5 QUESTIONS WITH: Douglas Maddy (and Charlie)

It's brings me both great pleasure and sadness to be able to share another 5 QUESTIONS WITH you all. I say sadness because even after all this time, I cannot bear the thought of anyone having to go through TSW - especially a child. I am joined by Douglas Maddy, father to five-year-old Charlie who has been going through TSW since January 2015. I first came across Charlie's story earlier this year when I saw a video (here) that Douglas had put together about his son which pretty much broke my heart. It's one of the best videos I have seen of anyone going through TSW which not only shows in quite graphic detail just how hard TSW is but more than anything, it highlights how incredibly tough it is for a parent to see their child suffering so much. Douglas is passionate about spreading awareness for our forgotten condition and I couldn't be happier that he has agreed to share his son's story on my blog.

***I feel I need to add a disclaimer that some of the photos included in this post are upsetting and might cause readers distress*** 

I'll hand it over to Douglas:

1) Tell us a little bit about your son's skin journey.
October 2011 - Charlie was born. He had mild eczema as a baby.
March 2012 - Went into hospital with water infection which affected his skin. 
May 2012 till May 2013 - His skin was good, Just had an occasional little bit of eczema.

June 2013 - Since being prescribed steroids he became worse. Continued getting worse the more visits we had to the dermatologist.

February 2014 and it kept spreading June 2014.

July 2014- onwards the itching became uncontrollable, it was constant day and night. 
January 2015- stopped applying steroids. 
February 2015 - all symptoms of topical steroid withdrawal came out (burning, oozing).

February 2015 till January 2016 - Unimaginable hell that kept getting worse. 

January 2016 - 1 year into stopping steroids, skin was as bad as it got, we had our last hospital visit.
January 2016 to January 2017 - It was a very slow recovery back to health.

January 2017 - Improved dramatically, manageable.
February 2017 - continuing to heal, while raising awareness to warn and help others.

Caring for Charlie while he was experiencing the worst of TSW is truly unimaginable. 
My heart would break every hour of the day and night watching him suffer constantly as I struggled to stay awake. 

2) How did you find out about TSW?
I just spent most of 2014 learning as much as I could about skin health. I came across topical steroid addiction from the video on youtube titled: "Questions and Answers with Marvin J. Rapaport, M.D." I didn't believe it at first, but after looking at everything it was the only explanation.

3) Did you find that anything aided your son's healing?
No, nothing worked. The only reason why Charlie is better is because of the work of Dr.Rapaport and the information he has generously provided to the public. The facebook support group helped me personally, which allowed me to help Charlie. 

4) Sum up TSW in five words.
Healing happens. Just Stop Steroids. 

5) What positives, if any, have you found from your son going through withdrawal?
Everything else in life is easy, in comparison. 
Learnt a lot about diet and health.
Raising awareness for topical steroid addiction has given me a genuine philanthropic purpose to my life. 
Deep appreciation for health.
Knowing that Charlie is going to be ok, watching him laugh, just melts me, I'm so proud of him, and his bother Alfie and sister Abbie for supporting him.

Douglas' TSW Youtube Channel where he tries to upload a new video every week can be found (here) and you can join his fantastic Facebook group Topical Steroid Addiction (here).

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


Links to my 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)
Keisha Gregson (here)

Don't give up,
Cara xxxx