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.
