I started to suffer from chronic eczema, which covered most of my body, when I was very young; it was ongoing and becoming more and more unbearable. My parents had tried a lot of homoeopathic and natural remedies, staying away from the harsher steroids and prescribed medicines which doctors and GPs would recommend, which they felt may have cleared it more quickly from the outside, while inside the problem would still be there, untackled. After they heard about the Osteopathic Centre for Children, when I was three years old, I became a regular patient. Here I was treated osteopathically, and my parents were also given dietary advice for me.

I was a regular patient at the OCC during my childhood, and particularly between the age of 14-18 when puberty started and my eczema flared up again, until I started University three years ago.

As a teenager, I was already self-conscious, and to have severe eczema visible to others made me even more conscious of my appearance and others’ opinion of how I looked. Even with a supportive family and close friends telling me not to worry and that the eczema was not noticeable, that was all that I could think about. It affected my confidence and my performance in school, at a critical time of GCSEs and A-levels; making me even more stressed than usual.

Going to the Osteopathic Centre for Children every few weeks was a comfort to me, and I remember wanting to go more and more, because it was a place where I felt I was not being looked at differently; talking to the osteopaths was comforting in the way that as well as treating me, they would tell me what to do to relax and explain how over time, my skin would improve.

By the summer of 2009, after I had finished my A-Levels, my stress levels were a lot lower, and alongside this improvement, quickly my skin made vast improvements, and it seemed as if overnight the majority of it had disappeared. All seemed to be falling into place, and with the prospect of starting university that September, I felt that this was a fresh start for me.

Three years later, while I do still suffer some bad spells in the year, I can say that I am much happier most of the time in my own skin, and I have learnt how to control what I eat, as well as create a calmer and more relaxing environment around me to suppress stress levels rising.

Without the OCC, I would not have learnt all of these smaller techniques about how to almost self-treat myself.

It was always my intention to help out when I was in a position to do so – a few years ago I decided that I would do a skydive once I graduated, and having just finished university, now is the perfect opportunity