I’ve had eczema since I was a baby. For most of my life, it was manageable with steroid creams used on and off. It could be itchy and at times made me feel insecure, especially as a teenager, but it wasn’t disabling. It was what many would consider a typical eczema experience.
Then in the summer of 2022 I began to develop widespread eczema across my body with a level of pain and itch I’d never experienced before, on areas of my body that had never previously been affected. My skin was constantly cracked and bleeding, washing my hands stung unbearably, showering was painful, exercise triggered flares because sweating made things worse and I couldn’t sleep due to constant itching. I often awoke in the night drenched in sweat and itching myself awake. My clothes were stained with blood. Physically, it was excruciating — but the emotional impact was just as severe. As a young woman in my twenties, it completely eroded my self-esteem.
Over the next two years, I was prescribed antibiotics, oral steroids, topical steroids of increasing strength, and Protopic. None of it worked in the long term. I ended up on antidepressants at the end of 2022. My mental health deteriorated. I became hypervigilant, paranoid, desperate to find the cause. I changed my diet, worried about mould, and kept going back to my GP only to be offered more creams, more moisturiser, more symptom management.
I saw GPs with a special interest in dermatology, and a community dermatologist, but I still haven’t been seen by a hospital dermatologist. I’m still on the waiting list. In early 2025, after pushing hard for it, I finally underwent patch testing, something I was initially told might not be useful. The test results showed I was allergic to PPD (a chemical commonly found in black dyes) and disperse blue dye — both used in clothing.
At first, I didn’t think it would make much difference. But I decided to take the advice seriously and transitioned to wearing only white cotton. I had to give up a lot of the clothes I loved. But within a few months, my skin transformed. I can now wash my hands again without cracking or bleeding and for the first time in years, I felt like myself again. I will always have eczema, but I had also clearly developed a contact allergy that was dramatically worsening my condition.
This was the missing piece — and it took two years to find it.
If I hadn’t pushed for that patch test, I would still be suffering, and that’s the part I want to focus on. This isn't a story about just hanging in there or having hope. That’s not enough, as hope without action doesn’t relieve symptoms, improve quality of life, or make people feel heard. What’s needed is structural change.
Eczema is a complex, chronic condition — but that doesn’t mean it’s random or untreatable. We know that for many people, flares are triggered by allergens, irritants, or other internal and external factors. Yet in the NHS, patients are often offered steroids or immunosuppressants before any meaningful investigation into what might actually be causing the problem. That’s not necessarily the fault of individual doctors — I don’t believe they’re always trained to recognise these possibilities — but it is a systemic issue.
When someone’s eczema worsens significantly, or when symptoms become unmanageable, testing for potential triggers — through patch testing, blood tests, or food allergy screening — should not be an afterthought. It should be the first line of care.
Yes, testing has a cost. But so does prescribing years of steroid creams, immunosuppressants, mental health medication, and repeated GP visits — not to mention the human cost of people’s lives being limited, disrupted, or even broken down by constant, untreated flare-ups.
I’m not saying every case of eczema can be solved with a test. But I am saying that testing could be life-changing for many people — and for me, it was. It turned years of suffering back into a manageable condition, which only happened because I advocated for myself.
We need change - eczema sufferers deserve more than symptom suppression and vague reassurance. We deserve full, timely investigations into potential triggers and a response that is not just with creams, but with curiosity and a commitment to finding root causes (which do exist, in spite of some doctors putting it down to a chronic condition which you just have to manage - chronic is for life but it doesn't mean that there aren't things that make it worse!)
Being listened to
Treatment
This is not about waiting for things to get better. It’s about changing the way that we approach eczema and acknowledging that is not just something to manage, but something to actually investigate.
I will never get the 2+ years of my life back that I spent in suffering, but I hope that I can prevent the same from happening to others.