Meet the woman who breaks out in a rash simply walking into a supermarket
While many people don’t enjoy running errands like going to the supermarket, for mum of four Belinda Shaw completing everyday jobs like shopping can cause a debilitating skin irritation.
The 41-year-old, who now lives in Port Stephens on the NSW coast, said before 2016 she was generally healthy, even though she has a number of allergies, including to native grasses and pollens, sulphites/sulphates in food and household products and medicines, and some chemicals.
But towards the end of that year, after having her house sprayed for pesticides, she experienced a flare-up unlike any she’d had before.
Over the next few months she encountered a few more – then in June 2017 life really began to be impacted by the unexplained rashes.
After one bad incident Mrs Shaw recalled, “My children couldn’t recognise me and said ‘you don’t look like you mummy’.”
Mrs Shaw said there had been a few weeks of intense rain, which possibly made things mouldy, but now she has irritation more often than she doesn’t.
“Probably since June last year, maybe a month of the total twelve I’ve probably been ok,” Mrs Shaw said.
Mrs Shaw said the rash is red, flaky and itchy and has a rapid onset and spreads quickly.
She also experiences swelling.
“If I’m exposed to a trigger my face starts tinglIng, in minutes it’s itchy and over a couple hours it spreads,” she explained.
Mrs Shaw is unable to go into supermarkets, auto or hardware stores without risking breaking out in a horrific rash because she is allergic to ingredients in deodorant, makeup, washing detergents, cleaning products and pesticides.
The Port Stephens mum, who has 14-year-old twin daughters, a 12-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter, explained that prior to this she barely needed medication apart from occasional Ventolin and a bit of cream for eczema.
But over the past year she has been on a number of strong medications, including cyclosporine and mycophenolate, which she said work for a time and then the effects would begin to wear off.
She is currently on methotrexate.
“What I have now is so completely different and that’s why people don’t really know how to treat it.”
“It’s frustrating because it would be nice to have an answer,” Mrs Shaw added.
The itching can be so intense, she sometimes can’t sleep, and when the skin peels she said it can be “unsightly and embarrassing.”
She is constantly asked if she is sunburnt, and said at times “it’s very hard to look in the mirror.”
“It does get you down and make you not as confident,” Mrs Shaw said.
“The heat in my face has been so intense, I could melt a frozen cooler brick on my face. It feels like i have a fever or virus or something.”
The rash has impacted her work, with her having to take time off and even needing to move buildings as she had some kind of reaction, and was in tears one day because she was so itchy.
“It’s hard to say I can’t come in because of my rash,” she said.
She’s said there has been debate as to whether it is eczema or an auto immune disease.
And the mother has had testing for a number conditions including coeliac disease and lupus but everything has come up negative.
She’s tried limiting foods on top of what she can’t eat already due to previous allergies, and doesn’t wear any beauty products or makeup that is not natural.
“Other than the everyday solution of taking medication, there’s sort of no other resolution or other way to deal with it, or something long term.”
While she knows some of the elements which trigger a reaction and avoids those she says it is so hard to know what is in the environment.
