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Jo McNeish, a 28-year-old social worker from Glasgow, was born with atopic (genetic) eczema. Here she tells the story of her struggle with the condition.
'I developed fairly mild eczema when I was one. It was what is known as childhood eczema. It was in the usual childhood places; on the folds of my elbows and knees. It continued throughout my childhood and my early teens, but it wasn't a really serious problem - it was never really visible or on my face. Whenever it ever flared up, I treated it with steroid cream.
"My condition continued like this until I was 17 or 18, when I started studying for my Highers. At that point, it appeared on my face and it also started to spread to other parts of my body. I don't know if it was the stress of my Highers or just my age that caused it. Either way, it was at this time when a cycle began of it getting really bad and having to increase the steroid medication. I had to see a dermatologist fairly frequently.
"The next 'eczema landmark' I remember was when I was at Glasgow University (studying Scottish Literature) and the eczema had become so bad that I had to go into hospital. All over my body were patches of red-raw, sore and itchy eczema. I was in hospital for a week, over my 21st birthday in fact, which wasn't great. In the run-up to going in, my parents and I had been really struggling to treat it at home. In hospital, I was completely bandaged up and given some very heavy-duty drugs, including immunosuppressants.
"By the time I left hospital there was an improvement in my skin, but it was only superficial. The drugs had only dampened it down, so to speak, and soon after it came back again with a vengeance. Along with the pain and discomfort, I was becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of drugs I was taking. I just felt it wasn't going to be sustainable if I was going to have eczema in the long term.
"I was in third year at university when all of this was going on. I had enjoyed my course and had made good friends but I had found those previous couple of years really quite difficult because my face was covered in eczema. I felt like I didn't look my best. It was so hard, I was so
self-conscious. I don't know if it's as hard for a boy, but it was really hard having it as badly as I did, being a girl. I just felt really, really ugly. It was also hard when people would ask me about it. It was kindly meant, but it just felt awful having to explain. For me, in many respects, the psychological side of the eczema was equally as bad as the physical side of things.
"In my final year of uni, while I was still on the immunosuppressants, other things started to go wrong with me, medically. I can't recall the exact details now, I've blocked some of it out, but I think my body was suffering from the overall effect of the drugs I was on. I was taken off immunosuppressant drugs and within a short space of time my skin was worse than it had been to that point. Somehow I managed to get through my finals and finish my degree. I was pleased to have finished - it was an achievement, given what the past couple of years had been like. Eczema had made studying really hard. Concentrating when your skin is irritated, sore and cracked is extremely difficult and uncomfortable.
"I then started a gap year as a voluntary youth worker in Govan. Even though my skin was still in a bad way I wanted to get on with life. At the same time, my family and I started looking into alternative treatments and we also decided that I should come off the steroid creams. Looking back, I probably came off them too quickly as the fallout for my skin was horrendous. My entire body was covered in angry-red eczema and for the next six months I was house bound. I had to give up my job and couldn't go out. My skin was incredibly itchy and sore and would split and become infected very easily. It got to the point that wearing clothes was impossible because my skin was so raw and infected. To make matters worse, I also started losing my hair. I was completely isolated for those months - I didn't see friends and I couldn't go out. On reflection, I was incredibly depressed at the time. Everyone else I knew was getting on with their lives and moving on to other things, but I just felt left behind and pretty low. It was only really my family, my (now) husband Andy and my faith in God that got me through.
"For those months, my mum, in effect, nursed me as there was so much I couldn't do for myself. We just had no idea how long it would go on for; there was a feeling of infinity about it. I felt very unfeminine for the whole time and was so low about my appearance. It seemed as if there was no way I could separate myself from the eczema. I couldn't leave it. It was impossible to escape.
"While mum was nursing me, she started looking at diet as a possible cause. We were really desperate; by this point we had tried all the traditional alternative therapies - homeopathy, Chinese medicine and herbal medicine - but none of them had worked in the long term. Frankly, we would have tried anything at that stage.
"About a year or two before, we had joined the National Eczema Society. Through it, we found a medical laboratory in the north of England that could test my blood for allergens. We did this and it sent us back a pretty extensive list of potential culprits. The theory behind the allergen test was that we eliminated everything on the list from my diet and then reintroduced one food at a time to see which triggered a reaction. The main things on the list were wheat, gluten, yeast, all diary products, tomatoes and acidic fruits such as oranges and lemons. By this process of elimination, we settled that the major culprits were wheat, gluten, yeast and dairy products. When we eliminated things such as bread and milk, we realised that it was these foods that I had been craving all the time I was really ill. We were then able to introduce the tomatoes and fruit back into my diet, gradually.
"It was a very difficult diet. We had to ransack a few health-food shops as the food we needed was difficult to get elsewhere. We were looking for so many things to be missing from normal foods but we managed to find replacements. We swapped dairy with soya and I was able to get suitable bread and pasta on prescription, although we never did find a tasty bread. I also stayed in close contact with my GP to make sure that I had a healthy diet and was replacing all the nutrients I was losing from the offending foods. One of the good things about the diet was that I didn't lose any weight on it. This told us that we were doing the right thing.
"Almost instantly, I started to feel a difference. The first thing I noticed was that my skin started to calm down. It went from being very, very red and dry to being less inflamed and more elastic. It felt like normal skin, whereas it had always felt a bit like paper. I continued the diet very strictly for four years with great results. I was just so worried about the eczema flaring up that it wasn't hard to do. As far as I was concerned, it was a small price to pay and the difference in my skin was incredible; I no longer needed steroid creams and any patches that did crop up, I just applied some very mild cream to.
"Now I able to be fairly relaxed about my diet. I'm able to have bread and milk - and for some reason my skin seems to be fine with this. One theory we were told was that if you cut an allergen out of your diet for long enough your body forgets it is allergic to it, and after some time you can reintroduce the food to your diet. I don't know if that's true, but it's certainly borne out by my experience.
"When I got pregnant earlier this year, Andy and I decided that I would eat as normal a diet as possible for myself and the baby and see what the repercussions are. So far, my skin has been fine, but I know what to do if it does flare up. If this eczema is something I pass on to the baby, then diet is something I will change quickly."
Eczema: the lowdown
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Eczema affects around one in 12 adults and one in five children in the UK.
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There are many different types of eczema, which varies in severity. Atopic eczema is the most common form and runs in families. Its cause is not yet fully understood. However certain factors such as stress, house-dust mites and detergents can make it worse and are known to be triggers.
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Contact eczema is caused by irritants such as detergents and allergens.
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Symptoms include dry, hot and itchy skin which can become raw and broken, and bleed or weep.
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Conventional treatments include emollients, special moisturisers and topical steroids to reduce the inflammation and redness and soothe the itch, which can often be unbearable.
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If not treated appropriately, the skin may get more irritated and itchy, leading to more scratching and damage to the skin. Emotionally and physically, this can be devastating.
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This year, the National Eczema Society is publishing a revised and updated booklet, which addresses the psychosocial impact of living with eczema. The intention is to raise awareness of how eczema impacts on people and the emotional turmoil it can cause.
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National Eczema Week runs from September 16-25.
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