Skin Woes: Part 1
Around six months ago, my eczema returned to haunt me in adulthood. As a kid, I had patches of eczema on the inside of my elbow, back of my knee and neck- the usual stuff, but never anything past that. It was both annoying and embarrassing, so I would wear long sleeves and anything with a slight turtleneck in attempts to cover it up.
I lived in Puerto Rico. But I digress.
It cleared up after a short while and remained dormant for years. But recently, it's not only reared its ugly head but expanded its reach. It started with a minor rash on the side of my right hand. I didn’t think anything of it, figured it would clear up on its own. When it didn’t, I started doing the celery juice thing in hopes that all the hype was true. I got a juicer and added 5-6 packages of organic celery to my weekly grocery order. Every two days, I juiced. The eczema on my hand, now a thick, scabby situation, cleared up every so slightly. EVER. SO. SLIGHTLY. While the “magical green juice” did make my stomach a smidge flatter and did some good for my skin, it didn’t clear up my eczema. Also, juicing daily is basically a part-time job. No wonder people pay $8 a bottle for it. I get it.
That was a bust. So I went to plan B: blood test for allergies. Because it has to be something I’m allergic to that’s causing this itchy, scabby nightmare, right? I went straight to Any Lab Test Now and made an appointment for an expanded food allergy panel. A few days later I went in to voluntarily get my blood drawn (desperate times call for desperate measures), and a week later I had my results.
It turns out I have mild allergies to a number of foods, including but not limited to: chicken, garlic, onions, rice, salmon, asparagus and green beans. What is life, amiright? So anyway, I immediately stopped eating everything on the list. The eczema cleared up ever so slightly, and I noticed an almost immediate itchy reaction to some foods, like corn (yes, corn was on the list), but nothing significant and it seemed to flare up at random.
Adult eczema, as it turns out, is much more aggressive than the adolescent version. It’s on the thumb side of my right hand, wrist sides of my left hand, random patch on my left forearm, neck...AND SCALP. IT’S ON MY SCALP. Have you seen my hair? This is a nightmare. But back to the situation at hand.
I finally decided to go to the dermatologist and made a same-day appointment (thank you, ZocDoc!). The dermatologist took one look, confirmed it was eczema, wrote me a prescription and told me to make another appointment if it didn’t clear up in two weeks. It didn’t clear up in two weeks, but the cream helped, so I just kept using it for another month or so. When it didn’t seem to be going anywhere (still), I made another appointment. Again, the eczema was now impacting my scalp.
This time he prescribed an oral steroid, more of the cream and a medicated shampoo. Drama. He told me to pay very close attention to the dosage instructions for the pills- they would calm all of the inflammation down but were nothing to mess with- and think about considering a patch test once I was done with the round of steroids. Oh, and to get Cetaphil Pro body wash and lotion. I am to use nothing else.
Obviously, I went for the patch test. On Monday, they were applied. On Wednesday, they were removed and an initial reading was made - I’m very allergic to nickel- like majorly- and bacitracin, which is found in Neosporin, so I’m allergic to Neosporin. Nickel is commonly found in the great majority of the foods that came up in the blood test, so there’s that. I can eat...turkey, beef and like ten other things and have to test all of my jewelry and faucets for nickel.
I go back on Friday to see if any other positives popped up on my back and discuss next steps. In the meantime, I haven’t been able to get my back wet since Monday. My bathtub is getting all the action this week. Yes, my back itches. It itches so, so much.
