Daily Mail Article About Steroid Addiction

Today's Daily Mail features the story of a lady who was hospitalised after suffering a bad reaction from steroid creams. The article mentions Itsan too.

Let's get the word out there. Please leave comments on the article and encourage people to visit the Itsan site.

Vicks Vaporub for Eczema and Topical Steroid Withdrawal

My hands have been off-the-scale bad the last few weeks. They just peel constantly, with no nice layer of skin underneath; just more peeling flesh. In my desperation I've taken to slathering my hands in thick ointment and applying tubular bandage on the top to try and seal in the moisture and get some relief.

I'd been using the Robertsons eczema cream, which was helping a lot, but I'm now running low and really can't afford any more due to the high cost of postage and the customs charges (hopefully it will be available in UK soon), so I'm back to using Vaseline right now as it seems to be the thing that irritates me least. I would love to be able to do moisturiser withdrawal on my hands, but when I try I get deep bleeding fissures, so I really am dependent on the gooey stuff for now.

Anyway, during my research I found a forum thread about a man who used Vicks Vaporub on his eczema and it cleared it up. I also found a few references on the Itsan forum of users who swear by the stuff. There is no way I would have ever considered using Vicks on my eczema, as I just presumed that it would sting like crazy.

It's cheap enough to buy though, so I thought a little experimentation wouldn't harm and got myself a nice big tub of Vicks for about £4 from the supermarket. It's slightly runnier in texture than Vaseline so seems to be easier to apply. After a few seconds, WHAM! I felt an icy cold tingle in my hands. It didn't sting at all. It was lovely. It felt so refreshing and cool. My itch vanished. It tingled cool on my hands for several minutes. I felt like I had Elsa's ice powers.

I've had no adverse reaction or allergy to the Vicks and I really like the way it feels on my skin, especially how it kills the itch dead. For now, it's another useful tool in my TSW armoury and I'm thankful that it was mentioned on he Itsan forum. Hopefully it will give my hands a break, as I'm getting really fed up of not being able to use them properly. I've not had hands like this in the whole of my TSW journey so far, so I don't know what's going on.

Anyone else tried Vicks and found it helpful?

Topical Steroid Addiction in the News Again

Isaiah's story made the news here in the UK. Thanks for sharing his story and raising awareness of the dangers of steroid creams. He's doing well now and his whole family is such an inspiration to me.

Read his story here.

New Scholarly Article About Topical Steroid Addiction

As this phenomenon becomes more widely known, more new articles are being published all of the time, adding to the growing body of evidence about the dangers of topical steroid overuse.

This article is published by the Japanese Journal of Dermatology and discusses the rebounding triad of severe itching, dryness and burning following the discontinuation of topical steroids on the face.

You can read the abstract here.

More Pictures of Healed and Healing People

Thanks my boy Isaiah for keepin' it real and showing us all that we CAN heal from TSW!!!

Isaiah and superheroes 1: Scratchy Monster 0.

Click to see topical steroid recovery photos.

Skin Update at 44 Months: Feeling Despondent (photos)

Hi people. I like to blog my progress regularly so that people can see how the TSW process affects the skin. I'm now 44 months into TSW and sadly, have to report than instead of my usual summer healing, my skin has been pretty miserable. I was meant to go to a lovely summer family event today, but have had to send my husband, with my apologies, while I stagnate in the house trying to maintain some level of comfort.

What really get to me is that if you look back through this blog to last year's posts, you will see that this time last year my skin was completely clear and normal, so to go backwards like this is heartbreaking. I spent a good chunk of yesterday crying and debating whether to just make a Faustian pact with the steroids and be done with this, even temporarily. And yes, I know that everyone will be telling me to hang in there because I've been off them so long and I don't want to undo my progress, but seriously, I have no quality of life right now.

I wonder if I will completely heal. I think that I have done too much damage. It seems very unlikely that my skin will ever completely return to normal. I read about people 7 and 8 years into withdrawals still suffering. Wow, just wow.

So here are my photos:

So here is the red face. Very red, very inflamed, burning and sore.

                                        Neck is weepy and scabby, with very dry skin.

 Hands are worst areas right now, with baggy, elephant skin. skin too big for my hand that feels like thick plastic.

 Skin at the back of my legs was previously clear but is starting to crack and scab again.

                                              Behind my ears is wet and weeping.


So sorry everyone for being such a let-down. Wish I could be posting healed photos instead of this, but those are the breaks.

I probably won't be posting any pictures in August, because the kids are off school, so I'll try and post in September. I hope it will be something more positive.

Sorry again. I feel like I've let all my blog readers down.

Shocking Statistic About the Likelihood of Steroid Cream Side Effects

There have been many lively debates about the prevalence of steroid addiction and chance of the skin becoming reliant on steroid creams. We know that not everyone gets addicted to the creams, and a lack of available scientific studies means that estimates can vary wildly. The general consensus in the forums at this present time is that at least 15% of steroid cream users become reliant on the creams and end up developing red skin syndrome.

HOWEVER, I just found an article that was published in the New York Times back in 1997. It quotes a Japanese dermatologist called Dr Masami Uehara. He states:

"Some side effects will occur in 60 percent to 80 percent of patients who use steroids for six months without proper care being taken."

Clearly, then, there is much to discover about the prevalence of topical steroid addiction. If, as this doctor suggests, 60-80% of  long term steroid cream users have side effects, then the amount of TSA cases as a proportion of eczema sufferers may possibly be higher than first estimated.

Either way, this underscores the need to use steroid creams sensibly and only for short periods of time.