A bit OT but I have to respond to a fellow eczema sufferer! I used to have very bad exzema on my hands for years, cracked, bleeding/oozing, so bad and painful I couldn't straighten my fingers. I don't have it at all anymore - it's been a couple of years and I still can't believe it's gone. The solution to this problem also cleared up other health problems.
Here is how I got rid of my eczema:
Three years ago I left a job where I had been having increasing health problems, worsening eczema and constantly-watering eyes. Over the next few months I developed food allergy after food allergy and my eyes would water and swell up daily. An allergy test revealed I was now allergic to latex (I had been working with latex stencil daily for the previous 2 years) but that didn't explain why I continued to suffer bad eczema months after leaving that job and the traditional testing procedure didn't recognize I had food allergies, which continued to worsen to the point I would suffer symptoms after just about any meal.
A school teacher I worked with told me about an acupuncture allergy treatment that was really helping clear his allergies. He's a pretty credible fellow and only for that fact did I go for an assessment and subsequent treatments. It seemed kind of "witch-doctor-y" to me but I was desperate. They started me on a restricted diet during the initial food allergy treatments and within days my eczema began to clear up, not from the treatments but from the restricted diet. I started out avoiding wheat, dairy and eggs. There were other restrictions (no coffee, cola, nuts, orange juice), but those three stand out.
I recommend anyone with eczema try about 10 days without these foods and see if they note an improvement!
Your eczema may be triggered by something external that you're in physical contact with, but quite likely it is triggered by something in your diet.
I'm not sure if the acupuncture treatments I had helped the eczema directly but it cleared me of the food allergies. I can now eat almost all of the foods I had previously reacted to, and my hands are normal again! No more red gnarly "old lady" hands on a girl in her 30s! (I also had several acupuncture treatments for the latex allergy and now can handle brief exposure to latex - contact with a balloon, for example -with only a mild tingly sensation, no further reaction.)
If you'd like more info on the acupuncture treatment I will PM you. You may not be interested at all but I am just so happy to have my hands back I had to share my experience with someone who knows the agony! By the way, the only prescribed cream or ointment that ever gave me relief in my eczema years was Celestoderm V cream (betamethasone valerate) - ask your doctor or dermatologist about it.
Wear the bandaids and take your driver's license just in case.
