What You Need to Know About Eyelid Eczema to Put it to Bed Forever
When most people think of eczema, they imagine it on parts of the body other than eyelids like the inside of the elbows, hands or fore arms.
Eyelid eczema is actually quite a common form of eczema and because of the location it is particularly uncomfortable and painful because the skin of the eyelid is delicate and sensitive.
The symptoms, causes and treatment particular to eyelid eczema will be discussed here to help you understand it better and thus manage it better.
As with most other forms of eczema, eyelid eczema presents with the characteristic red, itchy inflamed skin.
The skin may also be scaly because of dryness and in some cases even weepy with serous matter.
The severity of eyelid eczema varies from an uncomfortable irritation to cases severe enough to disrupt regular daily activities and undermine quality of life.
The badly swollen and inflamed lids may also have cosmetic complications and can also impact on a person's self esteem.
Before you consider treatment for your eyelid eczema, you need to be certain that you are suffering from it.
You can confirm this by consulting with a professional and get a definitive diagnosis.
The treatment of eyelid eczema is similar to other forms of eczema, but has the added difficulty because of the location of the lesions.
Upon applying moisturizing emollients, care should be taken not to allow any to come in contact with the eye and irritate it.
After emollient, the next step in treatment would be the application of topical corticosteroids to get the inflammation on the skin under control.
This is an effective approach, but unfortunately long term use of topical corticosteroids is not advisable because of potential side effects like the thinning of the skin and enlargement of blood vessels, impaired growth in children and adversely affects on the endocrine system.
More modern topical drugs called immunomodulators have been developed that do not have the side effects of corticosteroids after long term use.
In essence, the inmmunomodulators suppresses the immune system locally and therefore treats and prevents the inflammatory response.
The only drawback about these new drugs is that they are much more expensive than most of the corticosteroids.
Everyone has heard the saying "prevention is better than cure".
This is especially true when it comes to the treatment of eyelid eczema because if you can avoid applying creams or ointment to you eyes, you'd probably want to.
You must know exactly what triggers your eczema and avoid it.
The triggers may include environmental irritants like common household soap, detergents, cosmetics, make-up, perfumes etc.
Allergens are also culprits and include dust, pollen, animal hair etc.
Stress also plays a big role in the cause and aggravation of eczema, so it is important to know your sources of stress and learn how to handle them.
Eczema in general is a skin condition all eczema sufferers would prefer to be without, but eyelid eczema is especially uncomfortable for reasons more than just the physical discomfort.
If you can learn how to prevent your eczema from flaring up your life would be considerably more comfortable.
With the guidelines set out in this article, you should be able to prevent your eyelid eczema and also treat it once it flares up.
Good luck!
Eyelid eczema is actually quite a common form of eczema and because of the location it is particularly uncomfortable and painful because the skin of the eyelid is delicate and sensitive.
The symptoms, causes and treatment particular to eyelid eczema will be discussed here to help you understand it better and thus manage it better.
As with most other forms of eczema, eyelid eczema presents with the characteristic red, itchy inflamed skin.
The skin may also be scaly because of dryness and in some cases even weepy with serous matter.
The severity of eyelid eczema varies from an uncomfortable irritation to cases severe enough to disrupt regular daily activities and undermine quality of life.
The badly swollen and inflamed lids may also have cosmetic complications and can also impact on a person's self esteem.
Before you consider treatment for your eyelid eczema, you need to be certain that you are suffering from it.
You can confirm this by consulting with a professional and get a definitive diagnosis.
The treatment of eyelid eczema is similar to other forms of eczema, but has the added difficulty because of the location of the lesions.
Upon applying moisturizing emollients, care should be taken not to allow any to come in contact with the eye and irritate it.
After emollient, the next step in treatment would be the application of topical corticosteroids to get the inflammation on the skin under control.
This is an effective approach, but unfortunately long term use of topical corticosteroids is not advisable because of potential side effects like the thinning of the skin and enlargement of blood vessels, impaired growth in children and adversely affects on the endocrine system.
More modern topical drugs called immunomodulators have been developed that do not have the side effects of corticosteroids after long term use.
In essence, the inmmunomodulators suppresses the immune system locally and therefore treats and prevents the inflammatory response.
The only drawback about these new drugs is that they are much more expensive than most of the corticosteroids.
Everyone has heard the saying "prevention is better than cure".
This is especially true when it comes to the treatment of eyelid eczema because if you can avoid applying creams or ointment to you eyes, you'd probably want to.
You must know exactly what triggers your eczema and avoid it.
The triggers may include environmental irritants like common household soap, detergents, cosmetics, make-up, perfumes etc.
Allergens are also culprits and include dust, pollen, animal hair etc.
Stress also plays a big role in the cause and aggravation of eczema, so it is important to know your sources of stress and learn how to handle them.
Eczema in general is a skin condition all eczema sufferers would prefer to be without, but eyelid eczema is especially uncomfortable for reasons more than just the physical discomfort.
If you can learn how to prevent your eczema from flaring up your life would be considerably more comfortable.
With the guidelines set out in this article, you should be able to prevent your eyelid eczema and also treat it once it flares up.
Good luck!