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My Love/Hate Relationship with the Gym

Lately, I've been really trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Really I've been trying to make this change for a long time. I truly want to be better. I want to feel better. Eczema isn't the only thing I live with. I also have struggled with Inflammatory Bowel Disease for a very long time now. I've had various surgeries and just overall a hard time when it comes to my health.

So I decided to start hitting the gym.

The gym is my happy place

The gym quickly became a place of comfort for me. It made me feel like I had somewhere to go to relieve some stress and not think about my health while improving it in the process. The gym quickly became addictive to me. I started going every day, certain days I would even go multiple times a day.

Feeling good

I knew the employees' faces and I became very comfortable with the idea of getting into shape at a fast pace. At the rate I was going I really felt good. I wasn't experiencing so many health issues and the overall feel of my body was just everything. I was happy.

Cleaner skin?

Because I was going to the gym multiple times a day, at times it would require me to take multiple showers daily. I didn't really consider how that would impact my skin. I honestly thought it would be better if anything. Why would my skin be worse because it was clean? That was my mentality for a bit at least.

Sweating, stress, and scractching

I didn't realize, it wasn't really about how clean my skin was. It really wasn't about my bathing at all. It was about the sweat, the stress, the scratching. I didn't realize it, but at the gym I would scratch my arms almost constantly. The sweat from working out so hard made me constantly itch, but I wasn't conscious of it for a while. Because of this, I also didn't realize just how rough I was being on my skin.

Diet and exercise not working

It wouldn't be until I arrived at home late nights, showering, that I really saw the full effects of what I'd done. It drove me crazy. Obviously I wasn't intentionally hurting myself, but honestly, it just felt like I couldn't catch a break. Everyone says diet and exercise are the keys to life, yet here I am, 26 with Eczema and Inflammatory Bowel Disease, yet diet couldn't heal my Ulcerative Colitis, and exercise wouldn't help my skin to clear. Frustrating to say the least.

Happy and healthy

I don't have a real solution to this issue. I can't sweat less and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. That's the goal. I want to sweat. I want to feel my workouts. While I do try to be more conscious with my scratching and how I treat my skin, I refuse to stop going to the gym because of my condition. My overall goal is to be happy and healthy. Until those goals are met I will continue to try different methods to take steps in the right direction.

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This article represents the opinions, thoughts, and experiences of the author; none of this content has been paid for by any advertiser. The AtopicDermatitis.net team does not recommend or endorse any products or treatments discussed herein. Learn more about how we maintain editorial integrity here.

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