Experimenting

You have probably tried experimenting with different factors to try and find the reason behind your outbreaks, and have probably discovered that this is extremely difficult. I will try to explain why that is, and how you have to proceed if you wan't to be able to point out causes. If you get this right, tremendous progress can be made if you are lucky, if not: at least you tried!

First of all, I can say with reasonable certainty that if you haven't figured out your atopic eczema by now, your outbreaks are probably caused by more than one factor. If you for example have a very stressing period or get very little sleep, at the same time you stop eating choclate or start taking colder showers, it is a fair chance that it will be difficult to isolate any effect on your skin.

1st rule: dicipline

No cheating, it will mess up everything and you can end up trying things for years without beeing certain! That means: read what food contains (lots of food has lactosis in it, for example, without it beeing obvious) and don't fall in to temptation; remember that it's much better to have an alternative permanently crossed of the list than trying it again in a year because you weren't happy with the previous experiment.

2nd rule: pay attention:

Sooner or later you are going to have to run some tests to see how your skin reacts. Remember that changes come by slowly in the body, when you do tests to see how it affects your skin, be carefull not to do other things that might have effect. Write some quick notes on times and result, this will remove a lot of uncertainty and document so that you can feel satisfied with ruling factors out.

3rd rule: timing:

The best time to start an experiment is when things stay fairly the same in your environment. Say that you are interessted in how getting more sleep effects you, the results will often be contanimated if you go on hollidays or go sunbathing because of nice weather. And at the same time, you don't want to complicate a vacation too much do you? Comon, you've earned it!

4th rule: Consistency:
Everything you do day-by-day involves hundreds of factors, which makes this quite difficult. If you quit, for example, eating snacks, oranges, milk and raisins all at once, you will probably not be able to keep completely away from everything, as there might be small amounts in food, and thus make it impossible to know where outbreaks stem from (and even, fatigue your will to further experiment). 

Finding factors your skin reacts to takes a iron will, so be proud of your efforts and keep at it.