Paradigm Shift - No Relief After All

If you missed Part 1 of Paradigm Shift, click here!

Then I grabbed my tube of topical steroids, hoping it would heal me like it normally did. And just like the Vaseline, I slathered the steroids all over my body.

Normally I would only flare in certain areas of my body. The parts most affected by eczema were my face, neck, inside elbows, thighs, and back. However, this particular flare had me apply the steroids in places I never considered a “trigger” spot like my wrists and behind my thighs.

I hadn’t felt this level of intensity with my eczema in years!

Not a part of my vision

I had just graduated from college a few months prior. I just started working my first real job in the corporate world. I was heavy into my studies and planning on taking the LSAT to become a lawyer. All in all, I was stepping into adulthood as I imagined.

And might I add that flaring up with eczema was not a part of this vision.

It didn't work as planned

The only slight ease I felt that evening was knowing I was finally away from the allergens that caused this flare up in the first place and knowing that I was in the comfort of my own home.

I was confident that by morning my skin would be better. The topical steroids I had applied the previous evening would significantly decrease the redness, as well as the itchiness like it normally does.

Red, hot, and itchy

With each day passing thereafter, my skin was just as red, boil-y, hot, and unbearably itchy. My eczema didn’t go away like it normally does after I apply steroids.

“How can this be?,” I thought. “My eczema always clears up within just a few hours after application. There has to be something I don’t know.”

It wasn't normal

Growing up, I always thought the concept of “eczema” and flare-ups and the mentality and lifestyle that came with it was normal. Waking up and checking my skin before deciding what clothes I can wear; asking friends if they had pets or carpet before deciding if I would be able to go over their houses; cleaning my bedroom and bed sheets constantly to reduce dust; carrying a bucket of Aquaphor or Vaseline, paired with a tube of topical steroids everywhere I went, and so forth. I thought this was normal; I thought this was how my life would be forever.

Up until this point.

Eager for answers

I became curious. I began to question what I do and don’t know about eczema. Surprisingly as a millennial who grew up with the internet, I never really decided to Google “eczema.” Just like my parents, I had assumed that the doctors knew what they were doing and that’s it.

I was also frustrated. I was asking myself why am I still struggling with eczema? Why won’t this go away? I just want to have smooth and beautiful skin like everyone else; is that too much to ask for?

A new perspective

This led me on a rampage of doing immense research on this topic. I thought again, “there must be something I am missing.” I was reading every article, blog, diet plan – anything that was correlated with eczema, I read it.

But there was one particular website that caught my attention...