I'm afraid I can't add a whole lot that hasn't been said already. However, as a life-long allergy sufferer I can sympathize to a certain extent. Many people with extreme hay fever type allergies (me), often have eczema which, as I understand it kind of goes hand-in-hand with a sort of wholesale body-wide over-reaction to various allergens. It seems like every year I get a new spot of eczema outbreak that will itch like the dickens for weeks on end before going away. Sometimes it happens on my hands because I wash them a lot at work, then then last year I think instead of the hands I got a weird eczema spot on one of my eyelids that persisted for a few weeks before going away. There are an amazing number of things that you can develop allergies to. Also, just because you've lived somewhere your whole life or even for several years doesn't mean you won't steadily become sensitized to some environmental allergen. Also, a lot of these things can be food related too. Keeping a journal of everything you eat and when you wash your hands, what you wash them with, etc. will go a long ways to helping narrow down what's causing this. Finding out how to deal with allergies, especially debilitating allergies can be frustrating. I still deal with asthma-like symptoms brought on by air quality issues, yet so far no drugs have been of any help. The best thing you can do is keep that journal and write EVERYTHING in it so that you and your doctor can try to get it narrowed down.