Illustration by April dela Noche Milne
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Eczema has been a part my life since I was six months old, and I’m afraid it’ll be a part of me forever. As a child, I remember waking up in the middle of the night, arms ripped to shreds, and my mother lying next to me swatting my dirty fingernails away from the inflamed and itchy skin. She’d hear me scratching in my sleep and would wake herself up just enough to push my hands away. Over the years, I’ve used just about every prescription ointment and prescription cream for temporary relief. I’ve gone to school with cut up socks on my arms to hold gauze over my wounds, checking often to see if I drew blood from a mindless itch and worried the blood might stain my clothes.
My classmates always had beautiful skin, smooth peaches and cream and dark tans, soft blacks and all of the other colours of the skin rainbow. Then I would look down at my own skin and see raised red blotches and flaky, dead-skin particles, which I would constantly brush out of my sleeves.
Eczema is a catch-all term for a chronic skin condition properly known as eczematous dermatitis. It’s caused by a disconnect in the skin’s ability to lock in moisture. It can be triggered by a multitude of things, but usually from irritation due to allergens, such as the chemicals in hand soap.
The thing is, I wonder if I would’ve been okay with the eczema if my peers had been okay with it as well. I have vivid memories of watching my classmates’ shock morph into (almost) perfectly hidden disgust when they saw me in a T-shirt or tank top.
“What happened?!” “Is that contagious?” “Is that painful?” “That looks so awful! Is your skin okay?” While their questions might seem harmless or just curious, their faces told me that something was really wrong with me.
But then, it went away.
Some time in high school the eczema disappeared, my skin was free and my heart soared. No more stinging cuts from accidentally using hand sanitizer or sweating in gym class. I could make friends and live my life as I wanted! T-shirts abounded!
Until it came back about two years later: on my hands, the backs of my legs, my scalp, my chest. Everywhere.
The thing with eczema is that there’s no cure. It shows up whenever it likes, summer or winter, stress-induced or if you’re living a carefree life. After I got my wisdom teeth out I had the worst flare up of my life. My body became covered in blisters and weeping red skin. I couldn’t wash my hands, couldn’t even lie down on my side because the pus from the infected sores on my skin would drip off my hands onto the floor. I was miserable and didn’t see a point in even trying to fight it because eczema just kept winning. I prayed to God to take it all away and wondered if He was listening. I cried multiple times a day for a good hour each time because I wanted everything to end. I couldn’t sleep.
The ordeal triggered panic attacks that I still don’t know how to fully handle yet. I ended up spending a night in the ER just to get a prescription for an eczema cream with the potency of sunscreen. After that (inevitably) failed, I worked with my family doctor (who also lives with eczema) and got an appointment with a dermatologist – who, once he saw the severity of my skin from pictures taken in the hospital (and described it as impressive), prescribed a cream that calmed my skin down within 24 hours.
Most sufferers end up choking their skin with steroid creams and hope and pray that the eczema doesn’t come back. But if you use the steroid creams for too long your skin can become addicted, craving a stronger potency to heal itself. The catch is, if you don’t use the creams enough, your skin can look like something even Deadpool would cringe at.
After I went to the ER, I decided to self-isolate. Not to my chagrin, however. The stigma of eczema and the shock my angry red skin seems to cause people made me glad for the shelter-in-place order due to COVID-19. And now that everyone wears masks, I don’t see their mouths turn into an O of distress any more, thank goodness.
My main wish is that people learn how to correctly address those with skin disfiguration. It isn’t my fault. I am not doing a bad job of handling eczema if it’s flaring up, and yes, I know I need to moisturize more. Thank you. Eczema affects about 17 per cent of Canadians. Isn’t that enough of us that people should know not to ask if it’s contagious?
I have steroid cream scars, deal with it.
I have blisters on my hands sometimes, deal with it.
I have cuts on my fingers from dry skin sometimes, deal with it.
I deal with eczema a lot, why can’t you deal with it?
I realize that children will point and stare. It’s a given, they’re curious. During my shifts at a sporting equipment store, I’ve had parents point my hands out to their kids as I lace up their skates. “Look honey, she has eczema like you do!” A little bloom of happiness swells up in me whenever that happens, because it means that those kids are learning that other people live with eczema, and it’s okay. You can live a pleasant and happy life and deal with eczema.
When I need to, I wear my eczema like a badge of a life lived, because I’ve dealt with it my whole life and I’m still here. I want to show the next generation that they don’t have to be ashamed. They don’t have to feel marred by disgust and shame because they don’t have the clear skin other kids have. Those negative emotions still affect me, manifesting as anxiety and depression. But they don’t have to affect the next generation.
Normalize eczema, please.
And don’t ask if it’s contagious. It’s not.
Sophie Bernard lives in Ottawa.