In trying to set up
this blog, I wanted to gather some statistics about eczema – in particular I
wanted to know about how many people were affected by eczema.
Amazingly, I could
only find two main UK statistics:
1 in 5 children suffer from eczema
1 in 10 adults suffer
from eczema
Other than this, the
only interesting information I could find on the topic of eczema was a BBC article, last updated in 2009,
which stated that between 2001 and 2005 there was a 42% increase in the number of people who
were diagnosed with the condition in the UK.
I also found some
information stating that 35 million
Americans suffer from the condition, 1-3% of adults and 10-20% of children.
Another statistic I found interesting was that 60% of infants continue to have
one or more symptoms in adulthood in the USA.
But what about the affect
the eczema has on these people? What about the treatments they use? The
treatments they find most effective?
None of these issues
were raised in any of the statistics I could find.
And so I took finding
answers into my own hands by releasing a survey,
which 60 (and still counting!) brilliant eczema sufferers have given their time
to complete.
So far, here are the
most interesting results of the survey:
- 75% of people find that their eczema keeps
them up at night.
- 95% of people say that eczema makes them
conscious about their appearance.
- Perhaps surprisingly to some people who do
not suffer from eczema, 83% of people who complete the survey believe that
eczema has, at some point, had a direct affect on their ability to work or go
to school.
These results show
that eczema has a huge psychological effect on people’s lives. According to WebMD, lack of sleep can have serious
negative side effects including a reduced memory and ability to learn,
increased likelihood of having an accident due to reduced alertness, a lower libido
and even an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart
attacks. It can also make people more susceptible to depression, as can feeling insecure
about appearances; these two factors together could potentially be a dangerous
mix of the consequences of eczema.
The effect eczema has
on work and school is very rarely discussed, but a study backed by the National Eczema Society, has come up with
similar results showing that 1 in 7 adult sufferers of eczema feel that it has
stunted their career progression at some point.
- Of all the treatments, steroid creams had
been tried the most to control eczema with over 98% of sufferers having tried
it.
- 68% of people find steroid creams useful
in controlling their eczema, with 45% finding them the MOST useful way to
control their eczema, however, 83% would rather not use steroid creams at all.
Steroid creams are
often considered a controversial way of treating eczema. Some people have been
worried about the use of steroids thinning the skin, but with more cases emerging,
steroid addiction seems to be a growing concern. Many sufferers have taken to blogging their experiences of going
through Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW) or Red Skin Syndrome (RSS), a term
coined by American dermatologist Dr Marvin Rapaport. According to ITSAN,
some of the symptoms of TSW are intense itching, red burning skin, shedding or
flaking of skin, loss of appetite, eczema spreading over the body and insomnia.
However, steroids are
supposed to be used sparingly and for short periods of time ONLY. To know what
is meant by the term ‘sparingly’, the NHS has provided a fingertip unit guide i.e. how many fingertips of steroid cream should
be used on different parts of the body at different ages.
- On average, the 32% of people that spent
over £46 a year on prescriptions, paid £218 treating their eczema
- More than a third (38.33%) of eczema
sufferers spent more than 8 hours a week visiting doctors and applying creams
during a flare up
- 53% believe that their eczema controls
them, opposed to 47% who believe they control their eczema
A majority of people
who spent over £46 a year had an NHS pre-paid prescription card (which costs £104 a year). Others were sufferers
from America, Australia and Canada, some of which spent $600 (around £370)
yearly on prescriptions. The majority also spent over 8 hours a week during a
flare up treating their eczema. To put that into perspective, that’s enough time
to bake 12 cakes, have a full day of work, have full night of sleep, have 8
hour-long gym sessions, watch 16 sitcom episodes or, according to averages, 48
love-making sessions! Perhaps then it’s not surprising that a majority of those
who completed the survey believe that their eczema controls them.
If you’re interested
in completing the survey or seeing the questions you can find it here:
