I went back for the check up and they saw that my eczema had improved and they were putting it down to the cream. But I stopped using the cream when I went on The Red Bed’ so that I could see whether it was the cream or The Red Bed’, because the cream wasn’t working the week before. And I told them about The Red Bed’ and they didn’t really know anything about it. They said, it’s not something that they can refer us to do. They could give us advice on what they’ve heard may help, but they can’t professionally tell us to use a Red Bed. But it’s really helpful. I mean, she, I don’t think she really knew anything about it, so she couldn’t really comment on it. I’ve not asked any other doctors about it though, because, well she didn’t know and I just felt like no other doctor would know.

I think you learn to associate different food types w-with how it affects your skin as well. So, tomatoes, if I’m eating a lot of those they’ll generally bring out a kind of rash or make my skin a little bit worse. So, yeah, there’s a, there’s this Indian concept of hot and cold foods, which I actually think it applies quite well. So things like mangoes and tomatoes and all of these kind of things are quite hot. Even though, I’m not sure whether I believe it too much [Laughs] it’s so different food types affect your body differently as well. And I think as long as you know how, how these foods affect your body then you can kind of keep it in check and keep it in control.

One of my friends is quite holistic in her approaches to stuff. She’s one of those that doesn’t like taking paracetamol or taking antihistamines for things. And I know her mum’s very into that kind of thing. And I think it is one option I’d like to approach, the holistic avenue I suppose. Cos I’ve always used like medically proven substances and things like that. I’d never thought about using, I don’t know, evening primrose oil or doing a liver flush or something like that which you can do that just throw out bad bacteria that can affect the way your skin reacts to stuff. I’ve started using more things like, taking cod liver oil and evening primrose because they are supposed to help with keeping essential fats within your body. So that will help keep my skin moisturised. I’ve yet to see the difference, but I’ve only been on them for a couple of weeks, so.

I mean I have been recently to the GP about it just to get some more steroid creams, but I didn’t actually ask at this point because, what I was going to ask was about alternative treatments. I’m interested to see what GPs have, their opinions on homeopaths obviously, and also there’s lots of, obviously there’s lots of research out there about eczema and, but it’s not made it to mainstream medicine yet so, the I was just going to ask them about different treatments but I wasn’t, when I went there, I wasn’t quite I like to research it myself first so I know what we’re talking about more. So I need to do that before I went again. Because there are other medicines out there or there is even other techniques. But it’s a good idea to get medical professional sort of to, their advice on things.

With family and friends, like I think it’s quite hard because no one wants to see their family or friend in pain and I think that especially when it’s a skin condition you’ve had for your whole life and you’ve dealt with for the majority of your life on your own, I think you get quite snappy with your friends and family when they’re like, Have you been drinking enough water? Have you been applying your cream? And you’re like, Hold on. [Laughs] It’s my condition. [Laughs] So I think it is quite hard for them because they just want what’s best and when they’re suggesting new things you should be trying, if you’re reluctant, they’re like, Well why are you reluctant? And obviously you’re reluctant because you don’t want it to get worse. But also you’re reluctant because it’s not medically prescribed possibly and stuff like that, and because they’re almost taking control of an aspect of your life which you’re gonna have to deal with for the rest of your life. So you really need to control it yourself because they’re not always going to be there to put things in place and make sure you’re doing them. And it’s, like I don’t feel, like it’s healthy to have support but not healthy to depend on that.

And that can be quite hard to convey nicely, especially when both sides are just trying to help.

I’ve always stuck to my doctor’s sort of do this, do that I haven’t really tried to innovate for myself. And sometimes I do worry about innovating there have been times I’ve tried to innovate, or listen to people who don’t know what they’re talking about, and I’ll be adamant. It’s mainly family members who suggested try this or try that; this may help; I know so and so who’ve tried this sort of treatment and at the end of the day it can backfire. One of them was some sort of almond based cream, and I’m allergic to nuts. I remember smearing it on an area of my skin it solidified so I had to break it off, wash it off and I thought, ‘Oh this might have’ I looked underneath and it was just swollenand red, and I thought, ‘Well this was useless and pointless.

Manuka honey is so expensive and if it didn’t sort of work then it, yeh because I’ve found that sugar doesn’t really help my skin in the past then I’m sort of taking an educated guess that it wouldn’t be great for me. Sort of natural yoghurt seems to work just dunking my hand in a bowl of natural yoghurt but which feels gross, but it’s for the point if you’ve just being pure sugar then I can’t see it really working for me and also putting honey all over my hand, you know, if it didn’t work it would, because it’s quite a large area that I would be covering it’s like I’ve just spent so much money on something that I’m now literally washing down the sink and it’s made everything worse.