A round patch appears on your skin. It looks strikingly like the pictures of ringworm you can find on the internet, and also grows and/or spreads like it, too. Maybe you’ve had this problem before and know that a quick dab of over-the-counter cream will clear it up, or maybe this is your first outbreak but you’re counting on these over-the-counter products to do the trick, like all the other ‘normal’ people who turn up with this issue and employ a stress-free quick-fix. The problem? Treatment doesn’t make a bit of difference. In fact, maybe it even makes the problem worse.
When I had this problem, I promptly spiraled through a desperate chain of trial-and-error experiments based on dozens of articles to do the trick instead. One of the advised methods HAD to do the trick. But one after another, every method failed. My skin continued to worsen and worsen, until I couldn’t leave the house without covering up (thank goodness the cold season was coming on), and I was in a horrid state of terrible itching and severe pain. My ringworm spots began to take on new symptoms as they worsened (scaling and additional red bumps around the ringed area), and for a few wise moments I considered that maybe it wasn’t ringworm at all. Unfortunately, many articles I came across seemed to suggest that these symptoms were merely an allergic reaction to ringworm (see this article at askdrsears.com: http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/skin-care/ringworm), and so I remained convinced that that was what I had.
I tried the store-bought creams and the myriad of natural home remedies, and even more drastic suggestions (such as bleach), but all of it backfired and aided in further destroying my skin. (For a list of suggested home remedies, see http://www.diy-home-remedies.com/ringworm-home-remedies.html). The easy solution, of course, is simply to go see a doctor, but as someone who always tries her best to stay out of the doctor’s office and understand her own body, I was frustrated that that was becoming my only option for a simple skin problem that I had successfully treated before. (Many sources seem to have the theory that using steroid creams can backfire in that you build up an immunity to them, and thus your ringworm can come back with a vengeance. (For more details, see this article at Articlesbase: http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/how-to-treat-ringworm-treating-and-preventing-ringworm-infections-2149812.html.) This, of course, did nothing to help introduce me to the idea that I may not be suffering from ringworm at all; but instead, simply increased the hopeless feeling).
However, by chance I stumbled upon some information one day about a skin condition called Nummular Eczema. It can manifest in round patches, and look so much like ringworm that even doctors have the tendency to mis-diagnose it (see ‘The Differences between Ringworm and Eczema’ at eHow Health: http://www.ehow.com/list_6936521_differences-between-ringworm-eczema.html ). Like ringworm, all of the symptoms seemed to match what I had. The one symptom that I didn’t have on one list and did on the other was the fact that my rashes hadn’t seemed to spread to anyone else I had come into contact with over the three months that I’d been struggling with the problem. This is the one thing that was not consistent with Ringworm, but was with Nummular Eczema. It can spread like wildfire on the affected person, but fortunately does not spread to others.
As soon as I started treating my condition like eczema instead of ringworm, it began to clear up like magic (indeed, like the ‘magic’ that everyone else had claimed with one miracle ringworm-remedy or another, which had never done the trick for me). I’ve suffered from regular eczema on and off since I was a child, so I already knew how to go about handling that (but also, ironically, the fact that I’ve had prior experience was what made me rule OUT this new condition as such, because they weren’t alike). Now, when I have a flare-up, I simply apply the trusty Cortizone cream I’ve kept on hand my whole life, as well as an additional treatment of Apple Cider Vinegar that I learned about in the midst of this fiasco.
So, if your apparent ringworm outbreak isn’t responding to treatment as ringworm should, isn’t spreading to others, and is maybe even getting steadily worse from all of the suggested treatments (and you want one last word before involving the doctor), you may want to try treating it like eczema, and see if you have better results. It may just be the huge relief you’ve been waiting for, or even that you’ve wrongly ruled out.
