hi, my name's huey (derived from my chinese name 'hui') and i'm a 17yo girl living in melbourne, australia.
i was born with eczema that gradually got worse when i was about 3-4yo. from what i can recall, my mum refused to use steroid creams on me back then and tried to keep the flares under control with cool baths, lots of moisturizers and oils, a healthy diet, and putting toilet rolls on my tiny arms so that i couldn't scratch at all.
for a while, the eczema subsided to only affecting my arms and legs...until i was about 13yo. arms, legs, neck, face, back - you name it, it was red and itchy and flaky. since i was now living with my dad, he took me to his doctor friend, who prescribed me with elocon straight away. the results were amazing! my skin was basically back to normal within a few weeks.
so for years 7 and 8, i treated elocon as my trusted 'cure'. a simple flare-up would just mean another 2-3 weeks of elocon.
however, near the end of year 10, i developed this weird vesiculation wound on my left cheek. my gp thought it was a cold sore, aka herpes. he put me on cold sore medication but nothing worked - it just kept weeping and oozing weird yellow stuff. after a few weeks, i just couldn't stand the sight of it anymore and bought some cold sore patches (invisible band-aids), hoping it would help cover the wound up during the day. although it probably made it more obvious since the patch reflected light, the wound healed up by itself in a few weeks and my cheek was basically looking normal, aside from some redness. to deal with this, i turned to elocon.
sure enough, elocon got rid of the last remains of the wound but even after that, i just couldn't stop using it. i was afraid that if i stopped, the redness would come back, or worse - the oozing wound itself.
so i kept using it twice a day, every day, for about a year.
about 2 months ago, it started getting uber bad. the eczema on my arms and legs have never left, but i really don't mind them so much because i can cover up with clothes. but my face - this time the vesiculation wounds were on both cheeks. i looked sunburnt, and like someone had punched me in the face.
when i went back to my gp a month later, he told me i had rosacea and put me on rozex and minomycin (130715). the rozex made it worse for a week before slowly showing some improvements. the vesiculations cleared but my cheeks were still red and dry. it started to get worse again a week later. my cheeks - and ONLY my cheeks, were as red as sun-dried tomatoes. dad took me back to the gp, who said that i was now having a secondary infection and gave me bactroban and 1 course of cephalexin (130731). 2 days later, i saw him again and guess what i heard? "Hmm, it doesn't seem like rosacea anymore." but i was still told to continue with the bactroban and cephalexin. after 11 days, my face was 99% normal and i discontinued bactroban. that night, the wounds came back full-on.
i started to get really depressed over my face, and couldn't even imagine what people thought when they had to see me. it's red, painful, throbbing, burning, weeping, oozing, crusting, and the worst part is - the doctors still have no idea what's going on!!!!!! 3 blood tests, 4 misdiagnosis, 0 results.
yesterday, i came across my inspiration and finally figured it out for myself what i was going through. i saw my gp again today and asked him about topical steroid withdrawal. he said it might possible, but wondered why i was given so much elocon so irresponsibly by my dad's friend. i am currently on my first dose of e-mycin and spray my face with thermal spring water every 30 minutes. i'm afraid to wash my face because it'll remove the crusts and expose the vesiculation wounds again :S
i still feel like killing myself, but we'll see how it goes :)
