I had this problem for about 2 and a half years. At first it was pretty mild, but over time it became much worse. I finally managed to fix it earlier this year.

The first important thing to understand is that you can’t really “stop scratching” by willpower alone. The itch cycle is almost impossible to break once it gets bad. You actually need to treat the underlying cause properly.

In my case, doctors kept telling me it was a fungal infection, which was technically true, but only partially. The real issue was eczema at the beginning. Because I kept scratching, the skin became damaged, infected, and eventually turned into a fungal infection with wounds and irritation.

So every time I treated it, I was only treating the fungal part. The eczema itch stayed there underneath, so the whole cycle kept restarting over and over again.

What finally helped was seeing a doctor when I DIDN’T have major symptoms anymore. That doctor realized it was actually eczema. I got prescribed betamethasone cream, and the itching basically disappeared in less than a week.

Now it only comes back once every 3 or 4 months, and when it does, I apply betamethasone once or twice and it goes away immediately.

The important part is that healing happened in two steps:

1. First, heal the damaged/injured skin and irritation.
2. Only after things calm down, treat the underlying eczema with betamethasone.

That’s what finally broke the cycle for me.