
Well, its off to the doctors tomorrow – we’ll see what he says and what new combination I get!
I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated so I have a little bit to talk about!
I saw a consultant earlier this year for some patch testing to see if the eczema is caused by anything in particular (although I have always been sceptical that its a reaction to something due to the way it comes about). The test lasted just over 48 hours and after that time you self-assess what looks like a reaction.
When I saw the consultant afterwards for a follow up he gave me a list of things it was likely to be that was causing my eczema. I don’t have the names of the chemicals to hand but they covered a huge range of things like cinnamon, perfume, body wash, toothpaste, some rubbers, some plastics….basically it covered almost anything in our modern life.
I asked the doctor if this showed the reaction to my eczema or to my dermographism – he said that it only shows my eczema results. I find this difficult to understand due the fact that my eczema is on my hands only and this test was done on my back (one of the areas the dermographism affects) but he didn’t want to discuss it any further. After all that hope of someone helping me, I felt pretty deflated again and after further check ups with him all he could tell me was to avoid everything on the list and to have good hand hygiene.
So I have turned to trying Chinese medicine.
In this time I have also relocated, I now live in Bristol and have a new job (part of me was hoping the new job and new environment might see a cure but it didn’t!). I’ve been seeing the Chinese doctor for around 6 weeks and I have another check up later today.
In this time I haven’t been using anything to treat my hands, no steroids or prescription creams. I have been drinking a herbal tea 3 times a day and I have a cream to help keep any wounds clean, this isn’t to be used all the time but helps keeps the infection out when the skin is broken.
The tea isn’t nice at all! It was quite hard to drink initially, but I treat it like a large shot – down in one! Initially it did make my stomach a little funny and I was making more frequent trips to the bathroom! But after discussing this with the doctor, he lowered my dose a little and my insides seem fine (in fact its all a little better than it was before). He also takes my pulse and looks at my tongue – he’s able to tell me when my period was and that I recently had heartburn (very strange indeed!).
The worse part of my hands were the palms, the skin was very broken and sore and just seemed to crack more and more, about 2 weeks after drinking the tea the cracks have healed and now the are a little dry but making a full recovery. Unfortunately, the webs of my fingers are a bit broken and sore – I know this is partly my fault as I have scratched. But, as anyone who suffers knows – sometimes you just cave in.
So this is currently the state of my hands:
Can someone help my skin? 