Eczema Greek word which means to boil out, dermatitis is any reaction of the skin to anything external or internal, these are very general terms. Dermatitis is used more in American context, in British context eczema is the term which is more often. Generally eczema caused due to external factors is called exogenous eczema, internal factors is called endogenous eczema and there is mixed both external and internal. The most common cause of repeated eczema is stress that is in adults, in children the most common cause is repeated eczema is called as atopic eczema in which the barrier itself is defective and they are very sensitive for lot of external factors like dust, synthetic clothing, mites etc. Other causes of eczema is how your body reacts to certain things say if a person uses perfume with heavy fragrance he might start sneezing and develop a rash and other people with same fragrance may not develop any rash, it called as internal or endogenous eczema. So it is diagnosis which is incomplete so always we have to supplement it with what is causing eczema and try to remove it. So try to find out what is the cause of eczema in you, there are several tests like blood test, patch test etc depending on the clinical picture of your eczema, which part of your body is involved accordingly the doctor would suggest.
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