Some medical conditions can present as mild in people, but for others they can be almost fatal, leading to a small open wound potentially putting your life at risk.
A woman named Mathilda knows this all too well, as she shared her story with ABC Science, where she explained how she nearly died all because of a split lip.
Explaining that her condition forced her to be isolated by kids at school who ‘didn’t understand it’s not contagious’, Mathilda found herself sitting at the back of social settings.
Having been diagnosed with eczema at two years old, the young woman remembered her mom having to cover her in lotion.
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Eczema is a condition is a common skin condition that causes dryness, inflammation and itching.
Its severity can vary from person to person, being mild in some, but painful and even debilitating in others.
It occurs when the person has a weakened skin barrier, which makes it hard for the skin to protect itself from irritants or allergens, per the Cleveland Clinic.
For Mathilda, it took over her life, and nearly took her life too.
For years, her mother tried everything to help her, from oatmeal baths to bleach baths, cryotherapy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, herbal medicine and prescribed corticosteroid creams.
After that, she tried immunosuppressants which are labeled by the National Ezema Association as something that stops the itch cycle by slowing the symptoms of eczema.
But she explained that she got infections whilst on the medication, leading to a near-death experience.
She said of the drugs: “They seemed to help initially but I ended up having so many infections because it was a generalized immunosuppressant.”
She added that her ‘skin would flare up’, become itchy and she would scratch it and then it would crack.
Through those cracks, she would then ‘get staph infections’, including one from a crack in the corner of her lip which nearly killed her.
She said: “I had a crack in the corner of my lip and staph got in there, and it quickly found its way to my bloodstream. And so I ended up with septicemia and I went straight to hospital.”
Staph, a bacterium, can cause blood infections if it is able to reach the bloodstream, and scarily, sometimes it can lead to organ failure.
Revealing that her 'survival rate was not great’, the hospital had to 'cover’ her in corticosteroid creams and wrap her in bandages.
As she recalled family visiting her and hoping she didn’t ‘pass away’, Mathilda said it was a ‘pivotal moment’ in her life where she realized that she should 'find some other things that I enjoy'.
This ended up being climbing, which saw her be introduced to her husband before their wedding in 2021.
Now, Mathilda is taking a targeted immunosuppressant which seems to be managing the worst of her symptoms, but she admitted she still needs to taker moisteruizer wherever she goes.
Britt Jones