Mindfulness

Mindfulness and meditation have grown increasingly popular in modern Western society. One of my lecturers made the sports analogy that meditation is like training, while mindfulness is the big game; you have to train to play well during the game i.e. practising meditation will help you become more mindful. Mindfulness is about being in the present moment, being aware of what you're doing, and acknowledging and accepting your thoughts and feelings without judgment. So what exactly has this meant for me in the context of eczema?

1. It has helped me be less reactive to my feelings

Instead of automatically feeling like shit when my eczema flares and succumbing to the inevitable flood of negative, anxious thoughts, I can put some distance between myself and the horrible feelings. So I may notice that I am feeling anxious and go "right, that's fine" and also notice my physiological reactions (lump in throat, rapid breathing, etc). By breaking it down, I can stop myself from thinking automatically that I'm absolutely consumed by anxiety and then feeling horrible from that. I like to think about it like how I deal with a scary scene in a movie - I find it less frightening when I think about how the producers used elements of music, sound effects, camera angles and lightning to create the scene, instead of automatically engaging in the scene as a whole and feeling absolutely terrified (I'm not good with horror).

2. It has helped me be less obsessive about my eczema

When I find my thoughts are veering down the path of agonising over eczema, I am able to tune in and realise what's going on and consciously go, "well, hang on, I don't want to stew over this. I'm going to decide to think about something else". While it's almost pointless to try and block these thoughts (since that just makes us what to think about it more), it's easier to just take note of the thoughts but not engage with them - like seeing trains of thought (haha) chugging by but choosing not to get on, so to speak. I find that this has been particularly helpful in other areas of my life as well - making the choice not to over-analyse something that someone said actually makes my life a lot easier

Also, acceptance is a big component of mindfulness - so accepting that my eczema may be a chronic condition that will worsen now and again, instead of responding with crazy anxiety every time that happens. This, I'm still working on :)

3. It has helped reduce my habitual scratching 

It helps me be less automatic in my reactions so I can 'think before I scratch', so to speak. This can then have an effect on my night time scratching, which has been extremely hard to deal with since I'm, you know, unconscious. But by being  more controlled and less reactive during the day, I find that this extend to how I behave at night.

4. It helps with relaxation 

Because there's alot of concentration on breathing and paying attention to how you breathe during meditation, it helps me practice deep breathing which I can then use when I notice that I'm anxious and breathing too fast, or when I'm trying to get to sleep but a million thoughts are running through my mind.

Of course, I'm never 100% mindful, and I still do feel anxious and obsess over eczema, and I definitely over-scratch when I'm stress-studying. However, meditation has certainly helped me to not only cope better with eczema but also my anxiety in general. For those who are interested, I would suggest the Smiling Mind app. It's really easy to use and starts off with short practices that ease you into meditation. Being mindful takes time; meditation may feel boring and pointless at first, but with more practice, you will be able to notice the benefits. Of course, meditation isn't for everyone and in that instance, there are plenty of other things you can do to be mindful, like yoga, quiet walks, drawing etc. It's all about being able to concentrate on one activity and noticing everything about doing that activity, instead of trying to multi-task or having your mind drift off to something else.

Anyway, this has been a relatively brief intro mindfulness from a non-expert, but hope it helps :)

New Skincare!

It's been awhile since my last post as uni's been kicking my ass lately :( Nevertheless, I've just been chugging along and doing what I can to get my skin to play nice. Two new additions I've made to my routine:

Sukin Sensitive Cleansing Lotion

Thought I'd give this a shot, since Sukin is marketed as a natural skincare brand and alot of the key ingredients sounded really good for my skin (e.g. cucumber, aloe vera, rosehip, jojoba, etc). Unlike other cleansers, the way you use this is to massage it onto your damp face, like you would a lotion, and then wipe it off with a cotton pad/face sponge/face towel - no water necessary. That being said, it probably wouldn't be the best way to take off a face of makeup. However, as I don't wear foundation and I take off my eyeliner, eyebrows and lipstick with makeup remover, this works just fine for me. I've been using this for about 2-2.5 weeks and I have to say that it's made my face feel smoother and has reduced the intensity of my flares. It doesn't cause my skin to be irritated and it smells really nice! Huge plus is that it's an Australian brand and is really quite cheap compared to other brands. This 125ml pump bottle will only cost you $9.99, and $8.39 at Chemist Warehouse! Since this worked well, I've also bought the Sukin Facial Treatment Oil and Sensitive Calming Night Cream, which I am super keen to try.

Edit: lasted about 4-5 months for me, using it twice a day most days

Innisfree Olive Real Skin 

I decided to give this toner a try upon the recommendation from a lovely Instagrammer who also has stubborn eczema on her face. Innisfree is a Korean brand that prides itself on natural ingredients, so of course I was pretty interested to see if it could help. As I started using this about a week ago, it sort of overlapped a bit with my new cleanser and it has been a little hard to tease apart the sole effects of the toner. I'm not sure that it's made a huge difference to my skin, but I can say that it does not irritate it and provides a nice moisturising sensation before I apply my facial serum. However, this can feel almost drying as it's fast-absorbing - though, the perk is that it doesn't leave behind an oily feeling, despite olive oil being a core ingredient.



So, with these two products in the mix (and minus the epsom salts), my skin has actually been behaving itself (relatively speaking, of course). Despite being crazy stressed and anxious this past week and a half, my face did not explode into a horrible rashy mess like it would've in the past. The flares have been manageable and I've been able to leave the house feeling somewhat human. Hopefully this good behaviour will continue!

Eczema woes

When you're having a good skin day and the restaurant you're at is over-zealous with their heating and rashes have started to rise from the dry skin on your face within a few hours.

Urgh screw you, eczema. My self-esteem was actually at a decent level today :@

Things that I've tried

Unfortunately these things haven't worked so well for me:

Coconut oil: it certainly stopped my face from flaking but it was just sort of greasy and sat on my face. It doesn't feel the best, and I didn't see any drastic changes to my eczema. Such a shame as so many people rave about it :(

Mix of coconut oil, shea butter and vitamin E: similarly, it was hydrating but didn't really absorb into my face so it wasn't super comfortable. Didn't really improve my eczema

MetaDerm Organic Hydra-Moisturising Cream: wasn't hydrating enough for my face; my skin would become dry again in a few hours. It is however, good at hydrating dry spots on my body

Avene TriXera Emollilent Cream: it was a little on the greasy side and didn't have much of an effect on my eczema. When I put it on my flaring eczema, it would burn and my face felt very, very hot

QV: always a safe, hydrating option, but didn't improve my eczema


Of course, everyone's different so I encourage you to try out anything you think might soothe your eczema. Good luck :)

Current skincare routine

I should start off by saying that eczema covers about 85% of my face; forehead, temples, eyelids, cheeks, and my right jawline. So after much trial and error, this is what I currently use:

Epsom salts

This may sound strange but I'm not currently using a cleanser. I just shake some epsom salts (maybe a tablespoon?) in a bowl of water, mix it around to dissolve it, and then wash my face with it using a face sponge. I've also started washing it off with water, as I heard that leaving the salt water on your face can dry it out. The salts are great in that they actually help calm down my eczema when it's particularly irritated and red. It also helps shorten the duration of a flare. I find that when I use a cleanser, it just doesn't have the same effect, so I always switch back to the salts.

Lush Full of Grace Face Serum 

Funnily enough, this serum is in bar form. I rub this over my face before I moisturise every morning and night (less so in the morning so my face doesn't feel super dewy for the rest of the day). To be honest, I can't tell if it's doing anything amazingly fantastical, because I switched moisturisers at around the same time. I can say that it doesn't irritate my skin and that it does hydrate my face. In terms of repurchasing, I think I may try another facial serum next time.
Edit: This lasted around 3 months

Lush Self-Preserving Dream Cream

Boy, I can rave on about this cream. After extensive reading of reviews, I decided to give this a shot. It's fantastic in reducing the redness on my face and reducing the time my flares last for. Unlike other moisturisers, it helps keep my skin hydrated throughout the day (unless I'm subjected to heating, then I'll need touch ups) and isn't oily in doing so. It has made my eczema much softer and some bits of my normal skin have even returned! It has also been very effectively on my fingers, - reducing redness, returning 90% of the normal skin (by that I mean the smoothness, it still has a funny sheen to it), and even returning one of my cuticles! Much excitement. I've been using this for about 6 weeks, and although, it hasn't completely eradicated my eczema and I still flare, this has been the most effective moisturiser I've tried by far. Perhaps it's something to do with the amazingly natural ingredients? While some people comment that Lush isn't cheap, I say that it's a lot more cost effective than trying a bunch of cheaper, drugstore brands with no results!

Edit: This ended up lasting me about 4 months, using it twice a day on my face, fingers and nipples

So there it is! I'm still looking for a cleanser that will help reduce the irritation. I've also ordered Innisfree Olive Real Skin (toner) after being recommended it by a fellow eczema-friend - hopefully it's as hydrating for me! My skin still flares, but to a lesser degree. However, while some normal skin as returned, the eczema also spreads in other places, which can be extremely disheartening :( But I find that I just have to manage and get on with it! 

Hellooo

So in a wonderful display of procrastination from the many demands of postgrad, I have decided to start a blog about my trusty friend, eczema, and post about what I do to manage it/how I feel/how I cope. This will mostly be for me to track and understand what's going on for myself, but I also hope this might help others out there to feel less frustrated and alone. I'm always happy to have a chat about anything and everything (though I by no means have answers!)


Background:
Unlike many people, I was fortunate enough to not have been born with eczema. In fact, I had not one condition from the triad of hayfever, eczema and asthma (my parents and little sister, S, have hayfever, and S has had eczema since she was a baby). I did, however, have very dry skin, especially on my face.

12 y.o: I developed eczema on my right hand - it was gross, weeping, etc. It went away after using some steroid cream. After that, whenever it would pop up again - mostly just on my pinky - that was how I treated it. This didn't happen all that often so eczema really wasn't a big deal for a while in my life.

19 y.o.: Eczema decided to turn up on my nipples. Let me tell you, this is a horrible, horrible place to have eczema. Wearing bras is a pain because it hurts, rubs and weeps, and when you move to a colder place, it really hurts when nipples become erect. Unfortunately bras aren't exactly optional, so I found nipple eczema very hard to heal. My GP prescribed me steroid cream and antibiotics and it sort of went away after that, but would pop up now and again, just like my pinky eczema.

20 y.o.: So because I am an incredibly lazy person, I started using make-up/baby wipes to remove my make-up, on the rare occasion that I wore any. Unfortunately, I bought an apparently dodgy pack, because low and behold, I developed atopic dermatitis on my cheeks. Now, this was actually still manageable, it was just rough and red (and the redness wasn't all that bad because I just looked like I had some extra colour in my cheeks). Another GP prescribed me steroid cream (hydrocortisone) and told me to use it daily, twice a day, for a week. It wasn't working for me, so I stopped using it. Because the eczema wasn't bothering me that much, I just let it be.

Fast forward half a year later (into June 2014), I was incredibly stressed from my honours year. During my exam period, I realised that I had started to develop dry, red patches on my face and neck. I went to another, different GP who was apparently also a dermatologist and he told me to use steroid cream and moisturise all the time. So I did. My eczema still spread across my face like crazy and steroid cream eventually stopped helping, and moisturising didn't seem to help either. I can't say how regularly I used steroid cream, but I know it wasn't overly frequently as I wasn't too comfortable with putting skin-thinning, medicinal ointment on my face. 

My eczema was horribly red, rash and weepy. Then in August, I came across a blog that talked about topical steroid withdrawal (TSW), which led me to the TSW community. I couldn't say for certain whether my skin was addicted to steroids, considering I hadn't been a frequent user, but I knew I had to stop straight away (it wasn't doing anything anyway). While the eczema worsened (such a bad time in my life), it very very very slowly calmed down over the months. Of note, I had also stopped using moisturisers because I had heard about moisturiser withdrawal - I'm not sure if this had any impact at all though. Also, I attempted to stick to a healthy eczema diet (no gluten, no dairy, etc) but I was terrible at it and it made me feel even worse as I am a huge lover of food and it just felt like one more thing that eczema had taken away from me. Anyway, so by December, my skin was indeed a lot better. While it wasn't 'normal', the redness had decreased, even if the dry skin persisted in some patches. 

And onto January. The most glorious month. I went to Japan and I kid you not, my eczema cleared up in a day. It was honestly the most baffling thing ever. The skin on my face was smooth and a normal, human shade again, and my fingers were normal (my nipple eczema did not clear up though but that was probably because bras rub and irritate them like crazy). 

Alas I could not stay in Japan forever. I came back to Australia in February and very slowly, my skin become drier. But that was still manageable. Until I got food poisoning and had to go on two sets of antibiotics (unrelated to the food poisoning). Now I've heard A LOT about gut health and how it is linked to eczema, so I really think these unfortunate events were the reason why my eczema came back in full force.

Let me tell you, I was absolutely devastated. I thought I was going to be 'normal' again. As my skin got redder, rashier, and weepier, I spiralled down into a pit of intense anxiety, helplessness and hopelessness. Oh and this was just in time for the commencement of my doctorate at a new university where I knew no one. And did I mention I'm a shy introvert with moderate levels of social anxiety? Yeah, the first few months were difficult to get through. Not only did I feel anxious about my abilities to actually do postgrad and make friends, I was trying to cope with my eczema and how incredibly self-conscious I felt every day I had to leave the house. I wasn't sleeping well (waking up during the night to scratch my weeping eczema), I was profoundly anxious a lot of the time, I was having a few crying meltdowns here and there, etc. My self-esteem and confidence were at a new low, and really, it wasn't like I had alot to begin with.

But somehow, I got through it. Eventually, my eczema stopped weeping (only after 2 or so months though. It still weeps a little at night). It flared every week or every two weeks, but by then, I had almost adjusted to it. I would have brief periods where I was bordering human-looking (so, so grateful that my graduation day was one of those days). The most frustrating thing was that it was still here, when my last bout of eczema calmed down heaps within 5 months. And unfortunately for me, alcohol was much more aggravating this time round.

So here I am in August 2015, still dealing with it. I've luckily found a few things to help me along the way (will post about these very soon), which have helped me feel less like a blotchy swamp monster. I'm still trying to eat healthy by minimising gluten and dairy but my adherence wavers, especially considering I was eating and drinking whatever the hell I wanted in Japan (virtually no veggies and fruits, barely drinking water) and my skin was bloody amazing. Studying psychology also helps, and I try and practice mindfulness and meditation as much as I can, as a way of dealing with my anxiety. When my eczema flares, my mood takes a predictable dip and my anxiety goes through the roof. But again, it's not as bad as it used to be so now I'm just trying to learn to live with it, and not fight it. It's too exhausting otherwise, and I really don't want to look back and realise that I let eczema and anxiety rule my life.