What does it feel like?

The topical steroid withdrawal itch is pretty brutal, the itch isn't just an itch I can easily ignore.  

When I ignore it, I start feeling the itch crawling all over me, but the itch isn't just an itch, there's pain associated with it.  When I try to ignore it, it feels like pins and needles being jabbed into my skin and then sends me into spasms.  The burn feels like it comes from underneath the skin, it makes it incredibly hard to sleep.  Some people say this itch is a good thing, it's the skin repairing itself and that repair comes from underneath the top layer of skin.  

Interestingly enough, during the day the itch or burn isn't bad.  It is only when I change environments when the itch/burn acts up.  The moment I change clothes, I immediately feel itchy.  The worst itch is the one in the middle of the night.  I can't lie on my back because its itchy, can't lie on my side because my arms and torso are itchy. I can really rest my neck on my pillow because that's itchy as well.  It seems the itch is worse when it's around 3am in the morning.  It not only stings, it actually feels like it burns, it feels like my entire skin is on fire and pins and needles are attacking me.

The thing with the itch is that if I start scratching it feels good, but then it travels to somewhere else on my skin and I have to scratch there as well.   It's hell.  Of course the lack of sleep is really brutal, I slept maybe two nights completely through since I started TSW.  Sometimes I actually dread falling asleep because I know that horrible itch is going to come.  I really want this to pass.  I think my flare is waning, but the itch/burn are still very intense.  

Topical Steroid Withdrawal - Day 13

Foot has improved a lot, still on moisturizer withdrawal, but it's itchy as hell and I've opened up some new wounds :-(  It'll probably need to go through another few zombie cycles from the looks of things.

My skin is starting to dry out in some places but it is still insanely itchy.  This tsw flare has gone on for almost 2 weeks now.  I was hoping my flare would only last 2 weeks and I would start to heal, but it looks like this flare is payback for all those years of topical steroid abuse.

Neck is still itchy and it's push down towards my upper chest area, it's especially itchy around the collarbone area.  My upper abdomen was quite itchy as well as is my inner thigh.  Hell it's all itchy lol.

TSW Day 13 - 2014-04-13

   

Topical Steroid Withdrawal - Day 12

There's a little bit of improvement.  My neck is no longer oozing as much, it has started to dry up.  It still hurts a lot and is really itchy at the fringes, which leads me to believe it is trying to spread its evil.  

My foot as you can see has improved a lot, my left foot is a completely different shade than my right foot which has been spared so far.   My neck is clearly developed into red skin syndrome (RSS) by now.  The eczema on my arms are spreading, but the original bumps that started it all have subsided a bit.  This is going to be a long road to recovery.  I'm still using ACV every few hours.  I started taking oatmeal baths, I wish I had done this eons ago, it is so unbelievably soothing.  

Topical Steroid Withdrawal - Day 9

My this point, I was concerned about possible bacterial infections because of all the wounds I was inflicting on myself.     I've tried using isopropyl alcohol on my eczema (really stings), apple cider vinegar (also really stings), hydrogen peroxide (omg stinging), and salt water (hug-the-pillow crying out loud stinging).

Then I realized, I should actually be watering down this stuff.   I tried different combinations of water plus the stuff above (except the salt), but it seems like the apple cider vinegar (ACV) works best, it stings a little but it also soothes afterwards.   My neck was starting to ooze.  That night I saw my girlfriend's parents saw me at dinner and her mom gave me some bee pollen both to put on the eczema and also some for digestion.  The bee pollen does seem to have a nice soothing effect.

I haven't been sleeping well.  I can fall asleep alright, but within a few hours, the entire body starts itchy and there's pain.  The pain is unlikely anything I've ever experienced before.   It's like the skin is on fire, needles and pins pricking me all over but coming from underneath the skin.  The scratching is just a side show.  People on the ITSAN forums say that the pins and needles stinging is actually the skin trying to repair itself.     I try resist scratching but it sends my arms or back into involuntary spasms.   Plus, how could I possibly get sleep when I can't even rest my neck on my pillow?   :-(

Day 9 - 2014-04-09

Topical Steroid Withdrawal - Day 7

On Day 7, I had to leave work early and go home.  I was feeling terrible.  My office's heating system is really messed up and it was 29.5C indoors!   I had a fever and crashed when I got home.   My parents came by later that day to see how I was doing.   I was popping a few ibuprofen to deal with not only the fever but also the inflammation.   My dad helped me take those pictures of my back which are really hard for me to take myself.  The red patches were spreading to my neck.  I must have had a field day on my arms the night before because they were bloodied :(

Day 7 - 2014-04-07  Eczema is spreading

Topical Steroid Withdrawal - Day 6

I stopped using all topical steroids on April 1st, 2014.

After reading up on topical steroid withdrawal and watching videos of people who successfully beat this thing, I rationalized that my body was trying to have a flare, but I was suppressing it by using betamethasone.  I stopped using topical steroids cold turkey hoping it would allow my the flare to continue on its own.   And boy did the flare did resume!  Almost immediately the day after the itching and burning started.   At around this time, I started seeing a traditional Chinese medicine doctor and he thought my foot might have some fungal infection (athlete's foot) in addition to the eczema because he saw some circular patterns.  Of course I was also given some foul medicine to brew and drink twice daily.  That stuff makes me fart all the time and the farts smell pretty horrible.   The chinese doc gave me a TCM antifungal cream, that cream burned my foot and it caused the skin on my foot to crack.   I stopped using the cream on my foot (it hurt too much) and let the thing dry out, the TCM doctor did say to let it dry out to avoid bacterial infection.

It was around this time that I was reading about moisturizer withdrawal (MW) on the ITSAN.org forums and how it can speed recovery.  The theory behind MW makes a lot of sense.  The skin needs to form a scab to recover but moisturizer prevents the skin from doing so.  Furthermore, using moisturizers is apparently not a great thing to do because it tricks the skin into thinking it doesn't need to produce/retain its own moisture anymore, which is what leads to further eczema.   

I cleaned my foot with isopopyl alcohol (which helps dry the skin and is anti-baterial).  You can see my foot looks pretty bad, it really scared me at first because it looked like a zombie, the dry skin was initially really painful, but after a while I would get used to the pain and the skin became stronger and the scabs would lessen.  I was itching and burning all over, my foot was the least of my areas of concern now.  

2014-04-06

The Beginning

This is a picture of what my arms and legs looked like less than a week after I started getting these mysterious bumps on my skin.  The walk-in clinic doctor diagnosed it as folliculitis and gave me fucidin (an antibiotic oinment) to treat it.  Needless to say, that didn't work.  

2014-03-08