More Than One Type Of Skin Eczema?

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The answer is, that there are a few differing kinds of eczema, each of which is believed to possess different causes.

Hence, the explanation for eczema depends on the particular kind of condition that the sufferer has. The main kinds of eczema that you simply are likely to return across are as follows, with the foremost widely accepted causes of each different type listed within the description.

Atopic Eczema

Atopic eczema is the most typical kind of eczema, which is believed to be a genetic disease. This condition has been mentioned as infantile eczema, thanks to the very fact it’s often something that’s hereditary, and this type of eczema is most seen in children. If one parent is an eczema sufferer, or if they suffer from pollinosis (pollinosis) or asthma, the child has a significantly higher chance of getting eczema. In fact, if both parents are eczema sufferers, the possibility of their child being affected by the condition is as high as 80%.

If your child suffers from atopic eczema, there’s an opportunity their system is overreacting to some sort of external stimuli like dust mites, pollen, animal hair, or skin flakes, and this may cause the skin to get inflamed and also cause skin irritation which results in the child to also suffer from itchy skin. Toddlers who may get affected by atopic dermatitis will start to demonstrate similar conditions to classical eczema. If these skin lesions are scratched with sufficient severity, it’s likely that the skin will bleed, raising the possibility of suffering infections.

Another possible problem is that a lot of eczema sufferers tend to scratch their skin to the degree that the skin may become tough, leathery, hard, and tough. These lesions will dry out, which causes the dry, flaky skin that’s so familiar to folks who regularly suffer eczema flareups. Fortunately, none of these particular aspects of suffering atopic dermatitis represent any quite serious medical problem, although if the skin is broken and infections enter the body, the story could be very different.

However, as any eczema sufferer will tell you, the itching which is perhaps the best-known symptom can cause serious discomfort. Although, in fact, adult eczema sufferers know better than to stay scratching the patches of eczema, this doesn’t mean that they will resist the urge when the itching becomes extreme. The problem is far worse for children. It is considerably harder to convince a toddler to prevent scratching, particularly as recent research suggests that there’s a scientific basis for believing that scratching an itch does genuinely provide relief.

One other ‘symptom’ of atopic eczema that’s occasionally seen in certain patients could also be seen for children’s ears to discharge a mixture of mucus and ear wax or maybe blood. This will most ordinarily happen when a toddler has dry eczema on the surface or just inside their ears. This is nothing to be particularly concerned about, neither is it unusual, It’s advisable to seek medical assistance if blood is present within the discharge, it may be prudent to seek medical advice so that you simply will find a minimum of building the reason for the matter.

Finally, as previously suggested, there’s strong evidence that atopic eczema may be a condition that’s exacerbated by a weak system. It, therefore, is wise to undertake to try to do everything for you to summon up the strength of your system to help fight against the condition.

Contact Dermatitis

This is a sort of eczema that’s caused by contact with irritants that can trigger an eczema flare­up. The reactions that you simply might suffer as a dermatitis sufferer can be categorized in one of two ways. In the first example, irritant dermatitis may be a condition that comes on extremely quickly after you have been exposed to a chemical substance that immediately irritates the skin. Approximately 75% of all contact dermatitis cases are irritant contact dermatitis.

This is often related to the very fact that the condition is the most common industrial disease that occurs in individuals in many industrialized Western countries. Those who work in industries such as chemical production, iron smelting, and the like often suffer contact dermatitis, albeit the individual employee has no past diary or family history of similar problems.

The second sort of dermatitis is understood as allergen contact dermatitis, which means the individual suffers a delayed reaction to some sort of contact previously with an allergen like poison ivy, pollen, etc. These two variations of dermatitis aren’t mutually exclusive. Depending on the strength of an individual’s immune system, it is quite possible to contract both forms of contact dermatitis at the same time, and possibly atopic dermatitis may additionally be seen.

Xerotic Eczema

This is a rare sort of eczema that’s caused by dry skin and is often seasonal. With this condition, the skin becomes so dry and cracked that the signs of lesions of eczema start to develop. This particular condition tends to develop in older people, with the main areas that are likely to be affected are the limbs and torso.

Less Common Forms Of Eczema

In addition to the three commonest types of eczema listed above, eczema also comes in different forms that are less widely known and less common variations of the condition.

These are as follows:

Dyshidrosis

Dyshidrosis only occurs on,  the soles of your feet or the palms of your hands, and the side of your fingers. This particular variation of eczema is characterized by tiny bumps known as vesicles and skin cracks that become itchier during the night than during the daylight hours. Although it is not common in comparison to atopic or contact eczema, Dyshidrosis is probably the most common hand eczema, one which worsens when the weather gets warmer.

Discoid eczema: 

In contrast to Dyshidrosis, Discoid eczema may be a condition that gets worse within the winter, identified by round red lesions, usually on the lower leg, which can either be excessively dry or oozing.

Neurodermatitis

This is a condition characterized by itchy lesions of pigmented, thickened eczema which is most commonly caused by continual rubbing and scratching. The cure for this particular form of eczema is straightforward – stop scratching and the condition generally goes away of its own volition!

Venous Eczema

Venous eczema usually occurs in people who have impaired circulation. It is a condition often seen in people who are over 50 years old, often appearing as a dark, scaly patch of intensely itchy skin in the ankle area. This type of eczema is not particularly considered dangerous, the condition can sometimes develop into painful and extremely unpleasant leg ulcers, so if you’re within the right age bracket and find dark, itchy patches of skin around your ankles, you should seek medical attention.

What Causes Eczema?

It’s often hereditary… As suggested earlier, it is generally believed that one of the main causes of eczema may be a hereditary predisposition to suffering from the condition. However, there has got to be some quiet trigger that causes a flare­up of the itchy red skin lesions that are characteristic of eczema. For example, a flare from dermatitis could be brought on by something as seemingly innocent as wearing rough clothes like those made up of wool or other similarly rough fabrics. Other causes may include the bleach we use, harsh soaps, and also tobacco smoke. Pet hair may also contribute to eczema.

Certain types of chemical cosmetics may also trigger eczema flare-ups, especially when it comes to youngsters who are susceptible to the condition. Nevertheless, the explanation for the commonest sorts of eczema is caused by a hereditary factor, perhaps one or both of your parents have had eczema at one time or another. Allergic reactions like asthma ­ a susceptibility that’s somehow passed on to their children.

One strong indication of this is often that within the USA, it’s generally agreed that approximately 15% of people (including young children and babies) might suffer from eczema. However, for around half the youngsters included in these statistics, their condition will improve gradually as they grow old, in order that by adulthood, they are clear of eczema. In this case, most children will grow out of their condition when they are between the ages of 5 and 15 years old. Not most are fortunate enough to remove eczema completely.

Adult numbers having a persistent eczema problem in the USA are usually estimated to be around 5.5% of the adult population of around 15 million US citizens. This indicates that only 1 in 3 or even 1 in 4 children will continue to suffer childhood eczema into their adult life. However, the news is not so encouraging everywhere, as a recent report in one of the UK’s main quality newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, reported that cases of eczema had risen by 42% in the four years prior to 2005 in the UK.

The same study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine suggested that as many as 1 in 9 citizens of the UK had suffered eczema at least once in their life. The study suggested that a part of the rationale is the modern obsession with soaps and detergents we use to stay clean.

However, it’s also probably true to suggest that another reason could be increased awareness of the condition from both medical professionals and patients themselves, which means more cases of eczema are being brought to medical attention and categorized as eczema than previously. In some cases this is because so little is basically known about eczema, there’s an identical lack of detailed scientific knowledge about other things that can bring on an eczema flare­up.

As you will read on so many eczema websites, what causes a major flare­up of the condition in one person will leave another completely untouched. It is therefore extremely difficult to say with any certainty what is likely to trigger an eczema attack in any particular individual. However, there are many factors that are believed to exacerbate the condition in those who are regular sufferers. There are therefore life changes that you simply can make that ought to reduce your tendency to suffer flare­ups of eczema. We need to study the causes of eczema and try to deal with the eczema problem in more natural ways.

Your Diet

Many medical professionals will diagnose a patient’s eczema problem on a topical basis, from a ‘natural treatment’ point of view, it’s often better to treat the condition on a ‘holistic’ whole-body basis. Put another way, it is always more effective to deal with a medical condition or problem from the inside out, rather than the other way around, and dealing with eczema is no exception. There are many foodstuffs that are believed to exacerbate eczema. It is, therefore, logical to consider changing your diet to remove any of the foodstuffs that are believed to cause eczema or to make the condition worse.

Before doing so, it’s nevertheless necessary to know that eczema is a condition that affects everybody differently. There is no way that you can know for a fact which of these foodstuffs will affect you in a detrimental way personally because every individual reacts differently to their own diet. As the saying puts it, ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Consequently, there is no way that you can remove any particular type of food from your diet with 100% certainty that doing so will help alleviate your eczema problem.

Nevertheless, it’s generally believed that a lot of the foods within the following list can make your eczema considerably worse. What you, therefore, have to do is experiment and check out removing certain foods from your diet or from the diet of your children if it is, they that suffer from eczema.

However, you ought to remove certain foods from your diet or from that of your family gradually, because if you are trying to vary everything at the same time and you see a marked improvement, you will have little idea of what foodstuffs were previously causing the problem. While it’d be a touch frustrating having to twiddle my thumbs while changing your diet, to gain any meaningful results from your ‘diet change experiment’, you have to change one thing at a time.

This is often referred to as following an elimination diet, where you remove one particular group of foods from your diet and keep that food group out of your diet for a period of at least two or three weeks.

During this time, you should keep a detailed diary so that you can record what is happening in terms of eczema flare­ups, and other possible problems. The basic idea is that if your eczema problem improves by a big margin while you’re avoiding certain foodstuffs only to return when you start reintroducing them to your diet, you’ve isolated a dietary problem that is exacerbating your eczema.

Medical Treatments For Eczema

Clinical diagnosis of eczema is most ordinarily supported by the appearance of a patient’s skin and on their family and private history. However, because there are many similar conditions to eczema (e.g. psoriasis), your doctor will need to examine your skin lesions in order to rule out alternative problems.

They may even get to perform a skin lesion biopsy to determine exactly what you’re affected by, although in most cases this is often unlikely to be necessary. Once your doctor has established that you simply are suffering from eczema, it’s likely that they’re going to recommend various courses of action depending upon the severity of your eczema problem. Nevertheless, regardless of what kind of treatment they prescribe for you, the last word objectives of the treatment will always be the same:

• To control and reduce itching;
• To reduce skin inflammation;
• To loosen then remove scaly skin lesions;
• to scale back the outbreak of the latest lesions; and
• To clear any infection that has already set in.

There are many strategies that your doctor may recommend you adopt as to ways of reducing the severity of your problem, starting from moisturizing your skin (more of which later), applying topical pharmaceuticals, or in additional serious cases, they may even recommend oral medications.

Most commonly, the medications that will be prescribed for treating your eczema are likely to be supported by corticosteroids, a kind of steroid hormone that’s naturally produced within the cortex. As a primary option, most medical practitioners will recommend a topical cream or ointment that’s supported by corticosteroids as the first­line treatment for eczema.

Many such corticosteroid creams are often bought across the counter without a prescription in Western countries, which suggests (quite correctly) that the creams that you simply buy aren’t especially strong. They are unlikely to possess any particularly adverse side­ effects either, but their effectiveness may be fairly limited.

If your condition continues to deteriorate or doesn’t improve, your doctor may prescribe you a corticosteroid cream or lotion, meaning that this particular topical treatment is probably going to be considerably stronger than the over-the-counter creams you may purchase at your pharmacy. It is widely accepted within the medical profession that long­term usage of corticosteroids can have adverse side­ effects, such as irreversible skin thinning.

Consequently, if your doctor prescribes topical corticosteroid ­based lotions or creams, it’s likely that they’re going to recommend that you simply only use them for a short period of time. The third corticosteroid ­based option is for your doctor to recommend oral corticosteroid drugs such as prednisone or prednisolone. While the potential adverse side effects of taking these drugs will depend upon the strength of the drug you’re taking and therefore the period of time you have to take it for, there are widely recognized adverse side effects of long­term use of drugs like these.

Herbal Alternatives

Aloe vera gel: Aloe vera gel is derived from the leaves of the aloe plant. People have used aloe vera gel for centuries to treat a wide range of ailments. One common use is to soothe eczema.

People can buy aloe vera gel in health stores or online, or they can purchase an aloe vera plant and use the gel directly from its leaves.

Apple cider vinegar: The National Eczema Association (NEA) reports that apple cider vinegar may help with the condition. However, they recommend using caution, as the vinegar’s acids can damage soft tissue.

To use apple cider vinegar in a wet wrap:

• Mix 1 cup of warm water and 1 tablespoon of vinegar.
• Apply the solution to cotton or gauze.
• Cover the dressing in clean cotton fabric.
• Leave it in the area for 3 hours.

To try an apple cider vinegar bath soak:

• Add 2 cups of apple cider vinegar to a warm bath.
• Soak for 15–20 minutes.
• Rinse the body thoroughly.
• Moisturize within several minutes of leaving the bath.

Coconut oil: Coconut oil contains healthy fatty acids that can add moisture to the skin, which can help people with dry skin and eczema.

Apply cold-pressed virgin coconut oil directly to the skin after bathing and up to several times a day. Use it before bed to keep the skin moisturized overnight.

Honey: Applied directly to eczema, honey could help prevent infections while moisturizing the skin and speeding healing.

Try dabbing a little honey onto the area. Manuka honey products designed for wound care and skin application are also available in many drug stores and online.

Tea tree oil: Manufacturers derive tea tree oil from the leaves of the Melaleuca alternifolia tree. People often use this oil to help with skin problems, including eczema.

Always dilute essential oils before using them on the skin. Try mixing tea tree oil with a carrier oil, such as almond or olive oil, then apply the solution. Some products include tea tree oil in a diluted form.

Always consult your doctor before using herbal alternatives.

Thank you for reading

Michael

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