Oilatum

Ah ha! How did I ever forget about this product, Oilatum bath oil. When I was working in Hong Kong for 2 years, the doctor there recommended me to this product to keep my skin moist. I had forgotten about this until I was buying my supply of Aveeno Eczema Care Cream and it was right next to it.

I'm using it again and it's working of course and helping me keep in my moisture right after my shower and before I put on my Aveeno. Though it is a bath oil, you can also use it with your sponge in the shower! So glad I found this again. Once the bathroom is completed, I can't wait to soak in it.

So if your skin is feeling dry, especially now when Fall and Winter is coming. Start looking for this. Well.ca sells this on their website and I also found mine at Walmart. :) About the same price.

Keep moisturizing! My regime seems to be working out really well for the past few months. Yipee!

Dermatologist Defends Oat-Based Emollients for Eczema : Internal Medicine News

Dermatologist Defends Oat-Based Emollients for Eczema : Internal Medicine News

Aveeno Ezcema Care Cream Update and Cetaphil Restoraderm

Wow what a beautiful Saturday, it's 26 degree Celsius outside but feels like about 30 under the sun. As you know though, with the medicated cream I'm using for my eczema, I cannot be exposed to the sun or I'll burn or goodness know what else more.

On a good note, the Aveeno Ezcema Care Cream I'm using for body moisturizer is really hydrating my skin. I'm not flaky anymore since I've started using it. Sometime I alternate between the Cetaphil Resotraderm lotion which also has ceramide as the ingredients. :) The Cetaphil is a lotion so it's not as thick and creamy as the Aveeno but it still helps. Another difference is that sometimes the Cetaphil stings my skin if it's broken, so when I am a bit rashy I won't use the Cetphil. And Cetaphil though it's moisturizing, it doesn't keep my skin as moisturized as Aveeno does through out the day. I have to reapply the Cetaphil to feel the hydrating affect.

Let's hope this moisturizing routine will continue to work when winter comes. :)

Ceramide Creams for Eczema

So I've started using Aveeno Eczema Care Cream since my last visit with my doctor. She recommended that I try Aveeno for my dry skin and I told her at the time that I've tried using it but it didn't work. However, I did go and looked for the cream and came across the special cream for Eczema, so I bought it and am using it ever since. The difference between the regular Aveeno Cream and the Aveeno Eczema Care Cream is the ingredient Ceramide. I read on the internet that some Eczema suffers benefit from Ceramides to help moisturize and heal the skin.

I've been using it for about a month now and have noticed the difference. I mean at least my skin is not flaking off and oh yes, the bad rash I had on my right hand disappeared. I'm not saying that it works all by itself, what I'm saying is that by using the Aveeno Eczema Care Cream my medicated cream was able to do it's job. My skin was so so dry that the healing never worked. I can't tell you have happy I am now looking at the top of the back of my hand. I remember sitting in my car and just bursting into tears because my hand looked like it belonged to a 90 year old lady and there wasn't anything that was working. It was so itchy, it drove me insane!!

Now, the back of my hands are not red and flaky anymore. It only took one week for the signs of healing.

Right now I'm stilling using the cream with my medicated cream and it seems that it's also helping the numular eczema spots I have. I think that's what it is. They are in spots and raised before and they are very itchy. But now, it seems they are starting to heal as well. It's taking slower but they are really nasty itchy raised spots that is also driving me nuts. However, the itchy is less intense now and I'm continually putting the cream on it and also my medicated cream. I'm hoping the raises spots will flatten...though they are very noticeable and will scar, all I really care about now is that they do not drive me nuts from itchiness.

So from this experience, I'm also looking into these ceramide based creams. This article I found recommended a few that I'm going to buy and see if they help as well. Check it out.

If you have very dry skin, you should try and see if Aveeno Eczema Care Cream will work for you. I'll let you know if the other ceramide creams are good as well or better. ;) Later.

Calendula and Herbal Medicine

So, it's been almost 5 months since my last entry and I've continued to figure out how to alleviate my eczema without having to use steroid ointments. Now, I'm not saying that I have not used my medicated creams within these 5 months but I've been trying to use less of it as I found they were not working so well anyways.

The reason why I started using calendula oil (pure calendula) is because it is 100% sting free!!! That's the ticket. I mean my skin was so raw and red that anything I used on it stung. I have so many lotions I've bought thinking because they were for sensitive skin that they would not sting but NO, they stung and hurt like hell. Keri lotion was the one that

stung me the most, which was surprising to me. :(

Basically I looked for lotions with calendula oil and Nivea has a lotion called SOS Skin Relief Body Lotion, it is really good and it really moisturizes my skin without stinging me. But that 200ml squeeze bottle is really costly..$11.99 at Shoppers and $10.99 at Walmart. However, Walmartdoesn't seem to have it in stock anymore. :( The pure calendula oil I buy is $10.29 at the Nutrition House and that is in a 30ml bottle. I use it directly on certain areas and diluted with avocado oil for overall. :0) It really does the job with moisturizing and oddly enough drying up those areas which need to dry up to get better.

The SOS Skin Relief really does work in total boby moisturizing without stinging me so I'm hopeful that it will continue to benefit my skin. Calendula oil helps with healing so that another reason why I looked for this oil in the first place. I found as I got older it was harder for my skin to heal properly...or even at all. Since I've started using Calendula oil, my skin is slowly healing in places where it never wanted to before.

Now, on the Chinese medicine. A couple of months ago my skin was so bad that nothing seemed to be working so I finally listened to my mom and saw a Chinese herbal doctor. I've been

drinking the dark, bitter and sour cup of medicine every night for the past couple of months and it's helping me clean my system I think. I'm starting to see normal skin that is not red. I'm not going to lie, the boiling of the medicine is very tedious and drinking it every night is not something I look forward to, but I'm desperate. I can't go on not sleeping at night, and every move I made hurt like hell because my skin was red and raw. It's

like even when it's raw it's still itchy and how am I to scratch that? Sometimes in the middle of the night I do scratch the raw areas and that's when hell breaks loose and I seriously just want to skin myself and replace it with someone else's beautiful skin. It's so hard to explain why I can't stop scratching to people and I'm always on edge. Makes working with others so difficult and I really want to slap myself for being impatient and bitchy sometimes at work.

I've been off for a day before the weekend and looking at my skin, it's improving day by day. The weather may have a bit to do with the recovery I think. It's not as cold anymore and Spring l

ike weather is finally here.

I'm going to continue drinking the Chinese medicine and using the lotions that seem to be working out for me. I mean if they sting I would use them and therefore stay dry and cracked. Now that I've finally found some useful lotions, I hope to continue to improve my condition.

Oh one more lotion that works, Skin Relief Body Lotion SOS but then it is with

Panthenol and Calendula. This lotion doesn't sting either and the texture feels good on my skin as well. 400ml but I forget how much it was...it's cheaper than the 200ml lotion with calendula though for sure. The texture feels a bit different from the 200ml bottle. I think the 400ml is a bit less runny/oily.

Okay, so that's what I've been using and doing to alleviate my eczema for the past 5 months. I will provide more details on further progress soon.

If you are looking for a healing and comforting remedy, I really recommend Calendula oil. :)

Happy better eczema management 2011 !

2010 was a havoc year for me with managing my eczema. Haven't kept up with my updates on product discoveries but trust me I'm still searching.

I'm not sure if it was stress this time as my 2010 was pretty good in terms of stress. The usual work related and personal stresses but nothing major that I would attribute to my eczema break outs. In fact, the problem I had were not really break outs but constant annoying spots of eczema that doesn't go away, coupled with the occasional break outs from food or stress.

Dare I say those spots are starting to heal up? I finally found a combination of products to help with the healing. One of them I didn't think I would've bought if I had been careful and read the label. I have always thought I was allergic to Almond oil because I'm allergic to Almonds but maybe there isn't enough of it to affect me in the new product I am using right now. It's Weleda Baby Calendula Oil. I got mine at the local health store but if you click on the link you can also get is at Well.ca.

I read that Calendula is good for healing purposes and since my i

ssue with my annoying eczema spots is really healing, I thought I would try it. I remembered using a calendula cream when I was younger but I didn't like the smell nor the yellow stain it left on my skin. That was many years ago and I can't remember how I got that cream, I think it was a friend who recommended me to it but I really didn't like it. However, this oil smells really pleasant, something like a massage oil from the spa. :)

I figured out a way to use it that would make it less oily on my skin. After shower, I would put some on all over my body (extra bonus, it doesn't sting) and then before I pad off the excess water I would first rinse off with very cool water. I swear that right after my skin feels so moist and I feel refreshed. At first I didn't do that but remembered going to the spa for a massage and the lady asked me to rinse off with cool water instead of hot water for a reason...don't remember what but I think it's to tighten your skin and lock in the moisture. It works better with the oil. When I didn't rinse off with the cool water, my skin felt a bit too oily but after the quick cool rinse, it feels more refresh. Can't explain that but it works well. :)

Another natural product I got was Califlora Calendula Gel from the pharmacy around the corner from my office. I went there to get my usual prescription of steriod cream but wanted to get something natural to help my trouble spots heal. The pharmacist recommended this gel. Again, the great thing about it is that it did not sting my broken skin. The trouble areas doesn't seem like ezcema anymore and more like a cut trying to heal, so I needed help in that department. As you get older, the healing process takes forever. :( I tried looking for a Canadian website with this product in case you want to try this, but was only able to find U.S. website. Try this one just in case you want to order online but you can also visit your local pharmacy or health store to see if they have it as well. Good thing about this is that it's all natural. :) Califlora Calendula Gel

Near the end of the year I also made some orders for natural products from Kiss My Face but the ordering process was a pain in the neck. Never doing that again, will just go to the local health store instead. I haven't tried the shampoo and conditioner I ordered yet but the mousse smells great.

I also ordered this lotion that my dermatologist recommended to me 2 years ago but I couldn't find it in Toronto. Not sure if I had mentioned this but Curel changed something in their ingredients I think and it doesn't work so well on my skin anymore. They say it's good for eczema but truly the lotion does not work for me anymore. :( So I ordered Cetraben cream online. Was only able to find it from a UK site, I'm sure I didn't search enough but I just didn't want to search anymore. Still waiting for it to reach me though. I hope nothing went wrong with the order. Will let you know how well it works once I finally receive the order. ;)

Okay that's it for now. I hope you will try using the Calendula oil or gel to help with your eczema, the most important benefit for me for these two products is that they DO NOT STING. :)

Till next week.