When you’ve broken out in eczema, it makes you want to hide away.

Dave works with mOI. This is his personal experience of living with eczema, asthma and allergies.

NAVIGATING FLARES

Dave has lived with chronic eczema, asthma and allergies for as long as he can remember. His diagnosis came early. Finding a way to live with it has been the harder part.

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I’ve lived with this my entire life

I am 40 years old, and I’ve suffered with eczema, asthma and allergies my entire life. From being wrapped in bandages as a child so I would stop scratching myself in the night, to going to a job interview in London with an outbreak all over my face. One of the interviewers thought I was an alcoholic and I almost didn’t get the job.

The diagnosis was easy. The treatment hasn’t been

My diagnosis was very easy and was done when I was a baby, to be fair, but the journey of treatment has been a lifelong struggle. I have tried probably all the creams and lotions, bath products etc on the market, and they only work for a short time, some make it worse and others don’t work at all. I’ve been on elimination diets, I’ve literally tried everything.

GP’s most of the time, I find don’t really know what to do and now they refuse steroid creams on a repeat prescription without any clear path to replace them.

I’ve been to private dermatologists, I’ve been an outpatient of Durham University hospital over the years to varying degrees of success.

The hardest part is confidence

Confidence. When you’ve broken out in eczema all over your face, neck, hands and arms, you just can’t help but think people are looking at you. It makes you want to hide away.

Then there’s the itch. That insatiable tickle on your skin that with all the willpower in the world cannot be left unscratched. Which leads to the bleeding, the soreness and the ugly red blotches on your skin.

I’ve learned to manage the flare-ups, physically and mentally

Restricting diet and cutting out all artificial soaps. Never putting anything on my skin without testing it first.

But mentally, just knowing that everything is impermanent, flare ups will come and go, managing my own expectations.

I wish doctors understood that it is life altering

Eczema isn’t the same as a life threatening disease. I get that. I’ve lived a full and mostly happy life with it, even though it effects me daily.

What I wish is that although not life threatening, it’s definitely life altering and when you’re suffering, it can be really bad. I would love more empathy and understanding from doctors when it comes to treatment.

And for the love of god, don’t tell me just not to itch.

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People see past the things that you can’t

I would say that there is no silver bullets and what works for one person doesn’t work for everyone.

On a positive, emotional side, I would say that people see past the things that you can’t. The people around you don’t see the flare ups the same way you catastrophise about them in your mind.

Understand your patterns →