Report

EDITORIAL
As a young person I strive to be the best that I can be yet there is something that almost always that slows me down. For this reason I have set forward a research investigation to help monitor how I behave in order to help improve my behaviour and mold people around me to understand the effects eczema can have on someone. In the past I have tried dieting and different medication and have done many experiments in my life to see what may triggers my eczema to worsen or react and found many possible ways to keep my eczema controlled.
Recent studies tell us that between thirty and sixty percent of all people who seek medical attention are for a skin problem experience significant underlying psychological turmoil. And so I have set forward an investigation so that I can find what the causes are and what the psychological effects there are.
When I told people about my experimental approach I came across many who have eczema or have it in their family making me release how common it really is. Many believe that eczema could be a psychological illness and many times I have endured the relentless itch but I believe that it is time to take control of the connection between the mind and body to manage my eczema. My main objective to describe the psychological interference there are for sufferers of eczema in children and teens and so I have got a series of case studies of accounts of my own experiences and others. Read the case studies to be inspired!
“ECZEMA IS CAUSING ME TO STRESS!”
Introduction
Common debate is weather Eczema causes stress or stress causes the eczema to worsen. Eczema effects people psychologically depending on the intensity of the impact it has ones life. Firstly it is important to know what eczema is and how common it is to understand the different psycological interferences involved. I will discuss how allergies get into the skin, the eczema scratch cycle to understand how intense a scratch can be and if not scratched what impact it can have one someone.To start of my investigation, the topic psysiological psychology stress is addressed to answer help me understand my investigation. Educationg and understanding ways to treat, and aviod further irritation of eczema will go a long way to making the eczema disappear once and for all.
What is Excema? Eczema can also be known as dermatitis which means “inflammation of skin”. There are many forms of eczema such as: Xerotic eczema, atopic eczema, Dyshidrosis, Discoid eczema, venous eczema and the list goes on. However I will be concentrating on atopic eczema form as it is one of the most common types. The word atopic describes people with a certain “allergic” tendencies. Having a long term atopic Eczema condition could mean that sufferers also develop other atopic conditions such as asthma of hay fever. How common is eczema? Atopic eczema is inflammation which happens from time to time, this usually effects people from early childhood which is the reason for my investigation. Unfortunately the cause isn’t understood or known and there is no cure however treatment can help ease or reduce the symptoms. It is told that 2 in 3 grow out of this condition by their mid teens with the help of moisturisers and steroid creams 1 in 6 children have some degree of atopic eczema. 2 in 3 teen sufferers affected by eczema flare ups is reduced or completely gone. It is unpredictable to know which of the children will still be affected as adults. And it is rare to find someone above 20 years of age to develop eczema. How allergies get under the skin because of the skin structure in eczema The epidermis is the top layer of skin in which is more damaged and is evidence of the scratching and the affected area. The dermis is made up of connective tissue which holds lots of different cells which gives the skin strength and elasticity. The dermis tissue carry all messages or fluids to and from the epidermis so that the skin can grow and react to what is going on inside the body as well as the persons environment. Underneath the dermis is a layer of fat acts on important source of energy and water for dermis.
symptoms of atopic eczema Symptoms of atopic eczema include, weeping of the skin, dry and inflamed, affected areas are usually the front side of elbow, behind knees, ankles. These are most common affected areas but any area of skin may be affected, when scratching itchy skin, it causes patches of shin to become thickened, sometimes inflamed areas of skin become infected.
Link between the mind and body
Just like the mistary of whether the egg comes first or the chcken, it isn’t known whether the eczema causes the stress or the stress causes the eczema to worsen. People today are becoming more aware of the link between the body and the mind. It is thought that one of the psychological factors effecting eczema or all ilnesses is stress and it is important to know how it effects a person to understand how to prevent, loo after and avoid being in situations when stresed.
People generally have found that when eczema is at its worst, the first thing that the docter, teacher, social worker family member asks is “are you stressed”. The link between the mind and the body has been seen relevent for eczema for meny years now. Some people believe that eczema is a psychosomatic illness where they claim eczmea is all to do with the mind. Direct links to say eczema is caused by stress is the evedice for when the eczema hets worse during stressful times and so it can be said that stess has caused the eczema. However sometimes a perfectly stress free person can have badly effected eczema which then causes them to be stressed. Noone knows the reason why eczema appears and what causes it which is also another reason why eczema is seen to be a psychosemic ilness. At times eczema can get worse and so people find it hard to do their daily activities and also slows the sufferer down which is why the eczema is most likely to get worse. Hense stress causing the eczema to worsen and eczema causing the stress even furture or visa versa.
Psychological research about stress
Whilst researching about stress I found out some unexpected information about experimental work done by Hans Selye in the 1930s working on the various effects of hormones of rats. The rats were injected daily and after a few months they noticed that the rats had grown ulcers. He also then injected harmless saline. to see whether the ulcers were effect of what was being injected yet these showed the same symptoms. Selye then concluded that the lumps were an effect of the stress of the daily injections procedure causing the tissue damage and confirmed it by changing other forms of stressors such as temperatures in the environment which led to the same effect. The body responds to a range of psychological and physical stressors with the same pattern of physiological activation which is called The General Adaptation Syndrome (Selye 1956) and this activation can lead to harmful changes in the body.
This gave me personal awareness as I have recently grown lumps in the underneath layer of my skin which looks like hives. These lumps are effect of stress of deadlines and can also be because of the change in weather, so I need to learn to control it in order to avoid the infections.
Having General Adaption Syndrome means that the autonomic nervous system is activated diverting blood flow to major muscle groups suppressing the immune system.

Eczema and the immune system
The epidermis is the outer layer of the skin in which is the outside world is in contact with the body’s immune system. The immune system usually reacts sending signals the brain to say stat there is danger such as a insect sting or bite. In eczema, the immune system reacts more vigorously to smaller and less harmful influences such as dust mites or small fibres of hair, which is why they are none as allergens the immune system tries to destroy allergens by releasing a mixture of its own irritant substance. This then causes the irritant to be removed but the damage by the person would have been made either by scratching as the process of the ski causes the sore and fragile allowing other problems to occur such as bacterial infections.
Clear skin will firstly feel like a slight tingling with a sensation to itch the tingling most usually becomes so unbearable it has to be scratched as the pain after seems to be less than the then the tingling. After the first symptom is tiny bumps, redness, dryness and can be effected with wetness too of blood or weeping skin or swelling. The flare happens to reactions to irritants, emotional stress and can happen simply because of the scratching.
Conclusion
I now know a possible reason why my eczema has infection after finding out about Selye’s experiment. Now I can finally understand why doctors assume that I am stressed when I go to the doctors after finding out about the egg and chicken idea. I understand how common eczema really is and how allergens get into the skin because of the structure of skin in people with eczema. Finally I now know how to control my stress and understand my infection when I get it.
Before my exam I was under a lot of stress as I have other health problems and the normal exam stress and so as a side effect the guard of the immune system is lowered and less alert. After a few days my eczema got worse as the immune system works extra hard to protect the body from the changing environment as well as the inside mind and body conflict my body found it hard to cope making it hard for the immune system to rid of the allergens and works slowly making the skin fragile, , infected and uncomfortably itchy.