5 QUESTIONS WITH: Henni from rawsomesoul

This is the start of a mini series of blog posts that I hope you will all enjoy. As this blog expands, I want to open it up to others who have inspired me within our ever-growing (and bloody fabulous) skin community. One of the most wonderful parts of TSW is the group of amazing people I have met online from all over the world who truly understand one of the hardest things any of us will ever have to go through. One of these people is Henni, a blogger from Finland who it has been a pleasure to get to know over the last year via Instagram. Her story is inspiring and I think it will help a lot of you out there so I couldn't be happier that she agreed to do this!

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and your skin journey.

Hi, I'm Henni! I'm 23 years old and live in Helsinki, Finland. For most of my life, I have had good skin apart from some minor eczema on my inner elbows. Around the age of 17, I started to develop more eczema on my body and face, I used steroid creams for the first time then. After that I used them every now and then. I moved to London in the autumn of 2012 and a few months after that my eczema worsened. My diet was very unhealthy, I barely exercised, partied a lot and was stressed, all of the things that I think contributed to why my eczema got worse. During the summer of 2013, I was put on a course of Prednisolone and given strong steroid creams to use continuously. I used them for about 1.5 years until I discovered TSW in February 2015. 

2) How did you find out about TSW?
Google. I did so much research online when my skin started to act crazy. I was desperate. I'm very grateful I found Itsan.

3) Sum up Topical Steroid Withdrawal in five words.
The most rewarding agonizing hell.

4) What made you decide to turn to a raw vegan diet?
Desperation? I had been sporting an oozy and scabby upper lip, the area below your nose, for 6 months. I tried so many things and nothing worked, I just seemed to be in a very stagnant phase. Two weeks before I went raw vegan, I had an incident with too much wheat grass juice powder that made me ill and not eat for 2 days. After that I only wanted to eat melon because it was the only thing that didn't gross me out. My skin looked so good those few days, I still had the scabby moustache but I could tell it was getting better as well. About a week later, I stumbled onto an instagram post about how a raw vegan diet helped this little boy's eczema and TSW as well. I started reading The Fruit Cure, the book mentioned in the post and read the testimonials on www.dehappy5.com. I watched a lot of videos about raw veganism / fruitarian diet on Youtube. I was desperate and decided to give it a shot and luckily, it paid off. My moustache was gone within a week. The rest of my skin was getting better as well and I felt great, I slept better and generally seemed more calm. In the beginning I went vegan for health reasons but I'm staying vegan for all the other reasons, for the environment and for the animals! 

5) What positives, if any, have you found from going through TSW?
I've got my health back! Well, almost, I'm not completely healed yet. My hands still have a lot of healing to do, as well as my face, it has this little rash but it is very minor, I can't even get a decent picture of it. Anyway, positives: I know myself better, I've learned so much about life and that you don't need much to be happy. I have gained valuable knowledge about health and I look after myself better and respect my body. My life was thrown off course because of TSW but now I'm excitedly seeing where life takes me. I'm grateful for going through TSW, because somehow in completely losing who I am, I found myself. 





Her lovely blog can be found here and definitely be sure to follow her Instagram here too for plenty of droolworthy food pictures, inspiration and stunning photography.

Thank you so much Henni x

So much love to all of you out there <3
Cara xxxx