My Nonprofit Reviews
Amy_260
Review for International Topical Steroid Awareness Network (ITSAN), Dacula, GA, USA
Itsan is an important and incredibly helpful organisation which raises awareness, and offers support to people recovering from 'eczema' caused by topical steroid creams.
It saddens me to see people commenting that Itsan encourages torture. Because the truth is that, yes, recovery from steroid cream truly does feel like torture. Unfortunately, like with any drug addiction, the only way to recover is to cease use and ride out the hell you will be initially in for. I truly feel for the people who have tried to quit steroids to recover from their steroid induced eczema, only to find the process too physically and emotionally painful to continue. However, Itsan does not offer a way to torture yourself, it offers hope and it offers recovery! On the other side of that torture is freedom from your skin condition, comfort, and health. People are saying that Itsan is not helpful as it is steroid phobic. This steroid phobia is real, and it is born of a very real and consistent experience; many people who use steroid creams live a life of continuously worsening, burning, and itchy 'eczema'. When they quit steroid creams their drug addicted skin flares horrifically, yet once the steroids are out of their system they are cured!
After years of worsening eczema and steroid use I quit and experienced a year of flares like nothing else, it was so hard to endure and yet I endured it. That was three years ago now, for the last 3 years I have lived 100% free of anything that resembles eczema!!
Discovering steroid addiction was the best thing that ever happened to me! Itsan was my support system when I was in hell with no where else to go, there is a forum to vent and discuss the experience you are having, and it makes it all a little easier to bear.
I would give Itsan 5 stars for raising awareness, and another 5 stars for the advice and support offered by the helpful, hopeful, and supportive community!
Below I have posted the last 3 photos as an example of how I looked within days of quitting steroid creams (I was barely better than that before that). The first photo is me now, with the clear comfortable skin I have been enjoying for three years thanks to itsan.org!!!
ITSAN thanks you Amy for a fair and honest review. We in no way want conflict with the supporters of Dr. Aron and never talk down, troll or flame this group. Our leadership also never advises anyone to stop topical steroid or condemn them for using it. We share our stories and let them make that decision on their own. What the support group member say or do is out of our total control but we do have rules and admins, do their best to monitor behavior in them. We understand the agony of topical steroid withdrawal, not everyone get's addicted and are teaming up with doctors from around the world to find better methods of comfort for those in the thick of it. A big concern derms, doctors and ITSAN has with the Dr. Aron method of treating children with eczema is the fact that steroids are applied 6 times a day for 6 months and then used as maintenance for indefinitely and if any children get off the treatment, it is not well known. Eczema was never classified as a lifelong disease to be controlled with corticosteroids as they have too many well-documented side-effects. The other concern is the use of antibiotics with the steroids which is causing health problems with many in the world in causing super-bug resistance. India just banned many of these combo medications. "Doctors and health experts say the spread and misuse of antibiotic combinations may be contributing to antibiotic resistance in India. Some superbugs, which are strains of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics, have been found in patients who traveled from India to countries including the United States and Britain." http://news.yahoo.com/antibiotic-combination-marketed-abbott-india-list-banned-drugs-061739305--finance.html Steroid cocktails, which are in fixed dose combinations, are mixed with various antifungal and anti-bacterials thus making the drugs extremely dangerous and irrational. Use of irrational topical steroid combinations can lead to drug resistance. “Dermatologists are seeing increasingly widespread fungal diseases where the use of irrational combination drugs has been implicated. The fungal diseases do not respond to conventional drugs for conventional duration and dose,” said Dr. Shyam B Verma, dermatologist based in Vadodara, Gujarat. “Indian doctors are witnessing a pandemic of adverse effects induced by topical corticosteroids,” Dr. Verma writes in a news piece published on Thursday (November 26) in the medical journal The BMJ. "Topical steroids can cause substantial and permanent damage, especially to thin skin such as on the face and groin, even if used for a short period of 15 days. Side effects include pigmentation and atrophy of the skin. “Misuse of steroid combinations can cause bacterial or fungal resistance, which can make infections difficult to diagnose and treat,” Dr. Verma writes. According to a 2011 study, nearly 15 per cent of dermatology patients were found using topical corticosteroids. Of the 15 per cent, over 90 per cent had adverse effects." http://m.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/irrational-topical-steroid-combinations-can-cause-drug-resistance/article7918516.ece ITSAN is teaming up with the Indian dermatogists along with others in the medial field to raise much needed awareness of the potential of topical steroid addiction and serious side-effects from unmonitored or unsafe use of this drug. We care and hope for better methods of coping as well for those who are suffering.
