What Does Eczema Look Like?

Many people starting to deal with dermatitis ask: what does eczema look like? Why am I curious? It all started when I experienced some unexplained redness and itching on my skin. One of my friends told me that it looked like I had eczema.

I had heard about eczema before but did not really know how it looked like exactly. I was surprised to find out there are many types of eczema, and each type may look different from the other. This is aside from the level of severity of eczema that a patient has.

After reading through many articles and consulting many sites I learned that according to the medical definition of eczema, this skin condition is a type of inflammatory disease that is characterized by inflammation, vesiculation (formation of blisters), the development of crusts and scales and watery discharge.

What was more interesting was that different types of eczema can be identified according to the location of the infected area as well as the causal agent. That meant many possible causes.

As mentioned earlier, different types of eczema vary depending on how it looks but generally there are predominant symptoms common in almost all types of eczema. These are the redness of the skin, scratching injuries (caused by itching), some bumps on the skin as well as lines on the skin.

The redness of the skin is the first sign I noticed which lead my friend to think I had eczema. This is because of the inflammation that comes with this type of skin condition. Then my skin became dry and super itchy and the more I scratched my skin, the itchier it got. I even remembered crying at one point because my skin was so itchy that I could not sleep at all. This is obviously the reason why many eczema patients have scratching injuries.

It's also common to have bumps on the skin as well as some blisters. The bumps may be filled with pus or with watery substance. I consider myself lucky as my bumps were filled with water and not the disgusting pus.

Eczema can attack any part of the body however some parts like the hands are specific to the illness. Mostly patches of dry and itchy skin are visible on the face, inside of the elbows, necks, ankles and knees.

I also found out that infants are not excused from this type of skin condition. What does eczema look like with infants? Almost the same but you can usually see it on their foreheads, forearms, cheeks, scalp, legs and neck.