before and after with Dr. Aron

From the Avene Clinic to Dr. Aron

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My daughter (9 yrs old) has had eczema since she was a few weeks old. We initially held it at bay with diet/breastfeeding and moisturising daily. She had a major flare following contact with raw egg and she was subsequently diagnosed with egg, milk, and dust mite allergy. She has always tested negative for coeliac disease and tolerates gluten well. We reduced/avoided all triggers and her eczema was managed well except for a few flare ups that were easily managed by short term low potency steroid until she was about 5.

Within a week of starting school Phoebe was covered with inflamed infected eczema. We diligently followed all the medical advice and finally reached a point where we could manage but not control her eczema with daily bleach baths, wet wrapping, steroids and topical antibiotic when needed. In 2014, Phoebe’s condition deteriorated again and so we saved and saved and sent her to the Avene Clinic for treatment. That treatment was amazing and it was the first relief she had experienced for years. When we returned home to Australia her skin almost immediately flared again. She had picked up another infection during our travels. We managed to get her skin back under control but it slowly deteriorated until we decided to return to Avene in September 2015.

We were extremely hopeful that with the second trip to Avene her skin would strengthen and this time she would be able to keep it clear and smooth. This time around even Avene didn’t work. Phoebe seemed to be allergic to Staph bacteria and nothing seemed to be able to control it.

Out of desperation I had posted a Facebook photo of Phoebe and a friend of a friend pointed me to Dr Aron. I was hugely sceptical. I did the research and the theory of the Aron Regime stood up, so I signed up. I am one week into treatment and its the first time Phoebe’s eczema has been under control for years.

SO, if you are doing everything; topical steroids, topical antibiotic, antihistamine, bleach baths, wet wrapping, oral antibiotics, probiotics, moisturising several times a day, and are still struggling with controlling your child’s eczema then you are where I was on 7th September this year.

Picture #1 is of Phoebe with an overwhelming staph infection. We were doing steroid, topical antibiotic, compresses/wet wraps, antihistamine, bleach baths and moisturising several times a day.

Picture #2 is of Phoebe on 23rd September after weeks of two different oral antibiotics in addition to all the treatment listed above.

Picture #3 is of Phoebe the night she return after 3 weeks of intensive hydrotherapy at Avene, France. There they had to continue oral antibiotic after she flared again in week 1 of treatment.

Picture#4 is of Phoebe after 1 week of the Dr. Aron creme. We are now doing 5 apps of the creme on her body and 3 apps on her face. No wet wraps, no oral antibiotic, no bleach baths, no additional moisturiser.

The most amazing thing is that Phoebe is no longer itchy.

You can find out more about Dr. Aron’s eczema treatment by visiting his Dr. Aron website or the Dr. Aron Eczema Treatment Discussion page.

Contemplating Dr. Aron’s Treatment

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I am a registered nurse.I have 3 children. My daughter, who is my last child, was born w eczema.

This was our life…

Go to the dr get some hydrocortisone.. Use it often.. Keeps coming back.. People start giving recommendation for creams.. Use Aquaphor, Eucerin, Cetaphil. Some work but only for a little while. Back to the doctor. Here’s another steroid that’s a little stronger.. Yay – it worked. But not for long. So we use aveeno baths, oatmeal baths some more creams. Use free and clear they say.. Free and clear – everything is bought. No help. Trip back to the doctor. Go to the allergist and get a list of allergies. Avoid gluten, avoid dairy and you will see improvement. Yay – but not for long.

So you buy some books.. The eczema diet, how to cure eczema. You feed your baby papaya because it’s great for the skin the book says.. But she hates it along with the bone broth so you’re feeling defeated yet again.

Let me try some Vaseline with the steroid or maybe Cervae. Oh what the hell – slap on the coconut oil too. No help.

Let’s see the dermatologist..

Here’s 3 meds.. 2 are steroids… Yay – some relief but not for long. So what’s next? More steroids but let’s try a bleach bath or a vinegar one. That will work they say. Hey wrap that baby up in wet pajamas filled with creams and put her to bed. Tomorrow will be better – but tomorrow is Zyrtec in the morning, Benadryl in the afternoon and don’t forget the nightly Atarax. All day long – apply, apply the meds.. The foam steroid and the cream. Oh no – the ointment topical is better they say.

We are still covered in this awful disease so it’s back to the doctor.

Try some immunosuppressant creams. “It’s ok the black box warning was only tested on rats no cancer in kids” they say.

So you’re home and helpless and hesitantly applying the cream hoping for a miracle but relief is short lived. Here’s some oral steroids..

“I’m sorry honey. You don’t like the taste. I will go to pharmacy and have it flavored. I will put it in juice, milk, even soda if you will just drink it. I’m sorry my precious girl! I am trying my best to help you. After you’re wrapped like a mummy, I will search the Internet for the answers.

And then you stumble upon Dr. Aron…

And you wonder and contemplate, but the internet is a scary place. How can you be sure? You ask your doctor and the answer is that “steroids and antibiotic use is not meant long term.” You sit and suddenly it dawns on you..

I have been applying steroids for 5 years straight. Each time a new one or a new combo of multiple meds. How can you say what you have been doing isn’t long term???? They say “Eczema is a chronic condition and should b treated w steroids no more than a week or 2.” A diabetic, an asthmatic, a person with high blood pressure are people treated long term because it’s considered “chronic” – as it should be for eczema sufferers.

So I contemplated..

What’s 6 more months of giving this a try??? It’s heavily diluted. What do I have to lose? It’s been 5 years of long term steroid use. So I did it.. I bit the bullet.. I tried Dr. Aron.

5 months later my baby is unwrapped and healthy and happy. We no longer use the cream even daily!!! We were given our lives back.. And I would never spend another minute giving any doctor the time of day to tell me about long term steroid use because in reality, that’s what they are doing to our children anyway!!!

Very thankful to Dr. Aron and the Dr. Aron Facebook group.

Before and after pic of topical steroid withdrawal

Leaving Topical Steroid Withdrawal Behind and Finding Healing

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I’ve had eczema since around the age of 7. In the past few months, I can only understand that it was an emotional trauma that set it off. With help from my therapist (yes I got so ill I had to see a therapist) we went back through the years and found that to be the only likely trigger. So… between the age of 7 to around 9 months ago I’ve had a long eczema journey. I don’t remember it that much as a child, just a lot of doctors visits and sleeping in gloves and waking up in a bed of my own blood. For my mum I think it was pretty tough on her. Doctors wouldn’t send me to a dermatologist (got to love the NHS) and so each time we would be sent home with a new cream and it was always the same process; tears, pain, progress and then eczema again. Nothing ever really worked. Finally at 13 I was sent to a dermatologist. The awkward self conscious teen seemed to win them over. I was prescribed Eumovate, Elecon and Doublebase. It worked so much better than anything else I’d had and the end seemed to be in sight. It then became very sporadic. Months of just double base apps several times a day, always a mild itch and a flare every few months. I do always remember that this got worse at university. I have recently discovered my skins intolerance to alcohol so anybody who went to university can clearly understand why the flare ups got so bad and came much more often than usual.

At times it would get me down but I always considered myself to have mild eczema. I still complained a lot but I distinctly remember seeing a boy of about 7 in the dermatologists waiting room, red raw and seeping and couldn’t believe how bad some children had it.

Around November/December last year I had my drink spiked, badly, and I was ill for around 3 or 4 days. My skin reacted very, very badly. Knowing that after a lot of alcohol my flares were bad I put it down to that. I plopped on some steroids but it didn’t seem to go away as fast as it usually. This is where it all began.

I was advised by a work colleague to go about it the natural way and to “clear” the eczema from my body. At this time I had no idea that TSW (topical steroid withdrawal) was actually a ‘thing’. I just thought of it as a body cleanse. So I stopped all creams and started using organic oils and started drinking green clay. By the first week of January it had begun. I came out of the shower one morning and my face was burning hot and bright red. I thought I’d just had the shower on too hot. (Anyone with eczema knows the relief of hot water on itchy skin). This continued through the day and the next and the next…

3 weeks in and it was worse, much worse. I had at this point stopped all meat and alcohol and am relying on oils and green clay water mix for relief. The dryness began and the redness developed into a constant, deep intense pain. My skin got tight, it ripped, it seeped, and clothes and human contact felt like burns to the touch. I had never experienced anything like this before. Later my eyes swelled everyday and I’d wake up in the morning and they’d be glued shut. At night time itching was the worst and I’d become accustomed to 3 hours sleep a night. I was in hell.

I went through almost 8 months of TSW and they were without a doubt, the worst 8 months of my entire life. Quite frankly I didn’t have a life. I stopped speaking to all my friends and family, my relationship with my boyfriend was getting worse day by day. Imagine someone you love touching you and it feels like they’re burning you. Every sexual desire no longer existed. I was so repulsed by myself I couldn’t understand why he would still want to be intimate with me. The only time we spent close to one another was when he was applying oil to my elephant like dry skin or when he’d have to hold me so tight to bring me down from one of my panic attacks. For him too, it was hell and it tore us apart.

I cried every single day and would have to rock myself to sleep wrapped in bandages and layers because my own skin was nauseating to the touch. I’ve had poison leak out of my face, every day (at least 3 times) I’d have to sweep up piles of my own dead skin, I’ve vomited from the pain and passed out from the pain. I developed anxiety and panic attacks. I became so terrified to shower. I’ve torn my own skin open from scratching because it became so thin and weak and lost I lost about 2 and a half stone (in 2 months or maybe even less) at sheer repulsion of myself that it destroyed my appetite – not to mention I didn’t sleep through the night. Ever.

Then the paranoia set in. I became obsessed. I lived on rice and veg as I was too scared to put anything else in my body in case it would affect my skin more. I became terrified of steroids, and almost anything pharmaceutical. I even refused to take paracetamol at one stage as I was convinced all medicine was made to give me and other people cancer. My body and now my brain became my a prison. I was in a dark, bad place. My GP wanted to put me on anti depressants, and I’m not sure if I would have ever done anything but I thought numerous times about suicide. I just wanted it to all go away. I wanted to live in the dark and never see or speak to anyone ever again.

In May 2015 a man approached me in the park on day while I was working. He clearly saw me scratching and I was so annoyed that he asked as it made me so self conscious. He told me about a man named Dr Aron who had saved his leg from a spider bite infection and had treated his wife for eczema. I thought this man was crazy. He gave me Dr Arons number and told me to call him that day and said that once I had the cream, within a week I’d have my life back. What?! how could I believe that? All this time and someone could make me normal in a week… I didn’t believe it.

I joined the Dr. Aron page on Facebook, looked at Dr. Aron’s website and was still in disbelief. The state I was in I don’t think I wanted to believe it. I had gone through the worst period of my life and I felt like it had counted for nothing.

One day I was lying on my floor in tears watching the liquid just seep out of my skin and it couldn’t take a day more so I sent off my payment and waited…

The second night of cream I slept through the entire night – the first time in 8 months. I don’t think I can describe that feeling. The words don’t exist. I went back home to start the first week of treatment and rest so my mum could help and I called her in and sat and cried in her arms at the prospect that this all might be over.

I’m now 6 weeks in and I have my life back! I’m happy, positive, and so excited to get up in the morning. My world has changed. I had really forgotten what happiness was. Parts of my skin are perfect but my arms calves and feet are proving to be a bit stubborn, but this isn’t even 1% of what I went through before. The tough parts still itch and aren’t very attractive but I know I’ve suffered for a while and the healing will take time. Dr Aron has saved my life!

If you told me taking this cream would work but would knock 20 years off my life I’d still take! I never want to go through what I have this past year.

My skin is healing so fast but the psychological scars are still there. I think they are the ones that take the longest to heal.

Bath Time is Fun Again!

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Before Dr. Aron, bath time involved stripping our little one while he screamed that he wasn’t dirty and ripped his skin open when we weren’t looking. It involved adding bleach to his bath, and having bandages for his arms and legs on stand by, along with a steroid and Vaseline. It always involved screaming, tears…and promises to be good if we’d just end the bath. Heart wrenching in ways that folks who don’t deal with eczema in their little ones don’t even realize.

Today…rather than prying footie jammies off of a screaming 3 year old who has so many strong opinions about the way things should work…he stripped down and hopped in the bath with glee! He played with toys and even did the hair washing thing with laughing….He’s been running a low grade fever for 4 days…its viral (which is eh…as he’s allergic to so many antibiotics anyway), so we’re in symptom treating and wait and see….but he’s so gosh darn cheerful and isn’t ripping his flesh open just because his nose is running. We have a minor flare but its endurable.
To say that I am grateful is a gross understatement. Dr. Aron gave us our life back.

Seeing is Believing

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This is my 2 week update, using Dr. Aron’s treatment for my child’s eczema.

They say that seeing is believing and if that is the case, then my daughter Elizabeth should certainly help many of you see what a difference this past 2 weeks has made. 14 days of Dr Aron and I don’t recognize this happy, cheerful, playful, smiley child. Before 2 weeks ago, she was always crying, itchy, screaming, miserable, not sleeping and it made all of us stressed to the max and downright sad. Her life revolved around wet wraps, gauze, bandages, anti itch creams, Atarax and daily baths that made her scream bloody murder. To say I was a prisoner in my own home is an understatement. I’d take her to the grocery store sometimes and I’d get asked if she had measles. Not now. 2 weeks ago I told her that we were no longer wet wrapping and that we were going to make her better. Part of me thought I was lying to her. Most of me knew I was lying to myself because I really thought, like every other treatment, that this wasn’t going to work. Well, the joke is on me. Not only has it been working, it has worked in a way I can’t even comprehend.

We started out at 5 applications a day and are now down to 3. I’ll be contacting Dr Aron in a couple of more days, as he requested, and I’m hoping to drop it down even further. I’ll do another update in a week. That should be a good one because she will see our family doctor and he hasn’t seen her since a week before this treatment started and I’d taken her in because she’d torn her arm open again. Last time he saw her, it looked like she was attacked by a cheese grater.

For moderate cases of eczema too!

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I used to think that Dr Aron wasn’t right for us because our daughter Anna’s eczema wasn’t “bad” enough.

Yes, Anna was seen by hospital dermatology (even though they were trying their best to discharge her). Yes, we were applying strong, neat steroids all over her body every week (to not particularly good effect). And yes, her eczema had a huge impact on our family life and was probably the thing that was stressing me out the most (much more than her brother’s type 1 diabetes, which is quite saying something since managing diabetes is a 24-hour job and can be life-threatening if things go badly wrong).

But Anna wasn’t missing school, she wasn’t being hospitalised for infections and she was even sleeping ok (albeit scratching while she slept). Anna’s eczema didn’t have nearly the same devastating impact as many of Dr Aron’s other patients I read about and, in my head at least, doing an online consultation with a dermatologist half way around the world was the sort of thing that only a very desperate person would do.

In July 2014, after reading about more and more happy eczema-turns-good stories in the ‘Dr Aron eczema treatment discussion group’ (and there were only about 100 members in the group at that time compared to over 2000 now), I decided that enough was enough and I wanted Anna to enjoy the benefits of the Aron regime too. A few days later, our first pot of cream arrived and we haven’t looked back. She has been practically eczema-symptom-free ever since and life is great. My one regret, which is a common one amongst Dr Aron patients, is that we didn’t start sooner.

However mild, moderate or severe you think you or your child’s eczema is, the fact that you are reading this means that the eczema is an issue for you (normal people don’t read eczema websites for fun!). So I say to you, why not give Dr Aron a go? What have you got to lose? I have heard so many people say it is the best decision they ever made!