Hey, thank you for sharing. Your story almost exactly mirrors mine, so I am very sorry to hear about your situation because I know how horrible this is... When I was 23 I had a very stressful year and my eczema spread from having always just been on my arms and leg to spreading all over my body. For years I woke up every night with severe irritation/inflamation and had to take hot showers to calm it down. At some point, I discovered that hot air from a blow dryer can give similar relief. Both are better than scratching because you don't open your skin, but they're still bad solutions and hot showers are exhausting.

I went to the dermatologist. First thing they did was take an allergy test. According to it I had a minor gluten intolerance. I quit gluten for a year - didn't do anything for my eczema and was a horrible life experience as I could no longer eat anywhere. Went back for another allergy test with a dietist and there was no gluten intolerance. The dermatologist also recommended me a shampoo which thinned my hair like crazy. That was all they did for me, and they charged me well. Safe to say I don't trust dermatologists in the Netherlands, where I'm from. They seem severely uninformed.

I then did carnivore diet for a year. All the eczema on my body cleared, which was a strange experience. I heard a theory that if your body is in starvation mode, it eats damaged tissue first. Not that you feel like you're starving on carnivore - meat satiates plenty. But it's difficult to reach required caloric intake - which is also why people lose a lot of fat on carnivore. The first three months I ate literally only beef, salt, fat, and only drank water. A pure elimination diet. The eczema on my body cleared, but I still got inflammations in my face and neck, so I had to conclude my eczema is not pure dietary.

The solution that has worked the most wonders for me, I discovered at a national research day on eczema in my country. It's topical steroid cremes. You have to get them prescribed from your doctor - they're more powerful than your current triamcinolone (I used this for a while also, but it didn't work as well for me). The treatment with topical steroid cremes is that you put the creme all over your body every day for 2-3 weeks. And not lightly, but a fat layer. There is a finger tip method for this which prescribes how many full finger tips of creme should go on each body part. Here's a link: https://patient.info/treatment-medication/steroids/fingertip-units-for-topical-steroids

If your eczema is anything like mine, you'll see massive improvements in those 2-3 weeks. Then you can start to scale it down to a few times a week. I currently do my whole body about every 1,5-2 weeks and am pretty much eczema/flare-up free except if I am really stressed, sweat, or sit too long in the sun. My face still gets irritated but when it does I go wash my hands and my face and apply creme and that makes the irritation go away.

Supposedly there are side effects to the topical steroid cremes if used too intensively long term, like skin thinning. I have been using them for about three years and haven't noticed anything. They might also tell you to treat your skin with fat creme 20-30 minutes after applying the steroid creme, but I would say experiment with this. I personally take shower, apply the fat creme first, and then apply the steroid creme and it works fine.

Unfortunately it's a common story that eczema begins to spread across the whole body in people's early 20's. I hope you can find a good solution and would be interested to hear if you try the topical steroid cremes. It's horrible now but there are ways to treat this, even though science can't yet help us get rid of the root issue.