So I think many of them feel it’s just the eczema coming back. “And the extreme photos that one sees on the internet are what a lot of dermatologists would recognise as erythroderma. “To the medical profession, it’s a term that covers a lot of different possibilities,” says Prof Celia Moss of the British Association of Dermatologists. It cannot be listed on medical records, for example, because it’s considered “self-diagnosis”, and dermatologists do not agree on what it is, why it occurs or how it affects patients.
Clobetasol topical skin#
After a report by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2021, guidance on the risks of TSW (typically skin redness, burning, stinging, intense itching, peeling of the skin or oozing open sores) is now included as patient information with all topical steroids.ĭespite this, TSW is still not a properly recognised condition. For some people, withdrawal causes an extreme rebound response worse than the initial condition, with wide-ranging physical symptoms that can last months to years. The definition of what Topical Steroid Withdrawal ( TSW) actually encompasses is still extremely loose. For the unlucky few – and it is unclear who falls into this category, although according to a 2021 study, it does appear to be mostly women – they can cause RSS and TSW. For millions of people, they are a safe and effective tool for controlling skin conditions. They work by suppressing inflammation and constricting blood vessels to reduce blood flow. Eczema affects one in five children and one in 10 adults in the UK, and consequently, about 10.5m tubes of topical steroids are prescribed every year. Topical corticosteroids have been the bread-and-butter medication for doctors treating patients with skin conditions for more than 50 years. I searched the terms on social media and was greeted with hundreds of faces from all over the world that looked just like mine. It was then that I discovered Red Skin Syndrome (RSS or Topical Steroid Addiction) and Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW), rare conditions that can be caused by the use and subsequent cessation of topical steroids. Without a sufficient explanation from dermatologists, I turned to the internet. It was around this time that I began to think something was seriously wrong. Plagued by an itch that persisted 24 hours a day, I would wake up after very little sleep covered in welts.
By this point I was under the care of a dermatologist and I was told to keep applying while I waited to begin a course of phototherapy, UV light therapy that can help reduce skin inflammation. Regardless, the raging red rash continued to spread all over my body, and my face was permanently scarlet. By 2019, I was slathering my body in clobetasol, the highest grade topical steroid available in the UK, which I had access to on repeat prescription. I was stuck in a spiral of using stronger and stronger topical steroids. Over the next six years or so, my skin deteriorated. Abigail Lowe at the height of her problems with steroids.
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