About My Journey
The first picture on the top header on the left shows the eczema on
my left leg sometime in late June.
The picture here on the left shows a close up of my two legs. As you
can see, my legs may not look a pretty sight but they clearly do not
look as bad as some of the eczema pictures that you get to see on the
internet. The pictures were taken at the time when I first embarked
on my current journey to address my skin problems.
The flare-up in eczema had started as early as late January this year (2006). I ate some squids and prawns over the festive Chinese New Year for two days. I had thrown caution to the wind and given in to my temptation. That proved to be a grave mistake! The seafood triggered off reactions that I had difficulty in stopping.
I've always been prone to eczema since young. I identified my two triggers to be diet and stress. I am allergic to seafood but only realised this after many years. Poor nutrition and bad dietary habits may also have execerbated my problems.
In addition, whenever I am stressed, I will be siezed by itch and have an uncontrollable need to scratch. The target is invariably my legs. It is quite ironic that even as eczema inflicted my legs, I am blessed with beautiful skin on my face (I never had a case of acne but just the occassional zit to contend with).
Not drinking enough water and also failure to moisturize my skin sufficiently worsened my eczema. I would say that through my 30 years of suffering with eczema, a lack of understanding and knowledge in this area has not helped me much with getting a cure.
Most often, an eczema flare-up would hit me for a period and when I have wrestled control of the situation with hydrocortisone cream, it will slowly retreat. I usually obtained the hydrocortisone cream from either my doctor or through the local pharmacy.
However, this recent bout of eczema was fearless. I just could not gain control of my eczema. I hesitated between seeing a skin specialist for a stronger prescription or to search for my own cure for a long time.
Finally, I decided that I should listen to my inner voice. I arrived at the decision to embark on a journey to seek natural treatments for my eczema. This journey will be backed by self experimentation and research. Solutions like steroids or drug will be minimised due to their side effects.
This blog is a live journal as I share on the various (mostly natural) treatment options that I take for my eczema. As a writer, I also publish articles on this skin disorder so that all my readers can benefit.
Most certainly, I hope that my journey to find an effective treatment for my eczema will be an enriching and fruitful one and invite all my readers to stay continually updated by subscribing to the posts on this blog.