DIY: Treating Eczema Without a Doctor

As my husband and I are in the boat of: just barely paying our bills and still eating, and cannot afford health insurance, I have had to get creative over the years in treating health concerns that have come up.  I have become pretty excellent at internet research, keeping up a stock of herbal treatments, etc.  Sometimes, it was all for naught and we had to dig into our savings (when we had them), dig into our available credit lines, or borrow money from family to go to a doctor (or dentist) and get the treatment we needed.  We are both fortunate that such occurrences are rare as we are generally in good health and able-bodied.  That said, there have been a couple things that have really challenged me: UTIs and eczema.  In the case of UTIs I have more often than not treated them successfully at home and when that proved impossible their treatment is covered as "reproductive care" for people assigned female at birth under California's Family PACT and so I have been able to go to the doctor and get medication (I'm not talking about that here because it is a riskier thing to treat at home and my results have been spottier).

This latest bout of eczema, however, is not covered under such care, last I checked we made too much for Medi-Cal, and as it occurred around my eyes, specialist treatment was indicated.  Even accessing local resources such as UCB or UCSF would have taken a chunk of money we simply don't have.

Fortunately I was able to treat it at home by combining just about every frequent piece of treating at-home advice I found online.  Given how fucking awful eczema is, I thought I might share what finally worked for me here in the hopes that others might be able to treat theirs more quickly and with less hassle.  That said, I AM NOT A DOCTOR.  Your biochemistry might react differently to this regimen and you should always be tuned into just how severe your outbreak is and what you need to do for your own health and sanity.  It should also be noted that I had to treat this flare for about a month, with two periods of rapid improvement and a whole lot of stagnation in between them.  Caring for things like this at home is not necessarily easier, or better for you, it just is what it is and sometimes it's all we have.

OK, so here's what finally did it:

coconut oil (I used organic, virgin, unrefined coconut oil) (used liberally)
an herbal salve specially made for eczema and other similar skin conditions (used liberally)
another herbal salve, kind of used as an "all purpose" ointment in my house (used liberally)
hydrocortisone 1% (used 1x a day, sparingly) (steroids aren't great for long term use in general, and I would say you should ONLY use it when you're dealing with a temporary flare and not a chronic issue, you also have to be extremely careful with it around your eyes as steroids can cause major damage to your eye)
anti-histamine medication (taken as directed, I just got a generic type from Costco)
pro-biotics (taken as directed, I opted for dissolving wafers)
evening primrose oil (capsules) (taken as directed, you can find these wherever they sell nutritional/herbal supplements)

Rinsing the effected area with cool water and then applying the salves helped immensely, usually did this several times a day.  Cool compresses were a lifesaver when the outbreak started, I was about to rip my eyeballs out of their sockets until I started doing this; it was EXTREMELY effective in relieving the itching.  Unfortunately as soon as I took the compress off the itching was back, so I spent two days with a cool compress over my eyes (applying the salves several times a day as well).    After this rabid itching died down there was less of an itching but a major desire to scratch or rub the area anyway (and if you've ever had the kind I do, it feels so good and rewarding to scratch that you want to do it very, very badly), raised and thickened skin accompanied by very noticeable redness and swelling of the surrounding skin tissue.  It was in this state that I spent most of my time the past month.

Frustrated by this plateau in recovery, and a subsequent flare in itching and the spreading of the thickened/raised skin to my cheeks, I did more online research and this is when I added the evening primrose oil and coconut oil to the regimen - improvement from there was so marked that I have to recommend these two components very highly.  It could have been a coincidence, but I doubt it, adding them was a last-ditch effort to throw everything at the problem before a doctor.  It also might be one or the other of these, and I would say if you already have coconut oil in the house, try that before going out and purchasing evening primrose (or vice versa).  But after two days my skin is looking virtually normal again (though I can still feel the thick bumpiness, which is receding more slowly, and occasional itching) and I can tell that I'm on the way to long term recovery.

Until this major flare I was able to keep minor occurrences under control just with the two salves (particularly the one specifically for eczema) applied a couple times a day.  I will now be adding coconut oil to the combination.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful for someone else, this shit is AWFUL to deal with and finding a combination that works sure felt like a life-saver to me.  Prevention is of course good too, keeping your skin moisturized (moisturizing asap after washing skin is best), not taking boiling hot showers, and not scratching your skin excessively are all things to keep in mind.  In my experience scratching skin is the worst thing you can do; not the odd scratch here and there, but repeated scratching almost always produces a mini (or in this case major) flare for me.  I know too that there have been good results with oatmeal baths once a week if your eczema is the chronic and not flaring type.

Wishing you all the best of luck...

Update: A couple weeks later and everything is under control again.  I ran out of evening primrose oil capsules a few days ago and decided to see whether they were worth investing in again... OH YES.  My symptoms started coming back within a day, mildly, but there.  Bought some and started taking them, next day the symptoms were almost gone again.  You never know how herbal medicines will effect your body, but for me apparently, this is a HUGE help; so I would definitely recommend trying it.

Further update: A month from the original post and things continue to be basically under control, with minor flare ups dealt with easily and effectively with topical treatments and continued evening primrose oil use.  I discontinued using antihistamines about a week ago because after prolonged use they were making me really, really drowsy, all the time.  One further thing I have learned about using evening primrose oil is that it's been pretty important to take the pills regularly, 1000mg, three times a day.  When I have taken it sporadically I have gotten flare ups, but when I take it regularly, so that there is some in my system all day long (trying to space dosages fairly evenly, kinda like a birth control pill but more daily doses), I stay flare-free.

Further update: 6 weeks from the original post and my skin is back to normal.  I'm still taking evening primrose oil twice a day and applying the eczema salve on my eyelids at bed time, but that's it!  I did have a possibly related ailment pop up at the corners of my mouth - little cuts, mostly on one side, accompanied at first by skin irritation around them.  This was INCREDIBLY annoying, made it difficult to talk or eat as opening my mouth was painful (I had something similar happen at the corners of my eyes when my eczema outbreak was at it's worst) but I solved this with lots of my most basic lip balm constantly, my goes-on-everything salve and Neosporin twice a day.  I tried a few other things, but they didn't help much.  A couple days of this regime and the little cuts cleared up and haven't come back.

Further update: Four months later and I had another attack.  After discussing with the hubs we wondered if it might not be a mild pet allergy that has developed over the years or is being aggravated by something else, since it seemed to reoccur after our boycat had been laying against my face post-cat-bath.  On this suspicion I went out and got a small box of Claritin, since that is what an old roommate used to take effectively for her pet allergies.  I saw an immediate positive result, by the end of the day the itching had reduced significantly.  After four days the itching and redness and swelling of skin were all gone.  After two days NOT taking it, they came back.  And now that I've been on it again for two days, it's almost gone again.  I think we may have a winner!  And yes, on return I got generic and it's working fine.

More updating:  Three weeks into this treatment, it's confirmed, this type of antihistamine definitely works.  It works best in conjunction with Evening Primrose Oil.  Any time I stop taking either one for any length of time the symptoms start coming back.  I'm going to keep trying to stop taking the OTC antihistamine though, and only take it when I see symptoms start, as I don't want to be taking it just all the time, preferably.  But thank GOODNESS I finally figured this shit out and have a working attack plan!

Yet another update: almost a year later now and the main thing I have found is that these flares seem to be most related to suppressed stress.  The more I work on that, the fewer and milder they are.  So take note y'all.  If you are ignoring things that are stressing you out, you might want to look to that before anything else.

More stuff that I think I should have already posted about but haven't: Fat Hate

More in this impromptu series...
[For previous editions see: More stuff that I think I should have already posted about but haven't: Racism and Stuff I think about differently now; children, feminism and more]

Did you know that I'm (generally speaking) down with fat acceptance?

To me, this seems like an especially obvious thing, but, given posts I've read, especially recently, I guess it's not as widely held as I thought!

What often goes against fat acceptance, in both feminist and non-feminist conversations, is that "fat" is inherently unhealthy.  And of course, health is important and it's something we should be talking about, right? Well, if you haven't heard this before now I am just going to say, that premise is bullshit.  (Not about "health" being important, that IS important...but more on that later...)

I have a precisely healthy BMI (right in the middle) and am by most people’s definitions “thin,” if definitely not “skinny,” and after three flights of stairs I’m breathing pretty damn heavy.

That's not really that healthy for a TAB (temporarily able bodied) person!

Which is the whole problem with equating weight ("fat") with health: because it’s quite simply NOT AN EFFECTIVE MEASUREMENT TO GENERALIZE FROM.

Quite simply, our bodies are unique and an unhealthy amount of weight on one body is not going to be an unhealthy amount of weight on another body.

If we really want to talk about health, weight shouldn’t even come into it.

Honestly.

Because if a person has healthy habits, and their body is carrying weight it considers “extra,” that it doesn't need, that weight will go away. If that person with healthy habits’ weight DOESN’T go away then their body thinks it needs it, so let’s assume that’s correct!  Instead of assuming we know better...than that person's own body...what they person should look like and what they need to be healthy.  Fat, for some people, is a by product of unhealthy habits.  But as with so much Western thought, we attack that by-product instead of looking to the ROOT of the issue.

The far more important question when discussing health, imo, is: do we as individuals and as a population have access to healthy habits?

Cuz what I see is that MOST of us don’t. Really don’t. We’re too goddamned tired to put in the WORK (and it is work) to make 3 healthy meals a day. We’ve not got any time (or money) to spare to "just take a walk" or go to the gym.  And we’re too goddamned poor to go to the co-op or the locavore restaurant instead of McDonald’s.  Or there are literally NO grocery stores in our neighborhood to even TRY to get healthy food.  (Just for a start... I'm sure I could come up with many more examples).

These are STRUCTURAL issues working against our health, and aren't structural issues what we as social justice people are supposed to be concerned with? Wouldn't that be a more effective strategy in the pursuit of healthier communities?  Instead of just class and/or fat shaming individuals for “letting themselves go” or whatever?

So yeah, let's get on with talking about health but let's leave the fat hate at the door, folks.

Medical Sexual Assault of Children at Cornell

There are major, major, trigger warnings on this story in general and the articles posted specifically. But the word needs to spread about what is happening at Cornell.

Bad Vibrations | Bioethics Forum

For over a decade, many people (including us) have criticized this surgical practice. Critics in medicine, bioethics, and patient advocacy have questioned the surgery’s necessity, safety, and efficacy. We still know of no evidence that a large clitoris increases psychological risk (so is the surgery even necessary?), and we do know of substantial anecdotal evidence that it does not increase risk. Importantly, there also seems to be evidence that clitoroplasties performed in infancy do increase risk – of harm to physical and sexual functioning, as well as psychosocial harm.

But we are not writing today to again bring attention to the surgeries themselves. Rather, we are writing to express our shock and concern over the follow-up examination techniques described in the 2007 article by Yang, Felsen, and Poppas. Indeed, when a colleague first alerted us to these follow-up exams – which involve Poppas stimulating the girls’ clitorises with vibrators while the girls, aged six and older, are conscious – we were so stunned that we did not believe it until we looked up his publications ourselves.

Can You Hear Us Now? | Psychology Today

Finally, do we really think this is like what happened in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study? Yup. A population gets marked as being not normal sexually, and then ends up as research fodder with sub-standard ethics oversight, without anyone even telling them they're research fodder. The docs publish years of follow-up studies in medical journals, and their colleagues, including the medical journal editors, don't stop and say, "Wait, what now? What are you doing?" And the only way these girls are going to get protected is if the press finally gets involved.

We Need to Talk About IGM... | bird of paradox

Consider: the report states that the subjects had enlarged clitorises, and that this anatomical variation “is often a prominent manifestation of virilizing congenital adrenal hyperplasia and other disorders of sexual development”.

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia(CAH) is an endocrine disorder in which the adrenal glands produce abnormally high levels of virilising hormones and as such is already known to the medical profession as an intersex variation – or “disorder of sexual development, the preferred pathologising and stigmatising term which, although preferred by the medical profession, is objected to by some intersex activists.

It seems increasingly likely to me that, not only are we talking about a research project on intersex children, but also that that fact is being suppressed in Dreger and Feder’s article

Anarcha, Betsy and Lucy - Mothers of Gynecology

And now for one of those periodic installments of "I posted this on my fun tumblr blog and actually now that I think about it I really should put it on the srs bzns blog too." h/t to guerrilla mama

Anarcha was an African American slave woman. She was one of the seventy-five slaves who worked the Wescott plantation, just on the outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama.

Anarcha went into labor one day. Three days later, she was still in labor. Dr Marion Sims was called in to assist the delivery. He writes in his autobiography that he used forceps on the fetus’s head but that he really didn’t know what he was doing since he’d had so little experience with the device. We don’t know whether the baby survived the ordeal. We do know that the mother experienced several vaginal tears from the birthing. She became incontinent afterwards due to the damage.

A few days later, the master of the plantation sent Anarcha to Dr Sims hoping he could repair the damage to his slave, as she could not hold her bowls or bladder. As her master’s chattel, her condition reduced her value considerably.

Sims took in the patient reluctantly. He put her up on his examination table, on her hands and knees and, using a modified pewter spoon to expand the walls of her vagina, he accidentally released the pressure that held her uterus in an awkward position. Anarcha felt immediate relief as the change in air pressure helped her uterus to relocate back into its proper position.

Through an agreement with her master, Anarcha became Dr Sims's guinea pig. She regularly underwent surgical experiments, while positioned on Sims’s table, squatting on all fours, and fully awake without the comfort of any anesthesia. It was commonly accepted that African Americans had a higher tolerance for pain than their white counterparts.

Commonly accepted but utterly wrong.

Anarcha’s fistula (from her vaginal tears) was repaired by Sims. Sims thus became the leading expert in repairing this damage that seemed to occur in a good number of births by slave women. Though Sims was sent many slave women with fistulas, we know from his biography that he experimented repeatedly on Anarcha, as well as two other slaves, Betsy and Lucy.

Anarcha was experimented upon, and drugged up later, not to ease her pain as much as to stifle her moans. It has been calculated that she had been operated on, perhaps, 34 times. She, Betsy, Lucy, and countless others helped Dr Sims hone his techniques and create his gynecological tools. Though on display in museums, many of Dr Sims’s tools have modern counterparts that are used today.

Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy left no written legacy. Slaves were forbidden to read and write, a crime punishable by death.

And though science today looks back on Sims’s work ambiguously, truly unsure as to his level of success, or whether he should be credited as the father of gynecology, we now know who the mothers of modern gynecology were: they were the nameless and faceless slave women upon whom Dr Sims experimented.

Today we have just three names: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy. It is our hope that these names will never be forgotten.

Copyright © 2004

International Wellness Directory

Contact us

For non commercial use: You may copy, print, reprint, and/or transfer this entire article, if and only if it is unmodified and in its complete state with this copyright notice attached and all the links work properly.

Pregnant, In Prison, and Denied Care

By RACHEL ROTH
December 10, 2009

Over the past year, incarcerated women and their allies have achieved a remarkable string of victories against inhumane treatment. First, they persuaded the Bureau of Prisons to issue a new policy in October 2008 limiting the use of restraints on women who are in labor, giving birth or recovering after childbirth; the Marshals Service, which transports people in federal custody, followed suit. Next, they won legislation in the spring and summer of 2009 restricting the use of restraints on pregnant women in New Mexico, Texas and New York. Finally, they successfully petitioned the US Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit for a rehearing of the full court in a case from Arkansas, which resulted in a ruling in October that shackling women in labor is unconstitutional.

These developments send a strong signal to the rest of the country to stop subjecting women to this dangerous and degrading practice. But what happens to pregnant women in prison before they wind up in chains at a hospital?

Read the rest at The Nation

No, it's really not funny. Except a laugh instead of cry kind of way.

A new poll shows that 62% of Republicans think that government should “stay out of Medicare.”

I admit that I snickered at first. Quite heartily, in fact. So I certainly can’t hold it against anyone for doing the same.

But then I remembered that this kind of ignorance — which isn’t exclusive to Republicans, as 24% of Democrats and 31% of independents answered the same way — is precisely the reason why I’m so concerned that when this is all said and done, I’m still not going to have health care, and neither will millions of other Americans, including many who need it a lot more badly than I do.

this isn't actually funny

Healthcare - Just STOP

I’m a little tired of all this garbage about a friend of a friend of a nephew of an aunt of a monkey’s uncle told some Republican senator from Kentucky about how his brother’s niece died in Canada because they were denied treatment due to rationed care. How many people die in this country every single year from being denied cancer treatment or AIDS medication or heart surgery or whatever else because their insurance company decided they had exceeded their coverage limit, or had a pre-existing condition, or weren’t covered under the particular plan, or simply weren’t covered at all? Quit pretending there is nothing wrong with current system. Quit trying to frighten people by relating anecdotal stories for which you have little to no proof while ignoring similar anecdotal stories occurring under the very system you are trying to defend. Please. PLEASE. Give us something more than the worn-out politics of fear and loathing.

wish i was taller (via needtherapy) (via apsies) (via ohfortheloveofdog) (via thecurvature)

Honoring my moon time

I was inspired by two posts to give some love to my "moon time" otherwise known as my period. Why would I give love to something that women are universally understood to hate or at the very least only sort of put up with?

Well, I don't know exactly when, but at some point I realized my perspective on my period was reflective of how I felt about my body in general. Therefore, I set about reframing how I thought about my body, and I figured my period was the best place to start.

I learned about my period at school and it basically became this thing that wasn't unnatural or anything to feel exactly shameful of but it was something to dislike and get through as quickly as possible. Certainly something I only heard spoken of in disparaging ways in conversation. I definitely hid the fact that I was on it when I was and had a mingling sort of curiosity and discomfort with it.

I didn't really come to terms with my period as an ok thing until I bought my first Diva Cup.

And of course that was part of that already mentioned process of choosing to come to terms with it. Along the road to that decision were other realizations like of my saying "I hate my period!" and wondering why, especially seeing as after a few years I didn't have terrible cramps or anything (nothing a couple Advil didn't solve anyway). I had decided by the time I bought my cup that I wanted to have a positive view of my period as part of a positive view of my body and the biological realities of what it meant to be a female sexed person.

But even with all that somehow until I stopped using tampons I still had an "icky" view of the whole thing. I didn't touch my vagina during that time, it felt very detached from me in general but especially during my period. I was starting to befriend it at other points (previously it had mostly functioned as a part of my body I didn't interact with much but was used by others to bring me pleasure so I can't say I had an unfavorable view of my cunt but just sort of a distant from it...) but there was a big disconnect during period time.

Something about using a cup, having to really make friends with my vagina, figure out how she worked, see the blood in it's whole state, realize the discomfort I had always felt because of tampon use soaking up all my natural moisture along with the blood... I dunno. That truly brought me to terms with it. I talk quite comfortably and openly about these things now, and no I don't work for Diva Cup, in fact I hear some brands are better, but that's what I have and it's worked well enough.

This is not my greatest post ever and I will probably revisit the topic in the future, but maybe it'll spark conversation. Unfortunately for writing, this evolving relationship with my body has been a rather convoluted journey, and therefore not chronologically easy to discuss. I guess, to come back to where I started; I give some love to my period. She's not so bad, pretty easy to manage really, she's part of a natural cycle of hormones that are sometimes frustrating, sometimes fun, and reassurance that I am still child free. All just part of being a woman in this female body, and I'm ok with that.

I can only shake my head

"The only moral abortion, is my own!"

That's just, wow.

Doctor Assaulted Suicidal Transgender Patient

Can I get a wtf?

A Melbourne Doctor has been found guilty of performing an indecent act upon a suicidal transgender patient only a day before International Transgender Day of Remembrance.

In June 2007, 53-year-old Sulieman Hamid was accused of touching a suicidal transgender woman in a Sunshine Hospital. Hamid was also accused of raping the woman back at her home the following day. Earlier in the trial the court heard that the woman propositioned Hamid, whilst he was treating her for a slashed wrist. The patient has a long history of suicidal tendencies and is also suffering a borderline personality disorder.

The victim told of how she remembered propositioning Hamid but also said she was not thinking straight and wanted to leave the hospital so she could “run in front of a bus.” Hamid told her he was not able to have sex as he was working according to the victim. “He started to touch my neck, my breasts, my lips (with) his fingers,” she told the court.

She was released from the hospital and returned home to sleep but was awoken by a phone call from Hamid asking if she was alone. She let the doctor come over hoping to get drugs from him. Once he arrived he began touching her. He was also accused of digitally raping her. At one point she testified that the doctor left the house to purchase condoms before returning to rape her.

Who fucking does that??

Full Story