Living with eczema

Dear Reader,

This is a subject I've wanted to share with the world for a while, so please take your time to read my story. 

Ever since I can remember I have had trouble dealing with my skin, it becomes dry and flaky, hurting and making me want to scratch it, which makes it become red and bleed. I have trouble all year round with it, mostly in the winter. I've had plenty of creams to try and help it. I'm sure they have given me everything they can find, but it only last for so long. I'm unsure what causes it to flare up and if i knew hopefully it would help.
Looking up the definition of Eczema on line:

Eczema (from the Greek ēkzema "to boil over") also known as atopic dermatitis is a form of chronic inflammation of the skin. 
The term eczema is broadly applied to a range of persistent skin conditions. These include dryness and recurring skin rashes that are characterized by one or more of these symptoms: redness, skin edema (swelling), itching and dryness, crusting, flaking, blisterning, cracking, oozing or bleeding. Areas of temporary skin discoloration may appear and are sometimes due to healed injuries. Scratching open a healing lesion may result in scarring and may enlarge the rash. 

This gives you some idea of the condition i was born with, many young children do grow out of the condition before they grow into adults, but for others it does reoccur. Through out my teenage years it was unnoticeable, in the winter i would get a small amount appear on my arms. This is main due to the change in temperatures, from the cold outside, to a warm heated room. However over the last year i have really suffered with my skin, it has been very painful, causing me to be unable to sleep, which has affected me during my days at work but also my every day life. It has caused me pain throughout the day, making me cry and feeling really down... I've been to the doctor about it all, and was given more creams plus send to a specialist who said i needed patch testing to find out if it was a allergy effecting most of my eczema. So far I'm still waiting.

I've got it over most of my body, my face is where I'm most self conscious, i stopped wearing foundation back in February to see if this has any effect, the only time i have worn it is when I'm on a night out or special occasions (this has save me a little bit of money). But by having eczema on my face has made me very self conscious and made me hide behind my hair too. I feel very red in the face, with dry skin appearing. This really doesn't help when you work with the public daily. All i want to do on a bad day is hide in my room, but instead I add cream to my skin and put on brave face with help from a little blusher, mascara and make sure my hair looks wonderful!!

Overall I'm not happy with my skin, i do try my best with it, making sure I used my creams at least twice a day. Hopefully I will get some more answers when I have some tests done. I do know that there is no cure for Eczema but any help i can get keeping it under control is what I want.

I'll let you know how I'm getting on in future posts.

Love Lolly
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