Hi, Thanks for writing to us. Eczema is a broad term and has many variants. If the eczema is too severe or has flared up, depending on the type of eczema oral therapy with steroids, azathioprine,mycophenolate, cyclosporine etc can be started. Once the severe phase is over, topicals might be used. As general treatment measure Use Luke warm water and mild soap to bathe. Never rub towel too vigorously to dry your wet skin. Apply a urea and lactic acid based moisturiser twice to thrice in a day. You may also add bath oil or olive oil to your bathing water Wear loose cotton clothes Use steroids minimally, initially steroids can be used daily and then with improvement taper it off to once a week application. At this stage of application( once in a week) steroids would not have a harmful effect. Protopic or tacrolimus is a steroid sparing drug. As it irritates your skin, use it in lower concentration of 0.03 percent, initially just once in a day. If it suits you then may shift to twice in a day application. In eczema it is essential to break itch scratch cycle, so take oral antihistamine daily. You may take a non sedating one in morning like fexofenadine or cetirizine and a sedating one like doxepine in night. Hope that helped. Take care