Hello, I wanted to share something and I wanted to see if anyone has ever had a similar experience.
This is purely a hunch, so take this with a grain of salt as I have only started a test of a solution.
So as a background,. I am 20F, I have had eczema my whole life, atopic dermatitis to be exact. I have always had small patches on my body but they would move around as i grew up and eventually it went away a good amount in 2023. I used steroids minimally when i was younger to treat eyelid eczema and my arms - eventually stopped using them entirely in 2020.
In 2023, I developed acid reflux from my throat musles, said by my ENT, caused by anxiety. My throat muscles were so tight that it was pushing acid into my throat everyday, it was very uncomfortable. When I saw the ENT, he perscribed me pantoprazole. I did not know anything about this medication at the time, i believed it was just to treat the acid reflux I was experiencing. I was not told if I could take it long term or not. I started taking this medication at the end of December 2023.
Now like i said, I have always had eczema, but as the year of 2024 went on, it got more severe on my head and vaginal area. My chest started flaring randomly and I would get it in places I never had before. It would come back and go away until around September of 2024, where I had flared the worst I had ever flared in my life (besides as a baby).
It was a mystery to me and at the time I just went to a dermatologist, explained my suffering and I started Protopic, anti-itch medication and light therapy. I was able to have relief in November 2024, leading up to the next year treating it with protopic (If anything too much because my derm/pharmacist did not tell me how often i was able to use it)
Now leading up to now, my eczema is the worst it’s ever been. I have developed follicular eczema as well as dyshidrotic eczema. It is all over my body, even worse than when I flared in 2024.
I have been desperate as the protopic had stopped working as effectively and ultimately I have stopped using it. The light therapy didn’t “seem to be helping” so my derm took me off of it. So i decided to think of all of the changes that has occurred since 2024.
I realized ever since I started taking pantoprazole, overtime my eczema has gotten worse when before, my skin was basically clear and eczema wasn’t something i thought about that often. I researched that the effects of this medication is that it messes with your gut microbiome and your stomach acid. I stopped taking it in March 2026. After I have stopped it, I have had no rebound acid reflux at all which surprised me as anxiety is still something I deal with.
I learned that low stomach acid can affect eczema. I wonder if this is all related and I honestly believe it is. I took that medication for 2 years. Nobody told me I could not take it long term like I had been. and ever since then I have been suffering with eczema.
I have now started taking a supplement called Betaine HCL, which I have heard has helped get stomach acid levels back up. I hope this brings me some sort of relief, as all of the things I love doing has been taken away from me because of my skin.
Thank you for reading if you have. I have researched a lot about the gut microbiome and how it can mess with inflammation in the skin. Cross referencing I am able to find some people talking about this, but not anything solid.