Chanel Stuckenschneider's Eczema story
Read these other fellow eczema sufferers stories
My name is Chanel, and I have suffered from Allergic/ Irritant Eczema since I was a little kid, and now am currently 16 years old and still have problems with it.
From about age 6-12 my eczema wasn’t to bad. It wasn’t exactly good, but easy to handle. I have it through out my whole body, but when I was younger it mainly stuck to my arms, head, legs, and a few other spots. I would constantly have cuts all over my body from scratching so much every single day that I would have some part of my body bleed on a daily basis. It drove me insane having to go through every day of elementary school needing a band aid every day, so I just started coming up with my own version to stop the bleeding that never worked.
Aside from my arms one of the other bad parts I have encountered is having problems with it on my head. My head constantly itches, not because of dandruff, or not showering or any of that normal stuff. Just from my eczema, and from it, I look like I have a dandruff problem, which makes high school kind of rough. I usually wear a hat to cover up anything, but can’t wear one in class so it makes me really self-conscious. I have used baby shampoo, which is supposed to make the itching go away and be gentle on your head, but didn’t seem to work to well. I am still trying to find a way to maintain it on my head. Then in 6th grade was another one of my major breakouts. I have a bad reaction to some detergent like stuff, and developed a massive rash on my chest that expanded all the way to my legs, up around my ears, and most of my face and head was cover with the bumps.
Then starting in winter of 2007 it has gotten worse. In 2007 I was a freshmen in high school just trying to last through school and get good grades, but then my eczema got out of control. The back of my knees started to itch like crazy. I would be doing homework, but couldn’t concentrate because the itching was so bad. It ended up as a large circular cut on the back of my knee about 3 inches in circumference. At first my mom thought it was ring worm because of how bad it was so she pulled me out of school for a few days to go to a doctor and let it get better. In the end it was just my eczema reacting with fabric softener in my jeans. They gave me some steroid cream to use occasionally to get the itching to subside and the cut to go away. It eventually got all cleared up after 3 months, and I went back to just having mild eczema problems with occasional problems until this most recent winter it started up worse then last year. I still use the special cream, but it still hasn’t gone away. I have looked up a million times different treatments to try to control it, but they only work so well and don’t fix it completely. I am currently a sophomore in high school and still having bad problems with it on a daily basis.
