Eczema on face and neck, help please!

Skin, nail and hair health
1

Apparently I had eczema when I was a baby, but I never had it since. My skin on my face and neck is pretty good, but in April this year, I started getting eczema on face? I'm 16 and right now my self-esteem level is -999.. It'll sometimes flare up randomly and I don't know what's triggering it or why it has even appeared in the first place! sad

At first i had really dry lips and I thought i just didnt drink enough water and then I had what looked like a cold sore on the side of my lip but then it started spreading and the Dr diagnosed me with perioral dermatitis. I was put on rozex and doxycycline which seemed like it helped at first but then just made everything worse. 

The redness then starting spreading on my eyes and eventually to my cheeks. My skin on my lips and eyelids would always be swollen, weepy and flaky. Then after I went back to the Dr and got clonea antifungal cream, the mouth part got a bit better (possibly I had an infection when my skin was cracked? idk) 

Right now it's so much better than the beginning (possibly because the Dr diagnosed me wrong). When i went to a specialist, I was diagnosed with eczema and was prescribed with sigmacort and solone for a while. At the moment I am only using dermeze ointment. However, I'm going on an overseas trip with my school soon and have my oral exams soon and I really just want my original skin back!!

Please help! (been looking everywhere for answers and I'm just really desparate) It gets so itchy sometimes and it's really frustrating because i can't concentrate at school and I always have an oily face with hair constantly sticking to my face because of the moituriser. It's really embarassing sad

2

Hi Shiyorin, sorry to hear about your worsening skin. Have you considered that you might have been having problems with steroid creams which over time for some people can cause spread of the original eczema?

If you google topical steroid withdrawal you'll get more information and support if indeed that is your problem. Good luck in finding the root cause xx

3

Do you have any picture to show? I think mine is quite similar to yours. I started half a year ago and my confidence is -10000% since then.

If you to a derm with eczema, most probably they will give you steroid creams, but avoid putting any steroid cream on your face, the absorptoon rate for the face is way higher than the rest of the body parts, so even if you do use any please check the strength of the steroid cream, hydrocortisone is fine but i think the max you should use is 2 weeks straight.

For me i don't use any, i just let it get better on its own, can take weeks and then it just comes back in a few days and the cycle begins again. Maybe you can find out if it is your diet triggering it, do an elimation diet to see if it gets better. If it doesnt, check your products and find ingredients that may be triggering this.

4

Ive used dermaid, but have only used that for 7 days max and then i never touched it again, that was 4 months ago

5

At the moment no, because its on one of the "better days" and because my phone camera is really bad, you cant see it well

The only hyrdocortisones i've used are dermaid and sigmacort 

I'm not sure where to start though, theres so many products/ingredients and it all seems so overwhelming

 

6

The elimination diet wil be to take out certain items for about 2 weeks and see how it goes.

The items that are the most common triggering are - dairies(milk, egg, etc)

-nightshade (potato, etc)

-gluten (wheat)

Or even some fruits. You can do a food diary and if you have a flare, check what you ate before the flare.

For products, i think the common is SLS, you can google that and see which products have it.

Or it could even be stress that triggers it, or the environment.

But anyways, stay away from steroid creams, it may help hide the symptoms but in the long run it will come back even worse.

Take care, i myself am dealing with a flare up since a week ago. Cheers, don't give up!

7

Hmm i've tried eliminating SLS products for a while back then, but I don't think it was that.

For the food part,  I think i'll elimnate one group (e.g nightshade) for a week, then eat it again the next and see how it goes and keep trying it for all the other groups maybe. But i'm not sure since i eat all those things on nearly a daily basis, but my flare ups seem to pop up at such random times T^T

8

Haha i totally get what you mean, my flare ups are so random as well. I can be fine eating this certain food for quite awhile and the next time it makes me flare up. Confuses the heck out of me.

I hope eliminating will work for you!

9

As well as dermaid, aren't sigmacort and solone steroids too?  

10

oh, are they? whoopsies, sorry. i'm not very clear on what's classified as steroids ^^" i'll go and have a search about the topical steroid withdrawal now c:

11

Yes, it would be very good for you to know about topical steroid withdrawal. I have seen a girl going through that and it was horrible- all cause doctors do not want to believe that TSW is real, i have talk to derms about it and all they say is that steroid usage will not do anything as bad as that, and they can help with the dosage, but when people get eczema so badly(whole body) its hard for them to not use steroid creams since that or protopic/elidel are their only options other than phototeraphy, but since steroid creams only hide the symptoms for them, their eczema will rebound back, maybe even worse, and then they will need to use more/stronger steroid creams.

So i will advise to stay away from it totally and find some other ways that does not have bad side effects.