ONE YEAR ON THE ARON REGIMEN!

I cannot believe it’s been a year since I started treatment. More importantly, that’s one whole year of sleeping through the night (the other day I overheard some new mums complaining about how bad they felt on 5 hours’ sleep and couldn’t help but chuckle – 5 hours?! 5 hours used to seem like bliss!). I feel frickin’ fantastic. It feels like an achievement but it’s not, really; I’ve just been living life as I always should have.

Exciting news this week – I FINALLY managed to get an allergy test done! I tried to this time last year and the GP told me there was no link in the literature between allergies and eczema so he wouldn’t refer me to an allergist, and if he tried they’d probably say no anyway. So this time round, after a lengthy call with someone at the clinic and a GP appointment to discuss referral, I went in armed with a list of things that I suspect trigger my skin and other reactions (such as when a milky coffee made my lip swell and one side of my face go numb a few weeks ago). He was totally on board with me getting a test, made a note on my file and told me to walk straight into the hospital Pathology department and request a RAST test… wait, what?! So an allergist doesn’t need to approve me getting referred after all?! I just went up to the Pathology desk, asked for the blood test, they checked my file and took my blood 5 minutes later. Whaaaaat. Should get my results in a week or two, will update you!

A few parts of my treatment have changed since my last update. Firstly, my forehead is now using protopic for a while. I’m contacting Dr Aron in a week when we will discuss whether or not to start tapering off it. Basically, I was concerned about the fact that my forehead was always either red or on the brink of becoming red, and obviously being on the face I didn’t want to use a high frequency of even such a diluted steroid for a long time, but on the other hand I didn’t want to undertreat, which can be just as silly. Luckily, I still had protopic on tap with the NHS so saved a bit of dolla there (crazy how willy-nilly they’ll hand out immunosuppressants by the way – I hadn’t asked for it in a year, walked in relatively clear-skinned and yet they dished it out no questions asked). Immunos aren’t ideal, but my forehead is so clear right now that it doesn’t feel like a step back. It used to burn and sting for a few days when I first used it, but this time I couldn’t even feel it go on. Those 4 years of twice daily must have completely desensitised my skin.

If you have read previous blog posts, you’ll know that my neck and forehead have almost always been the first, if not only, areas to react when I flare. When I saw that protopic was clearing up my forehead so well, I tried to use it on my neck too but it did notttttttt like that! Angry, red and itchy! So after a few days of it getting worse rather than calming I switched back to the compound, and it’s been great ever since!

I was also getting annoyed that my seborrhoeic areas (if anyone needs a reminder, that’s scalp ‘n’ pubes) and also the corners of my mouth weren’t responding that well to the compound, so I mentioned that when I contacted Dr Aron. Seborrhoeic dermatitis can quite often have a fungal element, so he prescribed me trimovate, an anti-fungal, for my groin and mouth (not to be applied with the same hand…) and betnovate for my scalp. Well, hasn’t that just gone swimmingly! I’ve tapered from 4x a day trimovate to 2x a day, and from twice a day betnovate to once every other day. No more flakes!

What I’m finding funny (well, sort of) is that as my usual go-to picking areas heal up and there’s nothing fun to have a peel at anymore, I’ve gone back to my old teenage habit of picking and biting at the skin around my nails. I don’t bite the nails themselves, just the skin. I’m a compulsive picker, so for me it’s not only therapeutic but also sort of necessary that I have an outlet for my compulsions. My fingers are a bit of a mess, but I’d much much much rather that than eczema! Maybe I just need to channel my OCD…

The rest of my body is doing great. Legs and eyes are on the compound once every other day. Chest and upper back are using the compound once a day. I was using 223223 on my arms when one day an unexpected client visit meant I had to put on a long, wool cardigan over bare arms to attempt to dress up a bit, and within 10 minutes I had raised, hive-like rash on my arms that were soooo itchy and left lots of little scabs.

It’s been maybe two weeks now and although it’s not itchy anymore the scabs are only just about to fully disappear. So although my arms don’t look that clear, they feel fine. I went back up to 4x to control that flare and am now happily back at 3, along with my neck. Once the scabs clear completely I will attempt to go to 2 again!

My stomach, sides and lower back have been grouchy for about 2 months now, but they’ve finally fallen back into place. I have some dark patches from the inflammation that’s a bit annoying but it feels totally smooth. A few scabs on where my trousers sit but nothing too bad. Stomach is on 1x a day and I’m doing 2x on my lower back and sides to be safe.

I had a breakthrough with my eyes, which are now on once every other day. For ages, I thought my eczema was just going through a bad stage on them. I’ve had stringy mucus-y stuff build up in both of my eyes (especially after wearing makeup or using diprobase) for about 3 years now, but the optician said he saw nothing wrong with my eyes so I kind of just accepted it as a thing that happened because they’re extra sensitive (they start to cry as soon as I’m outside, as well). Then one day it got really bad and one eye properly swelled up with the stringy stuff, so I mentioned it to my pharmacist and he told me it sounded like conjunctivitis so to use antibiotic eye drops for 7 days, then move onto allergy drops.

‘Pah!’ I thought, ‘I’ve had conjunctivitis before and it made my eyes red and my sight blurred and the eyeballs themselves itched and it was constant rather than reoccurring, plus I’d probably be blind by now so it couldn’t possibly be that!’ Regardless, I’d already bought the stuff so thought I may as well give it a whirl, et voilà, within a few days the gunk stopped coming and I stopped needing to itch around my eyes, and it’s held off when I switched to the allergy eye drops. Plus, surprise surprise, not needing to itch my eyes has meant that the eczema has healed and been able to taper wonderfully too. Why did I not make the link before?!

Ooh, and I’ve started wearing makeup more regularly. Not quite every day, but I was taught a new trick which now means that my eyes no longer dry out when using foundation so I don’t have to go 2 days without makeup between every one day with – all I do is mix the foundation 1:1 with diprobase on the back of my hand before applying, then I remove the makeup at the end of the day using diprobase on a wet cotton bud instead of a facial wipe. I feel like me again!

I decided I wanted to start using it again not because I necessarily wanted to feel pretty; I just wanted to look as though I gave a shit about my appearance. It doesn’t matter how perfect your skin is, as a young woman working in client-facing business, it seems fairly out of the question not to wear at least a little bit of makeup, just to show that you can be bothered to make an effort. If I stood up in front of a client without makeup I’d probably lose business pretty quickly – why should a business invest in our services if we can’t even invest in a little time to make ourselves look presentable? Not the way I’d like the world to be, but unfortunately it’s not something that’s going to be changing very quickly.

Aaaaand I’ve started exercising again. I don’t react well to sweat so decided to start off ‘gently’ with Pilates… Turns out, I was pretty wrong on that one. It’s way more intense than I remembered! I love feeling the muscle burn again though and walking out all refreshed. About time I stopped using my doctor’s note as an excuse!

I still can’t believe it’s already been a year since I got my life back. Facebook’s ‘On This Day’ feature has been throwing out some memories of some pretty tough times recently, but little did I know back then how much my life was about to change. Here are some highlights of the last year:

This isn’t even the half of it, and it doesn’t show all the normal, everyday life moments that don’t ever get snapped. What a year!

THANK YOU DR ARON!