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Thursday, 15 February 2007

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Nadia Sawalha: Extreme eczema made my life a misery

TV presenter had to tie hands to the bedpost to sleep

Like any working mum, TV presenter and actress Nadia Sawalha found adjusting to life with a new baby quite hard. ‘I was shocked at how difficult it was to adapt,’ she says. ‘I’m from a large family and I’d always been around kids. I never thought that having a newborn baby would be that hard.’

Nadia, 41, believes it was the birth of her daughter Maddy that triggered her first outbreak of eczema. At the time Maddy, now three, was about six months old.

My hands suddenly became raw and swollen

‘I didn’t realise it, but I think the shock of childbirth combined with the stress of returning to work triggered the most terrible explosion of eczema on my hands,’ explains Nadia. ‘It wasn’t what you’d imagine eczema to be like. My hands blew up to twice their normal size, then all the skin came off and they were raw. It was extreme eczema.’

She soon found there was no quick cure. ‘My doctor told me I’d have to accept that I’d need wet wrappings for years. This would mean seeing a nurse twice a week and having my hands bandaged. Because the skin was so open they’d become infected unless they were covered up,’ she says.

I couldn't sleep

Nadia refused to accept that she’d have to live like this. She clearly remembers how her eczema made it impossible to care for her baby. ‘My hands were so sore that I couldn’t even pick Maddy up on her first birthday,’ she recalls. ‘I couldn’t cook; I couldn’t do anything. I’d have flare-up after flare-up and it got to the point where it became unbearable. It was very hard to sleep as I was so uncomfortable.

I had to tie my hands to the bedpost – if I put them down, the blood would rush to them and it would be too painful.’

Homeopathy came to my rescue

The presenter feels lucky that her eczema was only on her hands. Although this was debilitating enough, she’s aware that some people have it all over their body. But she’s also been one of the lucky sufferers to have found a treatment that works. ‘I’ve been completely cured using homeopathy,’ she reveals.

Nadia describes the process of finding a remedy as being a bit like detective work, involving exploring the full emotional and physical causes. ‘Whenever I’m ill, I try to look for the root cause and hardly ever use conventional medicine,’ she says. ‘My instincts told me that my eczema was caused by a mixture of things. I’d had a very traumatic birth and went back to work quickly, still in discomfort. I pretended that everything was fine, but I felt overtired, panicked and stressed.’

She explains that it can take a few attempts to find the right remedy, but when she found it, the effect was dramatic. ‘My homeopath prescribed a remedy called mezereum and the effect was astounding,’ she says. ‘I saw the sores on my hands start to close up in two days and I haven’t had another flare-up since. I’d recommend homeopathy to anyone.’

Eczema explained

What is it?
A group of conditions in which the skin is irritated or inflamed. There are many different types, with slightly different causes and symptoms. You can’t catch eczema and the exact cause isn’t fully understood. It can be genetic.

What are the symptoms?
Red skin; dry skin; itchy skin; small water blisters, particularly on hands and feet;
scaly areas in places that are scratched frequently.

How is it treated?
There’s no cure. Treatments can control symptoms and include emollients, steroid creams, immuno-suppressants, antibiotics or wet wrapping.

For more information contact:
The National Eczema Society, 0870 2413604 or www.eczema.org
The British Association of Dermatologists, 020-7383 0266 or www.bad.org.uk
The Society of Homeopaths, 0845 450 6611 or www.homeopathy-soh.org.

Melissa Murphy