Your skin feels dry and itchy, and it looks red and inflamed. The more you scratch, the more it itches.
Because of the incessant itching, you break the surface of the skin pretty quickly. You’d love to walk around with an ice pack pressed against your irritated skin — but that would be quite inconvenient, wouldn’t it? Plus, people would stare. A few more days of this, though, and you might be beyond caring.
Eventually, the open sores and constant cracked, dry skin turns from being a nuisance to becoming painful. You could even risk further bacterial infections. And this is the point where many harried adults — and troubled children — will opt for doctor-prescribed steroids to treat their eczema symptoms.
However, a script for steroids, while promising to treat the skin and relieve you of eczema pain, comes with long-term costs that may cause you to look for healthier alternatives.
What Are the Side Effects of Using Steroids for Eczema?
You can think of steroids for eczema as a kind of “triage” for your skin. It cuts down on the time and frequency of eczema. These treatments have been used for over 60 years and, in short bursts, they can help the skin heal quickly so you can start to use barrier repair moisturizers or emollients to soothe and hydrate the skin long-term.
The “long-term,” however, is when topical and oral steroids carry the most risk. The “side effects” of steroids kick in when you increase the potency or concentration of these substances or you apply them longer than is strictly necessary.
Topical Steroids
Topical steroids are creams, ointments, gels, and lotions that contain steroid-based medication. They’re effective and potent — the most well-recognized of these is 1% hydrocortisone, which is available without a prescription.
In the U.S., topical corticosteroids have to be classified by their potency levels, where 1 is the highest and 7 is the lowest. When individuals fail to respond to an at-home course of eczema skin care, then doctors will usually prescribe these ointments first.
The side-effects of topical corticosteroids include:
- Greater hair growth on skin area being treated
- Stinging or burning sensation when you first apply the topical cream (such as hydrocortisone)
- Thinning of the skin
- Could trigger or worsen other skin disorders such as rosacea or acne
- Potential change in skin color
- Stretch marks
- Perioral dermatitis around the mouth
Do Topical Steroids Weaken Your Immune System?
Steroids in general have the potential to “suppress” your immune system. Of course, this could include weakening your immune system because the point of your body’s immune response is to keep foreign or invading bodies out. It all has to do with the way that steroids work, in general.
These substances reduce the production of the chemicals that are triggered and come together to cause inflammation. This decreases tissue damage, but it also reduces the activity of white blood cells by affecting how they work.
So while issues like thinning of the skin and stretch marks are “local” or skin-level side effects, there are also systemic side effects you should be aware of:
- Fluid collection in the legs
- High blood pressure
- Cushing’s syndrome — A hormonal disorder characterized by fast weight gain, skin thinning, and mood changes, to name but a few symptoms
- Topical steroid withdrawal syndrome — A kind of addiction in which prolonged, frequent, inappropriate use of topical corticosteroids leads to red skin, burning pain, stinging, skin peeling, and excessive sweating
- Some topical steroids, especially in children and with prolonged use, can seep into the bloodstream and affect growth and development at this critical stage of life.
Oral Steroids
They’re available — but that doesn’t mean they’re viable for your use. Oral steroids or immunosuppressants taken orally can be prescribed to control inflammation from the inside out. Like hydrocortisone is a popular topical corticosteroid, prednisone is a popular oral steroid.
However, these substances come with a warning from the American Academy of Dermatology that cautions individuals that these are last-resort options meant for acute or severe cases and should only be used as a short-term bridge, if at all.
It’s understandable because the long-term effects include:
- Increase in the incidence of bacterial, fungal, and viral infections
- Hair loss
- Weight gain
- Glaucoma or cataracts
- Gastrointestinal issues
- Osteoporosis
- Stunted growth
- Irregular menstruation
You’re also risking the possibility of eczema returning twice as bad because of the rebound effect.
Are There Safe Alternatives to Steroids for Eczema?
The National Eczema Association maintains that there are ways to combat eczema — both the symptoms and the overall flare-ups — with options other than steroids. This is good news because, depending on the severity and frequency of eczema, users of steroids could face major side effects that impact their overall health.
These “alternatives” to steroids for eczema are also much more holistic in nature. Rather than just addressing the site of the eczema on the skin, they promote total body health because they address inflammation — often with their own, built-in anti-inflammatory properties. These include solutions like:
- Acupuncture
- Indian Ayurveda
- Natural oils like grapeseed oil or coconut oil
- Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
- Aromatherapy
- Homeopathy
While they’re safe, results with these alternative therapies vary from person to person. In other words, you can’t be sure which one of these options may be right for you until you try them. They may also take a while to show effects. While trying to find treatment modalities that work for you, however, there is one more option you can take advantage of, which gives you the relief from eczema you need without any of the harmful side effects of steroids.
Is Tremotyx a Safe Alternative to Steroids for Eczema?
Combining the convenience of an over-the-counter, topical cream with the potency of a solution that works, Tremotyx™ uses plant-based stem cells to treat eczema. It provides relief from dry, itchy skin by moisturizing the outer layer. It also relieves the skin of future flare-ups by blocking eczema-triggering enzymes.
Many people living with eczema want to know how Tremotyx™ works if it doesn’t include steroids. Like steroids do, Tremotyx™ focuses on the inflammation response. But the formula for Tremotyx uses Immuno-3™ Stem Cell Technology, which is clinically proven to block the inflammation process before it begins.
It’s called Immuno-3™ Stem Cell Technology because the process extracts specific molecular properties from non-embryonic plant-based stem cells. These potential cells become cellular level blocks that inhibit eczema right at the core, instead of merely addressing the surface or suppressing your body’s necessary immunity.
As they’re small enough to bypass the inner dermal layers, these stem cell extracts replace aged and damaged skin with new, healthy skin cells. This means your body can actually begin to heal and speed up the process naturally.
Conclusion
The results of Tremotyx™ speaks for itself. Not only does it contain no steroid-based side effects, but it is also free from hydrocortisone, fragrances, and parabens. Topical and oral steroids work, but their effectiveness is a double-edged sword. Often, they address dermal-level effects of eczema so well that people will often forgo the long-term effects for the short-term pain and irritation relief. Besides these risks, steroids fail to go any further and treat eczema at the core.
In contrast, more than 88% of Tremotyx™ users who apply the cream twice daily for three weeks show clearer, less irritated, and smoother looking skin. The best part is that our customers also report no additional flare-ups after a consistent 90-day use. If you’re ready to put eczema behind you for good, in a more sustainable, safe, and side effect-free way, visit Tremotyx to learn more.