Woman left wanting like ‘monster’ and in ‘residing hell’ after easy treatment mistake
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Alice Kendall used steroid cream to treat her eczema but coming off the medication sent her skin into freefall, leaving her looking like a “monster”
Alice Kendall has suffered reactions to stopping her steroid cream(Image: Kennedy News/@alicekendall24 )
A love-struck teen used steroid cream to bag herself a boyfriend – only for it to leave her looking like a ‘monster’ with flaky skin that needs vacuuming up. Alice Kendall has suffered with eczema since she was a baby, but said it worsened when she was a toddler and she was offered steroid cream by doctors.
The 28-year-old said eczema appeared on her eyes and the creases of her arms and legs, before spreading all over her body when infected.
Alice’s eczema cleared when she started secondary school and she only occasionally used steroids to tackle bad flare-ups. But after leaving school to become a hairdresser, the chemicals, dyes and constant hair washing made her skin ‘horrendous’ and left her constantly relying on the steroid cream.
Due to her flare-ups, Alice was forced to quit hairdressing at 18 and instead pursued a career in childcare – continuing to use the steroid cream as dating was ‘hard’ with a skin condition.
Alice thinks she now looks like a ‘monster’
In September 2023, waste sampler Alice suddenly began getting painful rashes in odd places and even her usual creams wouldn’t help soothe her skin.
After cutting out the steroids in September 2025, Alice’s skin became so itchy and flaky she was house-bound for five months, only leaving the house to go to dermatology appointments.
Alice believes her skin was withdrawing from the medication she’d used for 12 years – a condition known as topical steroid withdrawal (TSW).
Despite Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) helping her skin, in a heartbreaking social media post Alice described not seeing herself in the mirror but ‘a monster’.
She sometimes needs to vacuum up her flaky skin
Alice, from Ely, Cambridgeshire, said: “It’s weird, I don’t see myself as Alice, I see myself as a bit of a monster at the moment. That’s sad, but that’s how I feel.
“I know it’s horrible and I shouldn’t feel like that about myself but it’s hard when you look like this and you’re not like yourself.”
Apart from some mild eczema as a baby, Alice said her skin initially started flaring up after leaving school and entering the workplace.
Alice said: “I left school and went into hairdressing. All the chemicals and the dyes, washing hair, made my skin horrendous.
“I left my apprenticeship because I couldn’t do it, I was using steroids all the time. I went into childcare and there were no issues with that, I just had normal eczema.
She says she ‘didn’t know the risks’
“I was still prescribed steroids and I feel angry with myself. I used it on such a small amount of eczema, but I didn’t know the risks.
“I kept using it because I didn’t want eczema. When you are a girl at 18 you want to find a boyfriend and dating is hard if you have a skin issue because you’re conscious about it.
“I kept using them for 12 years like the silly idiot that I was. In 2023, I started getting these random skin issues in odd places that I never had eczema on before. I was trying different creams and nothing was working.
“My skin was showing me that it couldn’t go a day without a steroid cream. It was completely flaring up. It is absolutely living hell, I couldn’t think of anything worse.
“It was like Groundhog Day. I didn’t want to leave the house, I didn’t want to see people. I had days when I couldn’t physically get my body out of bed because my skin was so tight.
“When you’re a girl you just want to be pretty and girly and you want to wear make-up [but it was] just not possible.”
She’s suffered with eczema since birth
Although Alice has seen some improvements since starting CAP treatment in January 2026, she admits she’s still forced to vacuum up her flaky skin.
Alice said: “I have to hoover after myself loads. We have black tiles in the kitchen, which is a big mistake if you have TSW.
“I pull my trousers down and my skin falls out. I have to brush my black office chair because I’m embarrassed.
“If you can do some colouring, some sewing, something to keep your hands busy rather than bed rotting [during flare-ups], that massively helped me when I couldn’t leave the house.”
Now, Alice is warning people about the risks of steroid creams to avoid the same thing happening to them.
Alice said: “I’ve seen people say ‘that won’t happen to me’, but it can happen to you. That’s the risk and that’s what you need to be aware of when you’re prescribed these.
She’s issued a warning to others
“Do your research before you take the medication and see what people are going through.”
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) warns that potent steroids should not be used continuously ‘at any site for longer than eight weeks’ and treatment should be for the ‘shortest duration needed’ to manage the condition.
They warn that TSW reactions can occur with long-term use of topical corticosteroids and advise those prescribing it to warn patients that TSW can occur after long-term use.
