Julia Neal, 50, a secretary from Crawley in West Sussex, has had eczema since she was a child, but as an adult she seemed to have it more or less under control until circumstances in her life took a drastic turn for the worse and her eczema broke out all over her body.

BY Julia Neal 3 July, 2007

"As a child I remember always having patches of eczema and my mother forever nagging me to stop itching. I was prescribed steroids and I was told that as I got older my eczema would go away."

"I thought the doctors were right because throughout most of my adult life my eczema seemed to abate. I’d get the odd small itchy patch which I’d treat with steroids but I thought that it would gradually disappear altogether as I got older."

"However in I began to suffer from the most horrendous PMT. It would cripple me each month and made me feel incredibly low and miserable. Each time I was hit by the PMT I would break out in the most awful eczema. As time went on my skin became more and more reactive and the more terrible my skin became the more stressed I got."

"I began to develop allergies to everything from jewellery to even the buttons on some of my clothes. But I struggled on for years just trying to keep my eczema under control using steroids and trying to keep my stress levels under control. I hoped my health problems might settle into a more even keel after the children had left home and life was quieter."

"But at a time when I should have been considering a gentler pace, life was about to get anything but quiet for me. Two year ago my stress levels went into orbit. Within the space of a few years my husband’s business went bankrupt. Not long after I was told I’d have to go into hospital for a hysterectomy. I had barely had time to recover from my operation when my father died shortly followed by my mother in law and then I lost the job (and the only bit of financial security we had left) I had held down for 14 years."

"Just when I didn’t think things could get any worse my son was almost killed in near-fatal car accident and we had to spend the whole of Christmas travelling back and forth to a hospital in the north of the country to check on his progress. I seemed to have spent the best part of the last two years in and out of hospitals for various reasons."

"It was truly the worst period of my life, my whole family and financial stability seemed to have been turned up side down just when I should have been winding down towards my retirement."

"In the end my body just couldn’t take the stress of it any more. I was put on some medication by my doctor in order to ease my anxiety but it was no good, it was like my body was allergic to what was happening in my life. I erupted in all over body eczema. Literally from head to toe I was covered in a fierce itchy red rash that was agony. I spent the whole of Christmas in intense pain from my skin, it was the worse time of my life. I found it hard to sleep, I hated anyone looking at me, I felt absolutely dreadful."

"My skin was in the worse condition it had ever been in. I am not vain, but I have always been told I look ten years younger than my age. I’ve got a great figure and lovely hair and good features but the state of my skin made feel like I looked 20 years older rather than ten years younger."

"I was at the point of desperation and had decided to get high strength prescription steroids (something I had tried my best to avoid over the past few years due to their dangerous side effects) in order to treat my skin when I read a small article on the health news of a magazine about a natural treatment for eczema containing Cardiospermum. The lady who had used it said it worked as well as steroids for her and so, feeling I had little to loose, I ordered some after a frantic search to find the phone number of the company that sold it."

"I had my steroids ready and waiting but I was loathed to use them as in the past on some occasions they had made things worse not better so it was a risk to use them and I was dying to find something else that worked instead. Within three days of using the treatment the itching from my eczema, which by now covered most of my right arm and neck, had almost ceased. Within a week most of the eczema had more or less gone. The skin was still rather red and in some bits there were still open saws but it was about 80% better."

"Now the eczema on my arms, neck, body and face has completely cleared up. Although my eczema has never been as bad as it was last year, it has always come and gone throughout my life. But now for the first time in many years I am completely free of eczema. I feel like I am being given another chance at happiness. Anyone who suffers from eczema will tell you that although it is something that only exists on your skin, it effects everything about you and the way you feel."

With everything that has happened to me recently I felt that the eczema was a cruel blow too far and I didn’t know how much longer I could have put up with it. I was in total despair that nothing seemed to work for me. Cardiospermum Gel has given me back hope and self confidence. I don’t know if it’s the relief that I have now finally found something that works for my eczema or whether it’s because my life is finally getting back to some sort of normality but I feel lot less stressed and lot more optimistic than I have in years.