5 QUESTIONS WITH: Keisha Gregson

I'm so excited to be able to share another 5 QUESTIONS WITH you all as I was getting major withdrawals ... but the best kind! This time I'm talking to the fabulous Keisha Gregson who runs an Instagram account (here) that you need to check out immediately. When I first joined Instagram nearly two years ago, Keisha was one of the first people to welcome me into the TSW Instagram community and ever since then, I've loved following her account, which offers so much hope to anyone going through TSW, along with some rather fabulous pictures which will leave you with an unhealthy amount of food-induced envy. Without further ado, I'll hand it over to Keisha:

1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and your skin journey.
Hi! I’m Keisha (pronounced Kay-sha). I’m 27 years old, I live in London and I work in TV.

I developed eczema at the age of 14. It began in the usual places; on my wrists and inner elbows. It wouldn’t go away on its own, so I went to the doctors and was prescribed steroid cream. For 11 years I used the cream and slowly, my eczema began to spread to additional places on my body and face. Each time I went to the doctors I was prescribed a stronger steroid and at the age of 25 I had aggressive eczema covering my whole torso. This was met with more prescriptions from doctors and dermatologists, including steroid creams on my face, scalp and steroid eye drops.

2) How did you find out about TSW?
After numerous doctor's appointments and prescriptions of increasingly strong steroid creams, steroid eye drops and steroid tablets, something just clicked that I couldn’t carry on using this insane amount of medication forever. I was desperate without my creams. It was a horrible feeling to be so dependent on them and I wanted to get off them. My housemate had bought a juicer and she was looking at recipes by Jason Vale. I noticed he had a ‘Clear Skin Programme’ where he had cured his psoriasis through diet and juicing. In the plan, there was a whole section about how dangerous steroid creams can be.

I then googled something along the lines of ‘eczema getting worse whilst using steroid cream’ and ITSAN came up. I searched on Instagram for the hashtag ‘Topical Steroid Withdrawal’ and spent about two days reading everything related to it. I remember watching Laura Stageman’s video and emailing it to my parents with the subject ‘this is what I’m going through, I know it’, they fully agreed and I decided to stop using all steroids.  

What I experienced after stopping steroid creams was worse than I could have imagined.  I was in an incredible amount of pain; my skin would ooze and consistently flake, my hair fell out in clumps and I couldn’t lie down without sheets sticking to my skin and it feeling like my skin was burning.

3) When did you decide to try and heal yourself naturally with food?
Straight away, it just made sense to me, especially after reading about Jason Vale’s experience. My friends, seeing what an awful time I was going through, gave me a sum of money and advised me to spend it on anything I thought would help. That allowed me to find my Naturopath who was lovely and so inspiring. She helped me with supplements and diet advice and also acted as a therapist most of the time!
My diet consisted of: gluten free, dairy free, egg free, soya free, no alcohol or sugar and no nightshade vegetables. I would never eat grains and protein in the same meal and I would alternate different food groups on different days. For example, I would have meat and vegetables on day one, then a vegetarian day, then a carbohydrate day followed by another veggie day. I also drank, on average, a litre of freshly made juice a day. This would consist of vegetables such as celery, cucumber and spinach and the most fruit I would add would be half an apple. I was incredibly lucky that I was able to work from home for much of my withdrawal, which meant that I could really take time preparing food.

Nowadays I can eat everything! I try to keep it as healthy as possible and I limit my dairy intake as I find my skin can get a bit itchy if I’ve gone overboard on the cheese! But overall, everything is back to normal.

4) Sum up TSW in five words.
An incredibly difficult, humbling and life-changing experience (I know that’s more than 5!).

5) What positives, if any, have you found from going through TSW?
I can’t deny that TSW was an extremely difficult experience but I have also found SO many positives. I’ve learnt so much about skin and nutrition and it’s made me conscious of everything that I put on my skin. I appreciate my health a lot more and I have a lot more self-love for myself; what my body has done and what it’s overcome is amazing and I don’t know how to thank it enough!

As well as learning more about myself I’ve also learnt a lot about other people. Yes, people used to stare at me on the Tube and avoid talking to me and yes, my doctor denied that topical steroid withdrawal was even a thing. But also people are kind. My best friend listened to my every thought for hours and would stroke my hair as I bawled my eyes out. My boyfriend offered me so much kindness, made me laugh and took such good care of me even when I was experiencing some extreme self-hating moments. My family never once denied that I was going through TSW and when I had to move back in with my parents they welcomed me with open arms. All my friends and colleagues were incredibly supportive and every instagrammer that offered kind words made the experience just that bit easier.

As a whole, I’ve learnt that you can’t predict the future. I never thought I would go through something like TSW but it’s taught me that no matter what happens in my future I’m so much stronger than I often give myself credit for and that, for me, is a very positive life lesson!

Her fabulous Instagram account can be found (here).

Thank you so much for sharing your story with me Keisha <3

Links to previous 5 QUESTIONS WITH:
Henni @rawsomesoul (here)
Alice @healthy_healer (here)
Maleeha @TSWHealed (here)
Nina Sloan (here)
Nick @Eczemacism (here)
Stephanie & Isaiah Quinn (here)
Stephanie @TheItchyConundrum (here)
Josh @Redskinrecoverydiary (here)
Briana @PREVENTABLE (here)
Melanie Lynch (here)
Stephanie Miller (here)
Holly Dillon @GetYourSkinOut (here)
Me (here)

Sending you all love and healing,
Cara xxxx

Four Life-Changing Years & Three Powerful Words

You will probably know by now that I am very fond of marking the various TSW milestones in some way and as time passes, for some reason, they seem to mean more to me. You can imagine then that hitting four years since starting TSW was a pretty big deal for me and in that time my life has changed significantly. I was thinking about what I could post to mark the occasion and I have decided to tell you a little story about what it means for me to not give up on something and come out the other side.

Through a lack of self-belief and a rather severe fear of failure, I spent most of my teenage and young adult life running in the opposite direction from any opportunity that came my way and in turn, missed out on things that I now can't look back on without feeling a sharp pang of regret. I had absolutely no confidence in myself and what I was capable of and chose to work hard in the wrong areas through fear that if I put my heart and soul into the things I truly wanted, but failed, I would have wasted time and been absolutely devastated. It was easier in a way thinking about what could have been, than trying and possibly failing. As a result, I spent many years quitting and giving up on my dreams. For a long time, I wanted to be a singer, so I set up a MySpace music page then, as it grew, I started a YouTube channel until over time, I had gained a small but ever-growing fan base and was even getting the odd singing job off the back of it without even trying ... but what did I do? I gave up because I was scared. I loved it so much that I quit rather than really try and to this day, I can't think too much about singing and what might have been. Who knows, I might have ended up failing but I'll never know and now, I don't want to. Around 2012, I set up a fashion/beauty YouTube channel and blog but when I started getting an audience, what did I do? I gave up. A year later, I set up another blog ... and what did I do? You guessed it.

I would say in the months leading up to withdrawal, everything was coming to a bit of a head. I had a great social life and loved my friends and family but personally, I was going nowhere. I remember Monday 20th May 2013 vividly as it was a turning point in my life. I was in the middle of a shift at a job that had absolutely no prospects and on this particular day, I was asked to work in a different area where I was made to feel absolutely useless by other staff members. At one point, I pretended to go to the bathroom but instead, I ran to a deserted corridor, hid behind a pillar and cried my eyes out. I remember thinking to myself, what the hell was I doing with my life? I had spent years wasting time in these jobs through fear and where had that thinking got me? I had a job I hated and was crying in an empty corridor. It was at that moment that I knew I needed to change my life completely. For a few months, my skin had been worrying me – I'd started having a lot of trouble with my eyes and rashes were appearing over my body that no amount of topical steroids were clearing. Even worse was the fact that my skin was thinning badly and I had developed some kind of allergy to the sun. Around this time, I went to the doctors feeling absolutely desperate but their only advice to me was to use stronger topical steroids. Even then I knew that was just a slippery slope but I didn't know what to do.

Over the following few weeks, I did a lot of thinking about my life and on the 1st June 2013, after years of wanting to write but being too scared to, I finally took the plunge and, in that moment, fell head over heels in love with it. Five days later, on 6th June 2013, I found out about TSW, had my lightbulb moment and changed my life. I always get a little choked up when I think back to the moment where I realised I didn't have ‘incurable’ eczema but topical steroid addiction – it was the most sure I've been about anything in my life and in a way, the answer almost seemed so obvious that I couldn't believe I hadn’t thought of it in the first place. I remember experiencing such a concentrated form of relief and knew with all my heart that topical steroid withdrawal was the right thing to do, and even in those two plus years where I doubted the process and questioned if I really did just have eczema, I never gave up. For the first time in my life I gritted my teeth and held on for dear life to something I totally believed in and after just over two years, the storm finally cleared and my ‘incurable’ eczema was gone, leaving in its wake better skin than I'd ever had in my life.

TSW was the first thing I ever did where I just kept going – ignoring those that didn't think TSA existed and fighting my own doubts along the way. The process taught me three words which I will spend the rest of my life being eternally grateful for: Don't. Give. Up. TSW taught me that if you keep pushing – keep fighting for what you believe in – you will get there eventually. For years, I thought I'd have to use topical steroids for the rest of my life to treat my ‘incurable’ eczema – I'd almost resigned myself to the fact and was paying the price with thinning skin and photosensitivity, but in the end, I went against what I was told and did what I believed to be right, and won.

Today, I am going to celebrate these four life-changing years and embrace this new phase of my life - so here's to following your dreams and seeing where life takes us.

Don't give up,
Cara x

My Topical Steroid Withdrawal update – Month 48/4 YEARS!

On the eve of my four year TSW anniversary, I thought I would do a little update on how my skin has been since my last monthly update. I am putting this up a day early as I am posting something special tomorrow to mark the occasion. 

Wonderfully, I don't really have anything that interesting to report. I think I've realised that too much sugar/junk food mixed with cold weather and electric fan heating is a not a great combination and eating a sensible but balanced diet with plenty of exercise is important for the health of my skin. Over the winter of 2015/2016, I was pretty much sugar free, had a healthy, balanced diet and a very active lifestyle and bar any obvious TSW symptoms, I found my skin was incredible. I think in the warmer months I have a little more leeway with my diet etc but on the whole I always want to eat well, for me and my skin.

For a short time in early April then again in late May, I was bloated. Bloating is something I'd never had before (even though I've definitely had stomach issues) but for some reason, I've had it twice in a relatively short period of time - my theory is it's to do with stress or if I get very upset about something. Why I felt the need to mention it is that both times I was bloated I had a few spots on my face and the texture of my skin was a little odd too. To anyone else, my skin would have looked fine but to me, or anyone else going through a skin condition which makes you feel the need to dissect every single blemish or irregularity on your skin, I knew it felt and looked different. I definitely do believe there is some kind of gut imbalance with people who have eczema and/or are going through TSW. I don't believe it has any bearing on healing but I do believe there is at least something in it.

I find hands down that the condition of my lips and how dry they are is affected by either signs of a cold coming or my sugar intake and my lips really don't seem to like it when I have too much of it on a regular basis so I'm going to keep sugar down where possible. I have also been using Vaseline on my lips on the rare occasions that I need it and so far, there has been no issue. I will elaborate in a few months and talk about the changes to my beauty routine as I feel it's too soon to say anything yet.

My hands have been absolutely wonderful. The only issue I had was in late April - after a long period where the weather was warm and lovely, suddenly it was freezing and I got a tiny rash on my left hand (pictured below) but it went after a few days.

I definitely notice when I spend long periods of time glued to my laptop that my skin hates it - this isn't about rashes or flaring, just the quality of it isn't as good. If someone saw my skin who didn't know me or my story, they wouldn't think there was anything wrong but I know, if that makes sense.

I have been using a small bit of moisturiser on my legs as shaving etc really took its toll and so far, so good. My skin now appears to tolerate moisturisers BUT I want to give it a little longer before I start talking about and recommending any products as it's still early days. I'm not using moisturiser anywhere else and I'd rather not either as my feelings towards them are still not entirely positive and I'm only using it because of shaving etc.

I have nothing to say about any other part of my body as all I have now is unaffected skin (and it's soft at that!). I don't think any of my skin issues are related to TSW anymore - I believe what I have now is slightly sensitive skin which I wouldn't call eczema as it's too mild and I think over the years, fingers crossed, my skin will continue to go from strength to strength.

I really do believe that saying 'I've healed' is the kiss of death so I will continue not using the H word but I do think for the most part my TSW symptoms are gone and not coming back *TOUCH WOOD*. I don't know what would happen if I accidentally came into contact with either a topical steroid or immunosuppressant but I think enough time has elapsed since I last used either for there not to be a reaction. I know for a fact I will NEVER willingly use either of them again as they are not a solution and only mask any problems. Really, what is the point of them in the first place? The symptoms will still be there when you stop using them .... but I think that conversation is for another day :)

I would like to end this post by saying thank you for your support of both me and this blog. I am amazed by how it has grown over time and I'm so glad you like it.

Much love,
Cara xxxx

*Author photo taken on Thursday 11th May 2017*

I thought I would add in the next photo which I used for my #TransformationTuesday feature on Instagram (here). Photo on the left taken Tuesday 2nd July 2013. Photo on the right taken Thursday 11th May 2017. Never give up.