Advertorial

Home > Health > Skin

I Spent SGD 11,000 on My Eczema Over 8 Years. These 3 Questions Would Have Saved Me Most of It (Answer Them Right Now)

Why "I've tried everything and it keeps coming back" happens, and what none of it was reaching

By: Gabriel C., October 2026 · Reading time: 5 min read

A drawer full of used steroid cream tubes

Before you read anything else, answer 3 questions.

Honestly. Just yes or no. It takes 10 seconds.

1. When you stop the steroid cream, does it come back within weeks?

2. Is it worst at night? Around 3am, when you wake up already scratching?

3. Does your colleague take the same freezing MRT, eat the same laksa, survive the same terrible week at work... and nothing happens to their skin?

Got your answers?

If you said yes to two or more, I need you to read this next part slowly.

Your skin was never the whole problem.

How hard your body reacts is.

And almost 70% of the part of you that reacts doesn't live in your skin at all. It lives in your gut.

Not one cream you've ever bought goes there.

I said yes to all 3 questions. For 8 years.

And nobody ever asked me.

→ See what reaches the inside here

I Said Yes to All 3 for 8 Years (And Spent SGD 11,000 Proving It)

A bedside table at night with a cream tube and tablets

My name is Gabriel. I had eczema from 19 to 27.

Over those 8 years I spent about SGD 11,000 trying to make it stop.

It started at a polyclinic. The doctor said six words to me:

"No cure. Just manage it."

So I managed it.

Steroid cream. It worked. Then it came back.

8 months of TCM.

9 months of probiotics off Shopee.

14 months with no dairy, no gluten, no prawns, no eggs. In the best food city in the world.

One plate of char kway teow could cost me 3 days of flare.

At CNY, somebody's auntie asked me what happened to my arm.

I slept with socks on my hands so I wouldn't scratch myself open in my sleep.

Some mornings there was blood on the sheets anyway. I stripped the bed before anyone else was up.

A grown man. Socks on his hands.

I did everything I was told.

And if you answered yes to those 3 questions, I'm guessing you did too.

The Doctor Was Right About the Cream

I want to be fair here.

Steroid cream does exactly what it's made to do. It calms your skin. Fast.

Your doctor wasn't wrong to give it to you. Keep it. It has a real place.

The problem is that everyone, me included, was only ever looking at the skin.

Calm it. Cover it. Moisturise it. Don't scratch it.

Nobody looked at why my body was reacting so hard in the first place.

→ See the part I was missing

What Your 3 Answers Actually Mean

Question 3 first: the laksa.

Two people eating the same laksa

Same MRT. Same laksa. Same stress. Your colleague is fine. You flare.

So the trigger isn't the difference. The difference is how hard your body reacts.

Heat, sweat, food, stress. They're triggers. They're not the cause. You could avoid every trigger in Singapore and still flare. I know, because I tried for 14 months.

Your body isn't weak. It's working too hard.

In 2008, a review in the medical journal Clinical & Experimental Immunology found that almost 70% of your immune system lives in your gut. That's the part that does the reacting.

Think of your eczema like a smoke alarm that goes off every time you make toast. The toast is your triggers. Everyone makes toast. Your alarm isn't broken. It's set too sensitive.

Question 2: the 3am.

Socks and a cream tube on the bedside table at night

Your body makes its own natural steroid, called cortisol. It helps keep inflammation down. And it drops to its lowest level in the middle of the night.

So at 3am, an alarm that's already set too sensitive goes off. That's why you wake up already scratching.

Question 1: why it comes back.

Your gut has a lining, like a fine sieve. When it's weak, the holes get too big. Scientists call it increased gut permeability; most people know it as leaky gut. Bits of half-digested food slip through, your immune system sees them, and it stays on high alert.

Steroid cream holds the reaction down on your skin. But nothing changes inside. So the moment you stop, the alarm goes off again.

Flare. Cream. Better. Stop. Flare again.

You start over from Day 1, every month. I did it for 8 years.

The gut-skin link is still a young area of research, and a lot of it comes from lab and small studies. What isn't in doubt is where most of your immune system lives.

Why Everything We Try in Singapore Only Does Half the Job

Now look at my SGD 11,000 again.

Steroid cream: calms the skin. Doesn't reach the gut. Stop, and it comes back.

Moisturiser: protects cracked skin. One customer: "The creams help to smoothen the flakes for about 2 to 3 hrs." Then the itch is back.

Antihistamines from Guardian: get you to sleep. Then you're "drowsy the next day."

Cutting out hawker food: removes triggers. A trigger isn't the cause.

TCM: helps some people for a while. My 8 months didn't stop it coming back.

Probiotics off Shopee: one job, adding bacteria. In 2018, scientists at Israel's Weizmann Institute found that in many people, the new bacteria never settled in. They passed straight through. A Cochrane review of 13 trials and 754 people with eczema found probiotics probably make little or no difference to symptoms.

To help calm an alarm that's set too sensitive, your gut needs four jobs done together: break food down properly, clear what builds up, feed the good bacteria that help maintain the lining, and calm an immune system that's working too hard.

Nothing I tried did more than one. Most did none.

→ See what does all four jobs

What I Use Now (And Why It's Different)

SpiroPlus bottles and boxes

It's called SpiroPlus. I didn't invent it. Wellous did.

I tested it on myself first, when I had nothing left to lose.

It's two small lemon-mint chewables before bed. It doesn't replace your cream. It adds the inside half.

Here's what makes it different:

✅ All 4 jobs in one chewable. 17 digestive enzymes to break food down. Chlorella to support your body's own clearance. Prebiotic fibre to feed the good bacteria that help maintain your gut lining. Blue spirulina to help calm an immune system that's working too hard.

✅ Blue spirulina, standardised to 20% phycocyanin. Phycocyanin is the blue part that does the calming. It's rare: 100g of spirulina makes just 5g of the blue.

✅ 0% steroid. So it can't thin your skin the way steroid cream can.

✅ Keep your cream. It works alongside what your doctor gave you.

✅ Gentle start. One chewable a night in week 1, so your stomach can settle.

✅ HSA-Notified, Halal certified and SGS lab-tested for heavy metals.

Blue spirulina powder

→ See if the 90-Day Reset is still available

What the 90 Days Look Like

Your skin renews about once a month. Your gut lining takes longer. That's why this is 90 days, not 7.

This is what our customers usually tell us:

Week 1: One chewable a night. Some people go to the toilet a bit more at first. Most don't notice their skin yet. That's normal.

Weeks 2 to 4: Up to two a night. The 3am wake-ups are usually the first thing to change.

A bed in the morning light

Month 2: Flares still come. They feel weaker, and they settle faster.

Month 3: The pattern starts to change. Fewer flares, not just milder ones.

Month 3 is where I was when I realised something.

I couldn't have told you which drawer my steroid cream was in.

If you're on steroid cream, don't stop it on your own. Keep it, and talk to your doctor as things settle.

→ Start your 90 days here

What Other Singaporeans Are Saying

I'm not the only one. These are real photos and WhatsApp messages from our customers. Unretouched.

Amiela, 33, sent me this on WhatsApp:

Amiela WhatsApp: before photo of her handAmiela WhatsApp: after photo of her hand

Amiela, 33. Her own before and after, sent on WhatsApp: "still abit of skin peel off but overall it's improving." Shared with permission. Results vary.

Customer forearm, before and after

Before and after. Real customer, shared with permission. Results vary.

Customer hand, before and after

Before and after. Real customer, shared with permission. Results vary.

Customer fingertip, before and after

Before and after. Real customer, shared with permission. Results vary.

And the messages:

Khatijah WhatsApp messages from day 1 to day 19

Khatijah, about her 15-year-old daughter. She started with 1 bottle because the price was "a bit hefty." Day 19: "I'd take the 3 bottles.. thank u." Shared with permission. Results vary.

Roy WhatsApp message on his third bottle

Roy, on his 3rd bottle. The itch still came. It just didn't turn into a flare. Shared with permission. Results vary.

Siew Fong WhatsApp message

Siew Fong, 58, carer for her elderly mother. Shared with permission. Results vary.

4.5 stars from 3,637 Singaporeans. 89% said their flares come back less often, feel less severe, and settle on their own in 2 to 3 days. 85% said they slept better, with less itch at night.

Self-reported by verified SpiroPlus customers. Results vary.

→ Join them here

Everything You Get With the 90-Day Reset

The 90-Day Reset with the Eczema Healing Kit

3 bottles of SpiroPlus, 90 days, the full reset. Plus the Eczema Healing Kit, worth SGD 238, free:

Free gift #1: WhatsApp Skin Consultation for 90 days (worth SGD 133)
A real skin consultant, not a bot. They check in on day 3, 30, 75 and 90. Flaring over CNY? Just message them.

Free gift #2: Anti-Flare Diet Blueprint (worth SGD 48)
Written for hawker food, kopi and festival season. I wish I'd had this instead of 14 months of guessing.

Free gift #3: 90-Day Skin Tracker (worth SGD 32)
See the changes week by week.

Free gift #4: Free Priority Shipping in Singapore (worth SGD 25)

Worth SGD 523. You pay SGD 259, one payment. You save SGD 264 (50%). That's SGD 2.88 a day.

I spent SGD 11,000 on the outside. This is the inside half.

Not ready for 90 days? You can start with 1 bottle (30 days) for SGD 95. The kit only comes with the 90-Day Reset.

→ Start my 90-Day Reset

⚠️ Important Stock Note

I have to be honest with you about availability.

Blue spirulina is genuinely scarce. It takes 100g of spirulina to make 5g of the blue, and this year's harvests were cut by weather.

Skin consultant spots are limited. Each consultant can only take on so many new people each week, because they check in with every one of them on day 3, 30, 75 and 90.

If the 90-Day Reset is available when you click, I'd start now.

→ Check if the 90-Day Reset is still available

Two Paths Forward

Path 1: You close this page.

Nothing changes.

Tonight it's the cream again. Maybe the socks. At 3am you're awake, already scratching.

Tomorrow you strip the bed before anyone's up. Long sleeves in 32 degrees.

Next month you stop the cream, and it comes back. Same as always.

By CNY, somebody's auntie is asking about your arm.

Six months from now, you'd still answer yes to all 3 questions.

Path 2: You check if the 90-Day Reset is still available.

Takes 30 seconds.

Tonight you take one chewable before bed. You keep your cream.

In a few weeks, the 3am wake-ups usually change first.

In month 2, the flares feel weaker and settle faster.

By month 3, maybe you can't remember which drawer your steroid cream is in either.

The choice is yours.

Start your 90-Day Reset

→ Check if the 90-Day Reset is still available

Or WhatsApp a skin consultant first

Gabriel C.


References
Vighi G et al. Allergy and the gastrointestinal system. Clin Exp Immunol. 2008.
Zmora N et al. Personalized gut mucosal colonization resistance to empiric probiotics. Cell. 2018.
Makrgeorgou A et al. Probiotics for treating eczema. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2018.

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT A NEWS ARTICLE. The author sells SpiroPlus in Singapore.

SpiroPlus is a health supplement, not a medicine. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Keep following your doctor's advice and don't stop any prescribed treatment on your own. Personal and customer results are self-reported and vary. Privacy Policy