Looking nomal again after TSW

After 14 months of recovery I'm looking good and feeling great.  I'm back to normal with every part of my life and have done thinks I haven't done in years like swimming in the ocean, playing sport and leaving the house without moisturiser across my entire body.

I wanted to share a quick picture that was taken of me the other day and I hope this motivates everyone else going through the recovery from cortisone induced eczema. 

Best of luck to you all

A Christmas Message to help TSW recovery

This is a Christmas shoutout to all those recovering from topical steroid withdrawal (TWS).  Sometimes you just need a little confidence that it's all going to get better and my friends I promise it will.

See you all in the new year.  Merry Christmas.

Surviving a music festival - Recovery month 14.5

A quick pre-christmas update on month 14 of my recovery from cortisone induced eczema and red skin syndrome.  In this addition I talk about going to a music festival with my friends and being able to handle the highly stressful (on the body) situation of drinking, late nights and general dehydration.



Here's the video of my mates and I enjoying the festival.  You can see a little redness in my face, but I think the bay watch outfits were making it look worse than it was, certainly nobody said I was in anyway red.  #winning.

TSW Cortisone Recovery v Sex Drive

Before I begin, very sorry about the way I filmed this video. I used the iPad for the first time and learned a valuable lesson about how I need to hold it :(

 

 The upside is that I feel incredible, look brilliant and have the best life I've had in many years. What do I chalk all of this up to? Simply getting off those dirty nasty steroids the doctors kept giving me. Power on!

14 month recovery update - Red Skin Syndrome

Red Skin Syndrome Update month 13.5

A letter to Dr Rapaport

I sent this email today, and wanted to share it with you all.  If it were not for Dr Rapaport I don't know where I would be.  Whilst i never actually met or spoke to him, by using the resources he made available, I was able to mentally commit to my recovery and stay off steroids permanently.



Dear Dr Rapaport,

My name is Josh Strawczynski from Australia and I was a sufferer of Red Skin Syndrome.  Thanks to finding information that you published and the many other people suffering from this alfiction, I have been off steroids for 13 months and am now 95% back to normal.  Whilst there is still a little dry skin and occasional rash on my chest, my life is back to normal and nobody except me is any the wiser.

I can't thank you enough for providing your research to the global community.  If it were not for you I would still be searching for a miracle cure to something that my doctors and dermatologists were inadvertently doing to me.  I consider myself extremely fortunate to have found you and your work and will remain indebted to you for all my days.

In my recovery I have kept a blog, mapping the progress with images and videos and through this have made contact with many many other sufferers, and helped to diagnose a few people also in the same boat.  It's only a drop in the ocean, but I'm glad to be sharing your work to help others and will continue to support as best I can.  My blog is http://redskinrecoverydiary.blogspot.com and as I said, there is excellent footage and imagery there.  I'm also a public speaker and insanely positive about life and the whole recovery process, so if there is anything in there that can help you, by all means you have permission to share it.

I just wanted to drop you a line to say thank you and if there is anything I can do to help, just let me know.

Josh