Steroid Free: One month and change

This past Tuesday, I celebrated one month of being steroid free and in doing so, hopefully made it through the worst part. I've separated this post into two parts documenting my thoughts why my skin has been getting better, for those wanting a quick read, and evidence I've amassed in the past little bit that backs my notions.

My Theory on Steroid Cream Addiction

Recently we had a friend over for post work drinks and through the course of conversation I mentioned that I'd been riding a wave of skin difficulties due to my steroid withdrawal. Her initial reaction was shock thinking that I was addicted to anabolic steroids but the shock dissipated when she realized I was in fact referring to topical stuff. However, her initial shock may not have been too far off the mark in terms of severity.

As I've mentioned, I've been on prescription topical steroids of potent strength since I was a child. While initially, I would use the creams and effectively treat problematic areas, they would inevitably come back resulting in me using more creams on the skin. Around the age of 16 or so, I remember select incidences of the 'eczema' like areas resulting in cracks which was like the first sign of weakening skin. However, in my disillusionment, I just applied more steroids to the area to overcome the presented inflammation. This though, probably did more so to weaken the skin than good. In doing so to cracked open skin though, this is probably where I caused the most damage. By allowing steroids into the bloodstream, it allowed the drugs to cause unwanted effects elsewhere in the skin.

These other areas I'm now assuming might have likely been the GI tract and respiratory tract and I've been lead to believe this based upon the eastern school of medical though who sees all three tissue (skin, GI, respiratory) as one continuous entity. Small amounts of steroid might have had an effect on any of them since they are all thin tissues. It also follows that no immediate effect might have been seen since they were probably small regions breaking down, but the cumulative effect over ten years would result in the problems I began to see at 26.

Results

Truth be told, I can't prove any of this but the end result of me being 35+ days steroid free is that the crazy red and thick skin patches on my hand are disappearing and my skin sensitivities are following the same trend. I know this because this past weak, I've dabbled with macroscopic amounts of foods that I have known to cause the cracking and itching including cookies (butter and eggs), chips (sour cream and cheese), donuts (butter, eggs and cream) and more recently tomatoes and pasta (unknown causes). The end result though was less itching and cracking overall which is great.

Now truth be told I should likely abstain from this behavior as it makes no sense to believe myself healed already, but it does help me chart progress. If there are less tears in my GI lining due to it strengthing, then it would mean less proteins are sneaking across the GI barrier (RE leaky gut syndrome) and causing problems.

Overall, as the days go by, I gain hope that I might finally make it past this but also lose faith in western medicine and health care. Its a bitter sweet feeling but the good lies in that my body will be moving back towards 100% as we get closer to the wedding and fall jitsu.   

Escape Day 20

So I am currently sitting at Day 20 from TSW and things have shown some improvement. I've used my hands as a guide Pictured below are two photos of my hands. One is from the beginning of June about 10 days before I went full tilt on Corticosteroid abolition and the other is about 15 days in.

-10 days beforehand

15 days after

As you can see, something is happening which is good. Getting here though is not without turbulence as about 5 days into TSW, every place I'd ever had eczema flared up and became itchy. The only ways I'd find relief are a nice shower or ice and aloe vera. At day 20, the itch has subsided but is definitely still present.

Items of note to anyone who might think TSW might work for them:
1. I smacked my hands accidentally two times in ways that previously would have gashed my hands. This time the hands held up with no bruising.
2. I had a few trigger foods this past weekend; intentionally for some and not intentionally for others. They included the usual suspects like soy, milk and eggs. Reactions did occur but symptoms past much quicker than usual.

The battle pushes forward.

Steroid free Day 10

Greetings to all your beautiful people out there. The beer blog will be taking a temporary hiatus as I will be focusing this blog on my hopeful recovery of pseudo eczema.

Now most of you know I suffer from what I'd always believed was eczema. At work, people have seen me tape my fingers. In jitsu, it wouldn't be uncommon place for me to breakfall a couple time and have my hand open up with sores and cuts. And in general, all of you have seen me scratch. No lie it's true.

In my never ending search for something to avail me of this living hell I had search and visited anyone that would listen.

Western Medicine has me on topical steroids in addition to PUVA, Protopic Ointment and Oral Prednisone along the way.

The naturopath said I might have leaky gut syndrome and should take lots of Omega 3s, probiotics and ACESe + Zn to help sort it out. They also mentioned I might have food sensitivities to Dairy, Eggs, Soy and a bunch of other stuff.

Recently, the food sensitivities thing proved true with more and more food causing flares. Removing dairy, whey, eggs, soy, chicken, tomatoes and strawberries would cause minimal cracking in the hands. This never made sense to me though since I would eat all these things as a child and none of the current symptoms had ever shown. It's almost as if the eczema had evolved.

Even with that though my eczema didn't subside and most recently I had the worst flare up ever seen post grading season and move. During the move, I watched my hands crack and bleed beyond control and even remember seeing the healthy skin fall off a small portion of my hand as I washed it causing an open sore. My immediate response to this was to add polysporin and of course steroid creams to tame the flare.

But, for all my efforts, the chronic swelling and cracking did not go away. Seeing how my right hand wouldn't even close for about two weeks straight, I once again turned to the internet.

A few recommended the candida diet to help ease overgrowth of candida in the gut. I have been observing this diet in some form for a couple weeks now and seeing some mild aid. Moreover though, in my internet search, I found one individual who had tried candida and now trying Topical Steroid Withdrawl and was seeing skin healing.

What is TSW? The short answer is that TSW is an acknowledgement that Topical Steroids are actually the cause of eczema like symptoms after chronic use. Years of use has caused the subdermal layers to thin beyond functional use which results in the epidermal thickening and resulting eczema look. Additionally, the adrenals start to misbehave as the steroids start to go systemic with changes.

The simple answer recommended by ITSAN? Cease and desist all topical steroids immediately. The result? Full recovery of pseudo eczema (termed Red Skin Syndrome) over the course of months and years.

Now considering my hand was falling apart with mere skin washing, I am more than happy to give this a try. I am currently 10 days in and have already seen a marked reduction in hand swelling. My natural itch has gone up but that's normal since the systemic steroids have been removed since they are no longer bleeding in through the skin. Over time many TSW bloggers have now seen relief of RSS/TSW and I'm throwing my hat into the fold in hopes that if this works, someone may find this and find the inspiration to endure TSW to find their own relief.

Let the battle begin!