Well, I already said I'm not able to give medical advice here. But I can tell you some things from my own experience.
I've been thinking about this for some years. I don't know any of the answers, but I can tell you what it was important for me to realise. First of all, most people reading this will probably be in a Western country with Western orthodox medicine readily available and considered the norm. So when the itching started, you probably went to see the doctor. We did (I was very young at the time). I don't remember that visit, but I remember distinctly the time we went back to see about my asthma. This was when I was seven or eight, I suppose. When he had heard the symptoms, the first thing the doctor said was "Of course, we don't understand what this is". Yes, of course, we don't understand what this is, but here are the medicines I'm going to give you anyway. Good luck, hope you don't die. That's what I feel he might as well have been saying. Maybe I am being harsh. Maybe that doctor has already been treated harshly enough (he is in prison now - though that was nothing to do with his prescriptions). But I want you to find the best possible solution for your problems, especially if they are not yours, but are your child's, for example. Illnesses and health conditions are only physical; it's possible to have a life and achieve things even with terrible physical problems, but let's not make more problems than we absolutely have to, eh?
So, if I have understood correctly, an orthodox-type doctor (a GP, General Practitioner, or perhaps a skin specialist) doesn't know the cause of chronic itching, so he tries to manage the symptoms. OK, my lack of expertise means I don't want to give you wrong information so I won't go into too much detail about this, but the way I feel now is that symptoms aren't exactly problems. They are uncomfortable, but for me I feel like they are saying something about your or my health. It seems like a symptom is the expression of some underlying problem. When someone is crying, you know it's because they're upset. The crying is not the problem. In fact, you feel better after crying, so maybe it is part of the solution. Maybe it's the same with symptoms, I don't know. I wish I could tell you more. But, to get back to the doctors, this is what I would ask myself: Why am I going to this doctor? The answer should be: to get better. So then ask yourself: Did I get better?
If you went about your skin, maybe you were prescribed some kind of topical steroid like hydrocortisone cream ('topical' means you apply it to a place on your body - Greek: "topos", place). Now, hydrocortisone does stop inflammation, and it certainly stops itching in most cases. But what happens next? Well, I don't know, but here is a for instance: the itching goes away and then it comes back when you stop applying the cream. So did it make you better? This is just a question from me to you.
Most doctors became doctors to help people. This is to be applauded. It's really good to give your whole life just to try to help others have better lives, even to give them their lives back in some cases. If you are really in a bad condition, if you have had a terrible accident, western doctors can save your life. So much research, so much knowledge and training - it increasingly seems to us that there is little they can't do. But what about our health? First I got the hydrocortisone cream. Then a few years later I was back for inhalers, Salbutamol (Ventolin it was called then), and more steroids. The doctor would sometimes have to come to our house in the night to put me on the nebuliser machine. Once I went to hospital for a while. It makes me sad to think about it. This little boy, that was me. Of course, if chronic conditions like eczema (and asthma, since I've mentioned it) are incurable, then perhaps they were doing the best they could. But remember what the doctor said all those years ago: "We don't know what this is".
All I want to say here is that the enormous body of learning that is western orthodox medicine has a great momentum that's hard to stop. It's always been there for most of us so it's nearly impossible to ask any questions about its ability to make us better. But I am aware how expensive a lot of the medicines are. I guess that pharmaceutical manufacturers must make a lot of money. They certainly make a lot of medicines. And if every time you develop a new symptom there are another couple of prescriptions? Then what is the chance that we can safely ask if all of that is making us better? In Vienna in the 1840s Dr Semmelweiss discovered that washing the hands before delivering a baby would enormously reduce the infant mortality rate in childbirth. He recommended that doctors wash their hands. He lost his job and was stoned in the street (so I heard). There are more examples like this. So let's just say, it's not easy.
But if you are not happy, if you don't feel your treatment is really going anywhere, you don't have to challenge the establishment. You should just have a look at the options. And there are plenty of them now, mostly not considered too "crazy". By looking at what there was in the medical section of a large bookshop, and by considering the truth of what I read in different places, I ended up going to a homoeopath (US spelling: 'homeopath'). Now I'm not writing this to tell you to do the same. But I think this second page is basically to ask you to think about your treatment (or your child's treatment) and ask yourself if you are getting better. Then consider whether you would like to get better. If not, then believe that you cannot. But if you would like your life back, would it really hurt so much to just pretend for a minute that you can get better? Just consider the possibility, and see if there are any options that might get you there. If not, then at least you looked as hard as you could.
So I went to a homoeopath. At the time my hands were cracked, painful and red. I had more areas of itching on my arms from the crooks to the wrists (underside of my arms). I had it behind my knees. I had it on my neck, even a little bit on the front of my thighs. I had it on my forehead once, a bit before this. And the itching! I would have to try to watch films until about four or five o'clock in the morning, just to stop myself going to sleep so I wouldn't end up scratched to ribbons when I woke up. And I still scratched even when I was awake. And now, more than two years later? Well, I have it on my right thumb, a bit on the hand next to the thumb, and on the underside of my right second finger. So, I am satisfied that I did the right thing. It cost some money, but it would have cost more to stay the way I was (prescriptions are not (normally) free, as I said). Also I now have more freedom to do things. I don't feel like people think I must have leprosy or something. In fact, I am a concert pianist, so you can imagine what a difference it has made, having these new hands (well, really, it's those nice hands I used to have in the beginning).
So this was not a story to tell you that doctors are hurting you. Nor was it to tell you that homoeopathy is a miracle cure. It was just to say: Have a think about things. And this is what happened to me. Part of it, anyway. I hope it was of some help.
Good luck! -Philip.
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