Winter Flare Up

Winter is upon us and it’s one of the most difficult seasons for me and eczema. The winter season in California can be quite spastic. One week it’s in the 50s with rain and one week it’s in the low 70s with high wind! On top of that, my skin gets way drier during the winter and becomes much more difficult for me to manage.

Winter eczema flares and dry skin

During the winter, my skin slowly starts getting drier each day. Usually, it starts out normal with the skin just feeling a tad rough. Then after a few weeks, I turn into a flakey mess. From head to toe, my skin gets scaly, rough and nearly every inch of my body burns. It’s awful! The places that are affected the most are the syndactyly of my toes and fingers, my forearms, my hips and most shocking of all, my lips! I haven’t had a flare-up like this in a long time and I’ve never had a winter flare this bad either. Because of this, I’ve had to change up my entire skin routine.

A new bedtime skincare routine

Another horrible side effect of this flare is that every morning when I wake up, my skin is extremely sensitive and dry to the point where everything that touches it irritates it. My hair, bedding, pajamas, and my cat will all feel terrible against my skin. To prevent my mornings from being uncomfortable, I start moisturizing 30 minutes before I get into bed. It’s helped quite a bit, my mornings aren’t nearly as uncomfortable as they were and I can say good morning to my cat without feeling repulsed from petting her.

On top of moisturizing, I wear moisturizing socks! They help keep my feet from getting too dry and scaly before bed. They’ve been a lifesaver for my feet.

Showering regularly

Another thing I’ve been doing to keep my skin soft is showering every day. I usually do every other day, but since my skin has been much more aggressive as of now, the best for me is to shower every day. The soap I use helps with my dead skin and makes my skin nice and soft.

Dry lips

As I said, another part that’s been affected by my dry outbreak has been my lips! Whenever my lips have been dry in the past, I usually just slapped on some Chapstick and drank some more water and boom! Problem solved! However, that hasn’t helped at all this time! What I’ve had to do is wash my face immediately after waking up and apply my skin balm around my lips.

Comfortable fabrics

Because of how agitated my skin becomes, most of my clothing becomes unbearable to wear and will make my skin feel worse. During these times I like to wear sweatpants and comfy oversized shirts. The looseness of the clothing is wonderful and helps my skin breath, since wearing tight-fitting clothes like leggings can upset my skin.

Conclusion

I’ve never had a flare like this before and I realized I was not prepared for one like this at all, but luckily I slowly started to figure out what helped.