It started with a few red spots that I ignored for too long

The persistent itch that wouldn’t go away

I remember it started on a Tuesday afternoon when the sun felt way too aggressive for early May. I was walking near a park in Seoul, and by the time I got home, my forearms were burning. I initially thought it was just a simple case of heat rash or maybe something I touched in the garden, but it didn’t stop after a cold shower. That’s when the cycle of guessing games began. I spent hours reading forums about whether I had developed some random allergy or if it was just irritation from the humidity. The itch was sharp and persistent, enough to keep me awake, and honestly, the uncertainty was more annoying than the actual physical sensation. I tried various creams I had in my cabinet, but nothing really did the trick, and some even seemed to make the redness spread, which was incredibly frustrating.

The long afternoon at the clinic

By Thursday, I finally decided to stop playing doctor and actually go to a clinic. I ended up at a dermatology office in Gangnam, mostly because it was close to where I work. The waiting room was packed with people who looked just as tired as I felt. I waited about an hour and fifteen minutes before I could even get into the consultation room. The doctor was quick—maybe too quick. He looked at my arm, asked if I had changed my laundry detergent, and then gave me a prescription for some antihistamines and a steroid-based ointment. The total cost for the consultation and the medication came out to around 45,000 KRW. It felt like such a small, trivial amount of money to spend on something that had been ruining my focus for three days, yet the efficiency of it all left me feeling a bit hollow. I just wanted a clear reason, but ‘contact dermatitis’ felt like a catch-all term for ‘we aren’t quite sure but this will stop the itching.’

Why I’m still skeptical about my shower habits

After the clinic visit, I started reading about shower habits, which felt like a massive rabbit hole. I read somewhere that if you spend more than ten minutes in the shower, you’re essentially stripping away all the good stuff your skin needs to protect itself. I’ve always enjoyed long, hot showers as a way to de-stress after work, but now I’m constantly looking at the clock. Standing under the water for exactly five minutes, timing it on my phone, feels like a strange chore. Is it really helping? I’m not sure. My skin feels drier if I don’t use a heavy moisturizer immediately after, but maybe that’s just the brand of body wash I’m using. It’s an endless loop of variables—the water temperature, the soap, the towel material, the stress at work.

The recurring doubt of not knowing the source

Even now, a few weeks later, my skin is mostly back to normal, but I still get nervous when the sun hits my skin in a certain way. I keep the tube of cream in my bag just in case, even though the doctor told me not to use it unless I really have to. It’s weird how a relatively minor skin issue can change your relationship with the environment. I used to be the person who would walk everywhere, not caring about the sun or the dust, but now I find myself checking the UV index on my weather app before I leave. People around me say it’s probably just a seasonal thing and I shouldn’t worry about it, but I can’t shake the feeling that it could come back at any moment. Maybe I need to get a full allergy test, but then I think about the wait times and the cost, and I just end up doing nothing. It’s a strange place to be—partly relieved, partly just waiting for the next flare-up. Sometimes I wonder if I’m overthinking the whole thing, but then I remember that middle-of-the-night itching, and I realize I’d rather be over-cautious than deal with that again.