Matt Spence, 21, has lived with severe psoriasis and eczema since he was around eight years old, he spoke with Radiance about his experience managing and growing up with these skin conditions.

Matt gets severe eczema on his wrists and on his arms. He also gets plaque psoriasis, that starts out as guttate, which are small blotches of psoriasis. In places like the bottom of his elbows, it can develop into larger patches.

How bad it can get

He said: “When it’s at its worst, just over 60 percent of my body can be covered by psoriasis. I think that started around year four or five.

“It was absolutely everywhere. I’ve had it on my face, like all over, particularly on my forehead. There was a large patch there, on my cheeks and then all over my body I had it, including on my arms and hands and everything, so it used to be pretty visible.”

Matt has both an older brother and a younger sister, neither of which have experienced psoriasis or eczema.

“I’m not aware of anyone else in my family who has had these conditions”, he said.

How it started

Early on, at around nine years old, Matt was prescribed light therapy, where he said he had to stand in a pod like room while they shone what he recalls as being UV light at him. He said that was meant for severe cases and that it was intended to have a significant impact.

“For me I don’t believe it worked massively well, so they tried other things.

“You can take certain drugs for it, I don’t know what drug they actually put me on, because I was too young, but I believe they weren’t approved for under 18s, but they still decided to put me on them.

“I’m pretty sure I got side effects when I was younger, so that’s why I came off. I think it was vitamin A retinol, so similar to isotretinoin.

“I kind of gave up after a certain point, because nothing really worked that well. The plaque psoriasis didn’t really bother me, because I never found it painful.

“I was more bothered about it when I was a kid, which is why I went to the dermatologist, because people were a bit funny about it.

“When I was younger I used to get upset. Nowadays I’m not too bothered really. I guess eczema is the only one that does really flare up and can still be painful.”

Dealing with people’s comments

At times it was a struggle for Matt to deal with other people’s often uneducated assessment of his skin, sometimes complete strangers would take it upon themselves to give their own unwanted advice.

“When I was really young, some people were a bit mean about it, but after that I think it was more the annoyance of people constantly commenting on it.

“I remember when I was at secondary school, there used to be people who would walk past me and say ‘oh, what’s wrong with your face?’, ‘have you been injured?’, just things like that.”

He recalls how when he was working, he would get people stopping him and because they were a customer, he couldn’t really escape a conversation. He would have to stand there while they told him their secret way of getting rid of his skin conditions, despite him having already seen dermatologists and having dealt with it for many years.

“It wasn’t even reasonable things that a dermatologist would say, it was things like rub tomato on your skin or something. People think it’s more okay to comment on this type of condition than over other health things for some reason.”

“For the first person it’s okay, but when you’ve had that five times in a day, it gets really long.”

He found these types of comments, by people who didn’t even know him somewhat patronising. He felt it was a bit like when someone who’s clearly struggling with acne is asked “are you touching your face, are you having dairy and it’s like ugh – be quiet”, he said.

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How it is now and how he manages it

He finds that the severity and spread of the conditions can vary a lot over time. Around a year ago, it was really bad, with just over half of his body covered, but currently it’s very little.

“It just goes up and down all the time. I still have eczema to a good extent, but the psoriasis has largely cooled down. Over time it kind of comes and goes, I don’t know if it’s going to flare up again in the future.”

When I asked Matt if he felt there was any chance of his skin conditions going away, whether that be in another few years or decades, he answered: “I think it’s only in states of remission really, it’s not really something you can get rid of, which kind of sucks.

“I think there are certain drugs that can help more, but they also come along with side effects and further health issues.

“I think the eczema is the only part that annoys me, psoriasis I’ve kind of got to grips with. It’s more just the eczema can be painful sometimes, so it’s just annoying.”

As for the sensation itself he said: “It’s really hard to describe the itching because it’s like people will say well don’t itch it, but it will constantly itch.

“You can not itch it during the day, but then you can wake up in the night and it’s like oh, in my sleep I itched it and now I’ve woken up and I can’t fully extend my arm, it’s that painful.

“It’s pretty horrible sometimes, especially if you’ve scratched it in the night and all you can do when you wake up to relieve it is put on moisturiser.

“I just put creams on and that’s about it really. I’ll put it on my eczema, not really my psoriasis, unless it’s cracked. If it’s as it is, I’ll just leave it alone really.”

For Matt there are some things he feels he can do to help reduce the severity of his conditions. He makes sure that he always has very clean bed sheets, in a way that people without skin conditions likely wouldn’t think about. He does this to reduce the chance of things like dust mite allergies. He also works to make sure that everything in his room is clean.

He has also noticed that cold weather can end up making it worse, so he has to take extra care in winter. Similarly, he sees a correlation between his stress levels and his skin flaring up. “If I’m really stressed, I’ll end up with worse skin”, he said.

Social Media, Career Obstacles and Looking Back

When it comes to the portrayal of these conditions on social media, Matt said, “some people make it their whole entire image online, where it’s like they’re a psoriasis or eczema influencer, but that just doesn’t appeal to me so much. I think I’d rather just accept it as part of me and move on.”

Matt wanted to join the Royal Air Force, but he was ruled as “permanently medically unfit” because of his skin.

He said he was told he would lose an appeal against the decision, so he decided not to submit one.

“It was more annoying because I passed in every other area, but because I have eczema, I couldn’t join.”

When it comes to reflecting on his skin journey as a whole up until now he said: “I think I got to grips with it pretty young to be honest, just because it happened suddenly.

“I think I’d kind of already come to terms with it and wasn’t that upset by the time I was in secondary school, because I’d already gone through it for a few years and by that point it kind of just stayed about the same with how I dealt with it.”

He said of his ways to cope with the annoying comments from other people is by thinking: “don’t take it too personally and try to get that the person is probably just trying to make sure I’m okay. Instead of you know, taking it as something I should get upset over.”