Edit: I have found a cream that clears up my eye eczema and has also helped many others. Please scroll down to the bottom of the post for this if you don't want to read my whole story and just want to find out what got rid of the eczema.

This is a bit of a different post from me today, and is quite a personal one and something I'm really self-conscious and sensitive about. It's going to be very long, and have some really gross photos towards the end. But I hope you'll continue reading, because I hope that someone out there will be able to help me somehow, or will know someone who can help me.

I've had eczema for as long as I can remember. There isn't a time where I can't remember having it. When I was younger I would always get it under my knees and in the inside of my elbows, and I had to bathe in E45emollient. It would usually strike during Autumn and Winter when the heating came on and cold weather arrived, and for some reason when I was a child seawater also flared it up (thankfully I seemed to grow out of this!).

Anyway, nothing has ever really worked for it, I've always had to just bear with it and let it run its course until it went down by itself. Although the bath emollient worked, the E45 cream has never worked, and I feel as though I've tried every product out there, from natural to chemical. The only good thing about it being under my knees and in my elbows, was that I could cover it up with clothing, so no one had to see it.

When I was 14 I finally found the perfect solution. I was back in Australia for a holiday and we went down to Albany for a week. We visited the Sandalwood Factory down there and I found Mount Romance Damage Control. At the time I was suffering from eczema really badly, and within a few hours of using the Damage Control oil, it was already going down. I also had a huge patch on my left wrist, it was so sore it looked diseased, it was a huge spread of eczema all across my wrist and was so dry it was cracking and bleeding. After a couple of days of applying Damage Control every hour, it had completely disappeared.

Then disaster struck. I started getting eczema on my eyelids and under-eye. I couldn't hide this with clothing. It was on show for all to see, and it was humiliating. My eyes were bright red and cracked - it looked as though there was something seriously wrong with me. Despite the Damage Control telling me not to use it on eyes, I did, and it worked. It stung like hell, but it worked.

A couple of years ago I had allergy tests done, and I discovered the reason behind my eczema. I'm allergic to mould. This also explains why my asthma is worse during autumn. Asthma and eczema are connected, and the mould flares them both up. During autumn when the leaves fall off the trees, they decay on the ground and mould spores rise into the air, getting into your lungs and going onto your skin. For those who are allergic, it's a nightmare, and different people have different reactions to it.

About two months ago my eczema on my eyes flared up again, but this time the Damage Control didn't work. My trusty saviour for the past seven years failed me, and I needed something else that would work ASAP. Incredibly painful, itchy and completelyunsightly, my eyes were red raw with the skin flaking off, and I was waking up with my eyes completely swollen. I spent ages sitting there with a bag of frozen peas on them before leaving for work, and as you can imagine, my tube journeys to work involved me keeping my head down. I felt myself constantly worrying about what people were thinking when they looked at me.

A couple of weeks ago I found the E45 Intensive Recovery for 'very dry skin', and to be honest, it's amazing. I've been using it regularly on my eyelids for the past few days, and they're back to being smooth. But today I read an article on the chemicals inside it, and learnt that some of them are actually very toxic. I'm furious, absolutely fuming, that the Doctor told me to put this on my EYES of all places! Not only does E45 contain Sodium Sulphate's, but it also contains Propylparaben, which is an irritant that even has links to causing cancer.

So I'm back to square one. I need to stop using the E45, and once again I need to find something else that's natural and organic. The problem is I don't know where to start, which brand to trust, and I honestly can't afford to keep spending all this money on products I use a few times before realizing they're not going to work or are making it worse. Not only is it horrible and disgusting to look at, but it's incredibly painful. The constant pain and itch stresses me out, and when it's particularly bad I can feel my heart racing from the stress. It's truly horrible.

Read more here:
Lux Life - UK Lifestyle Blog: My Struggle With Eye Eczema.