Day 21 (Photos)

Wow, I can't believe I am now 3 weeks into my withdrawal battle against topical steroid addiction. I thought I would post some progress photos to give a basic idea of where my skin is at right now.

During the withdrawal process, my neck and upper chest have been the worst affected areas, with me waking up to weepy, flaky skin every morning. Last night, I slept with a rolled up towel round my neck to absorb the weeping fluid that I get in my neck crease when I sleep.

 In contrast to the photo I uploaded on day 15, you can see that the neck area, though still very red, is not as shiny or angry looking as the previous photo. The red area is also more centralised, with paler areas either side, whereas the whole area was red last week. The area is much less flaky too.I am really hoping that this problem area continues to improve.

Here are some before and after shots of my arm, day 15 and 21 respectively. The redness has diffused on my arm, although the elbow crease continues to be a problem area and there is still a colour difference between the red skin on my arm and the white skin on my wrist, a common sign of steroid addiction. It is not generally itchy, although if I do start scratching, I can't stop and it is very easy to do damage to the delicate skin and make it bleed, undoing all of the good work.

Lastly, I am posting this picture to illustrate a phenomenon that Dr Rapaport calls "distant eczema". It is common during steroid withdrawal and happens when you get a small isolated patch of eczemateous skin in an area that may have never suffered eczema before or even had steroids applied to it before. Shortly after I stopped the topical steroid creams, this small red patch appeared by my ankle. I have never had eczema here before. I was so glad that I had read Dr Rapaports  article and new that this was a normal sign of steroid withdrawal, and to be expected.           

I am very pleased with the improvement in my skin over the last 3 weeks, although I still have a long way to go. I hope to post lots more encouraging photos soon.