giara hafte / ਗਿਆਰਾਂ ਹਫ਼ਤੇ / eleven weeks

I haven’t updated in a while but I’ve learned so much in the past two weeks!

• Blood Test: I took a blood test and found out that I am slightly allergic to cow’s milk, sesame seeds, shrimp, and egg whites. Since finding out (during week 10) I’ve eliminated these items from my diet to the best of my ability. I see that I’m relatively less red! The results also told my that I had low Vitamin D and Iron. I’m already taking Vitamin D supplements and I started to take Iron supplements.
• Tamanu Oil: I went to the Saturday Morning Market at the start of Week 11 and bought Tamanu Oil from a vendor. She said that it would reduce the inflammation on my hands and it definitely has! The patches on my hands are less red!
• Epsom Salt Bath: At the beginning of week 10 I soaked my hands in epsom salt water. That was when my dyshidrotic eczema was at it’s worth. It helped a bit because my hands were also super flaky and I was able to get rid of those flakes in a less painful manner. I also felt that my hands were less itchy after the hand baths.
• Exfoliation: After trying the hand baths, I decided to try and exfoliate my hands to get rid of my flakes. I started to realize the flakes were making my hands extremely itchy, especially while I was sleeping! It helped out a lot but the problem was with exfoliating I was in a way scratching my hands and would go overboard with it.

At the end of week 11 I see that my hands are doing really well! My hands went through a cycle of blisters, drying, and flaking. My hands just finished through this flare cycle but am starting to see the appearance of some blisters again. This got me really sad but usually these flares start at the sides of my fingers and then move to the palm side of my fingers. The blisters now are starting to form at the palm side of my fingers which I’m hoping is a really good sign that this upcoming flare will be less intense than the last one I had (which I would say was the worst one I’ve had). The past two flares I had on my hands were about 3-4 weeks long and a sign of healing would be if my hands flared up for a shorter period of time. My fingers are crossed!

My face has been doing relatively well. I cheated this past Saturday on my diet though and ate two mini cupcakes and a slice of cake. Oh boy, I was red and itchy and I think I still am facing the consequences as whenever I wake up my eyes are more red and swollen. The only thing that has gotten worse with my face these past two weeks is the flaking. My face and neck have been flaking like crazy and I’ve tried to exfoliate it but I need to find a better way to do so instead of just rubbing it. Whenever I feel like my face is too flaky, I will do an oatmeal face mask which will calm down my face.

Additionally, during week 10 I would wake up in the middle of the night frequently itching. I haven’t experienced that too much in week 11. I’ve also noticed that I haven’t been in the oozing/weeping stage yet (hope that I will not get to that) but if I itch the patches of eczema on my hands, they will either weep clear fluid or sometimes blood.

Overall, I feel like my eczema has gone through a flare and has healed. I’m definitely think that these past two weeks were the worst flare I’ve had though because I felt extremely tired and discouraged. The blisters stayed for so long and took so long to fall off. I couldn’t close my hands properly for the entire time and I still can’t even though the old blisters have fallen off. Sadly, more blisters are starting to form so I might not be able to close my hand in a fist for a while. Lastly, during week 9 I mentioned that I don’t think my eczema is spreading, but these past two weeks I realized it has, albeit slowly. Usually I have two patches that are relatively close to each other and overtime they slowly connect. Or what happens is that the patch grows slowly. I have been taking pictures of my patches here and there and when looking at the pictures at the beginning of this process compared to now there is a huge difference! It might be getting worse but it’ll be better in the long run!