This is what opened spots look like the next day! It hurts a bit…

This is what opened spots look like the next day! It hurts a bit to bend my wrists but no big deal. I feel like it’s all healing quickly already which is honestly all I can really ask for (I’m happy with this). So for those of you wanting to attempt moisturizer withdrawal, this is a message that you don’t have to worry about using any of the witch hazel and other methods. Do them if you want to and you think it will help, of course-all I’m saying is that you will probably heal pretty quickly by yourself if you can manage to leave it alone (that was difficult). I just kept a paper towel with me the rest of the night and blotted the spots every now and then. I know that when I opened up those spots I immediately wanted to take a dss bath but I couldn’t at the time, and then I ended up not wanting/needing one. I am 6 months into TSW though, so I figure it should be this way for me at this point. For others who are having a stronger rebound or are just starting into their TSW and MW these methods for control and comfort will probably be more important. 

I’m going to make a post that shows what my skin was like before I decided to stop steroids because I stopped at a time where my skin was mostly under control and I think that might’ve made a difference in how my rebound was this time around. When I first went through TSW, the rashes spread throughout my body pretty quickly, whereas this time around it has managed to stay in my upper body and it already seems to be getting better. Of course, there’s always a possibility that I could experience flares but it just seems like this withdrawal period is not going to be like last time. I was almost sure it was going to be worse when I stopped taking steroids because by that time I had been slathering strong steroids on pretty much my whole body for over a year. But when I stopped taking steroids I had already been tapering down how often I used it, and the spots that fought the steroids the most caused me to look up info which led me to itsan. When I showed my doctor the info with intent to quit steroids he asked me how often I was using the creams and told me that using a couple times a week for the rest of my life would be fine. (Even if that was the case, who wants to be dependent on that for the rest of their life? I went into this withdrawal with the idea that I could potentially be cured and not have to use steroids ever again and I figured I had endured the pain before and it would be worth it to give it a shot and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, that’s fine, I’ll admit to the doctor that I was wrong and follow his orders. But I already feel better than I did when I was still using the steroids. I can heal all on my own pretty well, no steroids necessary.)

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2INIFbK published on March 22, 2014 at 03:32PM

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my…

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my wrists. 😦  I’m a little upset with myself, but surprisingly I don’t feel too bad about it. They barely oozed and I patted the spots with a paper towel and they dried up, so that’s something on the positive side. Any time I take my long sleeves and/or wrist warmers off, I get compelled to scratch. I think I’m just going to live in my clothes for a while. Ignore my skin altogether. Seriously, every time I go to check my inner elbows I’ll say, “It’s doing better,” and then somehow I end up scratching it intensely and have to say “Whoops, never mind.”

Tried to take some pictures to show how scratching affected the rest of my arms – mostly creating really dry skin or raising and reddening the rashy skin.  

Once I finally got myself to stop scratching and preoccupied myself with taking and uploading pictures, things calmed down. I wonder if there’s a trigger that causes my scratchfests or if it really is just because I took off my sweater and wrist warmers.

Do any of you take antihistamines when you get too itchy? I sometimes take them for some relief if I can even get any, but I don’t actually have allergies. I read somewhere that itchiness is not only related to histamines but I didn’t read that far into it.

Finally downloaded some of the pictures I took along the process when I had a hiatus from blogging my progress, so I’ll be uploading those shortly.

Day 15 of Moisturizer Withdrawal, by the way. At this point I want to say that I am done with moisturizer withdrawal symptoms and am now dealing strictly with steroid withdrawal, but I’m still going to monitor my symptoms that seem to be related to mw. 

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2Vk3aTY published on March 21, 2014 at 04:32PM

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my…

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my wrists. 😦  I’m a little upset with myself, but surprisingly I don’t feel too bad about it. They barely oozed and I patted the spots with a paper towel and they dried up, so that’s something on the positive side. Any time I take my long sleeves and/or wrist warmers off, I get compelled to scratch. I think I’m just going to live in my clothes for a while. Ignore my skin altogether. Seriously, every time I go to check my inner elbows I’ll say, “It’s doing better,” and then somehow I end up scratching it intensely and have to say “Whoops, never mind.”

Tried to take some pictures to show how scratching affected the rest of my arms – mostly creating really dry skin or raising and reddening the rashy skin.  

Once I finally got myself to stop scratching and preoccupied myself with taking and uploading pictures, things calmed down. I wonder if there’s a trigger that causes my scratchfests or if it really is just because I took off my sweater and wrist warmers.

Do any of you take antihistamines when you get too itchy? I sometimes take them for some relief if I can even get any, but I don’t actually have allergies. I read somewhere that itchiness is not only related to histamines but I didn’t read that far into it.

Finally downloaded some of the pictures I took along the process when I had a hiatus from blogging my progress, so I’ll be uploading those shortly.

Day 15 of Moisturizer Withdrawal, by the way. At this point I want to say that I am done with moisturizer withdrawal symptoms and am now dealing strictly with steroid withdrawal, but I’m still going to monitor my symptoms that seem to be related to mw. 

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2Vk3aTY published on March 21, 2014 at 04:32PM

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my…

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my wrists. 😦  I’m a little upset with myself, but surprisingly I don’t feel too bad about it. They barely oozed and I patted the spots with a paper towel and they dried up, so that’s something on the positive side. Any time I take my long sleeves and/or wrist warmers off, I get compelled to scratch. I think I’m just going to live in my clothes for a while. Ignore my skin altogether. Seriously, every time I go to check my inner elbows I’ll say, “It’s doing better,” and then somehow I end up scratching it intensely and have to say “Whoops, never mind.”

Tried to take some pictures to show how scratching affected the rest of my arms – mostly creating really dry skin or raising and reddening the rashy skin.  

Once I finally got myself to stop scratching and preoccupied myself with taking and uploading pictures, things calmed down. I wonder if there’s a trigger that causes my scratchfests or if it really is just because I took off my sweater and wrist warmers.

Do any of you take antihistamines when you get too itchy? I sometimes take them for some relief if I can even get any, but I don’t actually have allergies. I read somewhere that itchiness is not only related to histamines but I didn’t read that far into it.

Finally downloaded some of the pictures I took along the process when I had a hiatus from blogging my progress, so I’ll be uploading those shortly.

Day 15 of Moisturizer Withdrawal, by the way. At this point I want to say that I am done with moisturizer withdrawal symptoms and am now dealing strictly with steroid withdrawal, but I’m still going to monitor my symptoms that seem to be related to mw. 

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2Vk3aTY published on March 21, 2014 at 04:32PM

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my…

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my wrists. 😦  I’m a little upset with myself, but surprisingly I don’t feel too bad about it. They barely oozed and I patted the spots with a paper towel and they dried up, so that’s something on the positive side. Any time I take my long sleeves and/or wrist warmers off, I get compelled to scratch. I think I’m just going to live in my clothes for a while. Ignore my skin altogether. Seriously, every time I go to check my inner elbows I’ll say, “It’s doing better,” and then somehow I end up scratching it intensely and have to say “Whoops, never mind.”

Tried to take some pictures to show how scratching affected the rest of my arms – mostly creating really dry skin or raising and reddening the rashy skin.  

Once I finally got myself to stop scratching and preoccupied myself with taking and uploading pictures, things calmed down. I wonder if there’s a trigger that causes my scratchfests or if it really is just because I took off my sweater and wrist warmers.

Do any of you take antihistamines when you get too itchy? I sometimes take them for some relief if I can even get any, but I don’t actually have allergies. I read somewhere that itchiness is not only related to histamines but I didn’t read that far into it.

Finally downloaded some of the pictures I took along the process when I had a hiatus from blogging my progress, so I’ll be uploading those shortly.

Day 15 of Moisturizer Withdrawal, by the way. At this point I want to say that I am done with moisturizer withdrawal symptoms and am now dealing strictly with steroid withdrawal, but I’m still going to monitor my symptoms that seem to be related to mw. 

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2Vk3aTY published on March 21, 2014 at 04:32PM

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my…

I had a scratchfest when I got home today and ripped up my wrists. 😦  I’m a little upset with myself, but surprisingly I don’t feel too bad about it. They barely oozed and I patted the spots with a paper towel and they dried up, so that’s something on the positive side. Any time I take my long sleeves and/or wrist warmers off, I get compelled to scratch. I think I’m just going to live in my clothes for a while. Ignore my skin altogether. Seriously, every time I go to check my inner elbows I’ll say, “It’s doing better,” and then somehow I end up scratching it intensely and have to say “Whoops, never mind.”

Tried to take some pictures to show how scratching affected the rest of my arms – mostly creating really dry skin or raising and reddening the rashy skin.  

Once I finally got myself to stop scratching and preoccupied myself with taking and uploading pictures, things calmed down. I wonder if there’s a trigger that causes my scratchfests or if it really is just because I took off my sweater and wrist warmers.

Do any of you take antihistamines when you get too itchy? I sometimes take them for some relief if I can even get any, but I don’t actually have allergies. I read somewhere that itchiness is not only related to histamines but I didn’t read that far into it.

Finally downloaded some of the pictures I took along the process when I had a hiatus from blogging my progress, so I’ll be uploading those shortly.

Day 15 of Moisturizer Withdrawal, by the way. At this point I want to say that I am done with moisturizer withdrawal symptoms and am now dealing strictly with steroid withdrawal, but I’m still going to monitor my symptoms that seem to be related to mw. 

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2Vk3aTY published on March 21, 2014 at 04:32PM

Day 10 of Moisturizer Withdrawal Mostly only dealing with…

Day 10 of Moisturizer Withdrawal

Mostly only dealing with dryness and flakiness (and all-around rough skin). By Friday night my lips were not dry, and I have to say that this is the most important thing to me. In all my years I don’t think I ever thought I’d be able to live without vaseline or some other moisturizer to rub on my lips (in high school some girl tried to be mean to me by saying that it looked like my lips were going to fall off my face-it didn’t hurt because, well, she wasn’t wrong). When starting moisturizer withdrawal it was the incredibly dry, flaky lips that really got to me, but I decided to stick through it. On Friday night, celebrating my roommate’s birthday with incredibly flaky eyes but normal-looking lips (the skin around them is still rough/dry), I felt great. I think that the lips looking normal is more important in not looking so strange but I’m not sure why. (Maybe because it’s a focal point when people are talking?) I don’t know. All I’m saying is that even with my flaky eyes, I didn’t feel strange-looking or uncomfortable with my appearance at all. A little confidence goes a long way, it seems.

My lips have stayed on the better side so far, for which I am thankful. My skin is dry and rough all around, but not uncomfortable. As you can see, my wrist-wounds have healed and are now scabbed over. I have scratched at myself a little bit, being very careful not to open up the wounds again. Wearing the gloves and long sleeves is incredibly helpful. My fingers, which have been one of the itchiest places for me throughout my tsw, are healing pretty nicely and aren’t too itchy anymore. I can’t remember the last time my fingers were free of cuts. Every single crease in my fingers used to be cut open, and now I’ve only got A SINGLE SKIN SPLIT in my index finger, which has been painful but seems to be healing successfully. Aside from the little breaks I take to scratch, things are going extremely well. I’m not nearly as itchy as I had been prior to stopping moisturizers. And there’s barely any redness going on! My skin gets red when I’m in the dead sea salts bath, but once I dry the color evens out again. I was able to go out and not take my purse! I was able to go out without my moisturizers-my ‘security blanket.’ I feel free, and I hope this lasts. I feel so much more comfortable, that I can honestly say that if my eczema was never to go away, I’d still be okay living like this. This is doable. Hopefully through tsw I will continue to heal and be cured like we’ve been guaranteed. Either way, I feel so strong. I’ve gone through so much; I went through hell, and I never for a second imagined that my body could get me through it all on its own. I always thought my body was causing the problems! With steroids I’d been fighting my body instead of letting it do the fighting it needed to do. I’m so happy that I now have the support of my friends and family. My mom told me that I was going to cure myself. She may have just said that to make me feel better but I think she’s right. I’m so grateful for the information that people have put out there about eczema, steroid-induced eczema and the like. The healing process isn’t easy for anyone but knowing it’s a process we can get through makes it that much easier to bear. 

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2KVVCD3 published on March 16, 2014 at 05:00PM

This is on Day 7 of not moisturizing. I have a dry spot on my…

The wrist is the worst spot. I want to mention that around day 4 of not moisturizing, any cuts I make do not ooze. They might be a bit wet but not weeping like they would before. Awesome.

The worst of it-my wrists, as usually. Honestly, this is nothing! Totally bearable.

This is on Day 7 of not moisturizing. I have a dry spot on my cheek as well but the picture barely shows anything and it’s not worth bothering with. Actually, most of these pictures don’t really show the full extent of the symptoms (which is mostly extremely dry/flaky) and I edited the exposure and the color on most of the images to better reflect the true colors. Honestly, the redness has gone way down. As you can see in one picture, I am wearing a wrist warmer to cover most of my hand/wrist, and I wear long sleeve shirts pretty much always, so the dryness ends up not even bothering me much. So far, after only seven days of ditching the moisturizers, I can say that even though it might look a little worse than while I was using my moisturizers, I feel a lot better. I don’t want to speak too soon or anything, but not having to have cream on me constantly is just flippin’ fantastic. My lips are bothering me, they keep cracking and that hurts a little (plus no one likes to look all flaky-faced in public) BUT I’m getting over that and I feel like I’m healing. And it’s all me! That’s a wonderful feeling; all this time I’ve attributed feeling better or doing better to creams, but now I feel as though any improvements are all me-I’m healing all on my own. I’ve got some control over choosing how to treat myself. I feel like I can accomplish anything.

I’ve still got this thing that I’m constantly consumed with thoughts of whether or not I’m truly going to heal or end up with eczema for the rest of my life. I find myself doubting often that I’m even going through steroid withdrawal. “This is working for all these people, but I’m the exception-I’m not really going through this-I’ll probably have this forever.” At the same time, I’m confident that I WILL heal. I keep trying to convince myself that EVERYONE with eczema can be cured. I guess I won’t know until I’ve healed, right? And if I don’t end up cured, I know that not moisturizing has truly made me more comfortable, and I would be okay with this. Either way, I win. (Hope I won’t have to bite my tongue if a nasty flare comes my way.)

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2VmQYBK published on March 14, 2014 at 12:24AM

Reviving This Blog to Log My Adventures with Steroid Withdrawal

Hello, I’m Deanne. I’m 20 years old, have eczema, used topical steroids for 15 years, stopped six months ago and am now documenting the process.

The last posts were from August 10, 2012, when I was still using steroids. Shortly after those photos were taken, I used a method of slathering steroids (triamcinolone ointment) all over my body, and wearing wet wraps for a couple of hours daily. It actually cleared up most of my skin. I’ll post some photos later of what my skin looked like once I started doing those wraps. Either way, I stopped doing the wraps, and my skin was manageable while still using the steroids. My hands were the worst off – never fully healing. One day I decided to look online to see what other people did to manage their hands, and on /r/eczema someone mentioned topical steroid withdrawal. I read into it and decided I’d found the answers. I immediately stopped steroids in the beginning of September 2013. I made a’ blog over on wordpress but I can’t keep up with it – I’m busy with school and busy procrastinating on school work. I still want to document my progress, and since I’m on tumblr mostly every day anyway, I figured I might as well just bring the blog over here, where I can manage it easier.

If tumblr allows, I will try to post the posts from my other blog with the correct timestamps and have them fit into this blog chronologically. If not, I’ll make a superpost and just start from here. 

I stopped steroids at the beginning of September, I’ll say the 3rd. So here’s a track record:

Steroid Cessation began on September 3rd, 2013
Currently in Month 6 of Steroid Withdrawal
Moisturizer Cessation began on March 6th, 2014
Currently in Week 1 of Moisturizer Withdrawal

I have had flares here and there throughout the process. I want to say it was midway through my third month and then late fifth/early sixth. Things were pretty steady in between that time so I never updated my other blog. I took some pictures within that time so I’ll try and post those with the past blog posts as well.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has gone through this process and made the information easily accessible and thank you to those currently going through the process who are helping everyone else go through it as well.

via tumblr http://bit.ly/2KVAsVA published on March 13, 2014 at 10:31PM

I had a bad day (March 27th) for my lips and my fingers which…

I had a bad day (March 27th) for my lips and my fingers which are arguably the worst parts to have messed up (besides the knees which I am not currently dealing with but for those who are, I have felt your pain and I’d say knees and fingers are the highest ranking worst spots because they both limit life so much (I would imagine feet fall in this category as well, and genitals are probably in a category all their own)).

My lips have been doing so well up until this peely mess started happening. My lips are actually very red here (if you compare to past pictures of my lips you will see that my lips are usually much paler). They burned and stung really badly, as if I had been eating incredibly salty food. I think maybe the fact that I mostly drink water with lemon in it might have something to do with the way my lips got (plus the sudden 45 degree weather after a day of 85 degree weather-thanks Florida!) but generally I think it was just a cyclical thing of skin healing. The part where my lips meet was super smooth, unlike how they normally are, so I take it as a strange healing process. Anyway, they’re better now, not in such pain, but still flaky.

My fingers had been pretty great up until  this day where I got really itchy, scratched them like crazy, and ended up right where I had been before, or so it seems. I tried to take a picture to show all the little yellow vesicles but I’m not sure they are very visible. I really, really hate having my fingers messed up. It makes me feel so useless. I do like not having to moisturize though; now I’m not getting everything all greased-up and disgusting like before. One of the pictures shows the huge difference in my now two-thirds-normal finger and the rest of them. They’re all swollen constantly (compare the knuckles). Anyway, my fingers are not back to how they had been before I scratched them BUT they are already much better than they were in these pictures. That’s pretty fast, and it’s nice reassurance that I need not be so discouraged when things like this happen.

My wrists weren’t bothering me so much here and as of today I only have a few tiny little sores and the rest is just rough skin. It’s pink but it’s barely broken and that’s wonderful. My arms and inner elbows are doing better too! Still rashy skin that is flat and rough but not inflamed (and the color is pink like my wrists). My skin overall is getting a little tougher. My method of “scratch and ignore” is a tactic that seems to be working for me. Let’s face it-we have to scratch. Let yourself have the scratch but then ‘put your skin away’ by covering it up somehow, ignore your skin for as long as you can and try to put it all out of your mind. I think we actually can have our cake and eat it too. You’re going to heal.

I was able to wash the dishes by wearing two sets of gloves and quite frankly, that is a big feat for me! The fact that I even felt comfortable enough to put gloves on was amazing and after doing the dishes I felt so accomplished, ha ha. It’s great to be able to do something to make myself feel like I’m not totally useless after all.

Anyway, I suppose my updates are going to become less frequent if this process is going steadily.

Hello to everyone. I wish you all good days and great strength to get through the bad ones. I hope you can find methods that work for you and little victories that make you happy. I’m rooting for all of you and I’m right here if you want to vent or just want to talk about anything at all. Love for everyone. Keep up the fight.

via tumblr http://ift.tt/1ojQ9Uk published on March 31, 2014 at 09:00PM