Olympic gymnast Suni Lee reveals her eczema journey, tells others: “You are not alone”

Overall Olympic gymnastics champion Suni Lee is opening up about her long journey with eczema, an inflammatory skin disease also known as atopic dermatitis.

Lee, 21, said she was first diagnosed when she was young.

“My skin was always super dry, super flaky. It was really uncomfortable because it was really itchy,” she said, speaking on a panel in partnership with Eli Lilly and Company, a pharmaceutical company and Team USA health outreach sponsor. “But my mom ended up taking me to the doctor and my doctor referred me to a dermatologist, and that’s when we got my diagnosis and found the right treatment plan.”

She admitted that when she was younger she was embarrassed about it because “no one ever talked about it.”

Now, she hopes to be the role model she could have been in her youth.

“It can be kind of isolating when you’re dealing with eczema and you have an eczema flare-up, so I just want people to know that you’re not alone and it doesn’t define you,” she said. “When you’re dealing with this and you’re constantly looking at your skin, you probably think, ‘Oh, other people are looking at it and looking at it.’ But in reality, I don’t think anyone is trying that hard.”

This isn’t the first health challenge Lee has spoken out about publicly. Last year, she revealed that she was recovering from a debilitating kidney condition. In a brief update, she shared with CBS News that she is doing “much better,” adding that she is “very happy” to be heading to the Olympic Trials.

“I’ve had to deal with so many things in the last two years. It feels so good to know that I can go back there, not even at my best, and I can still be able to perform,” she said. “I’m so excited.”

During his first Olympic race in 2020 Tokyo GamesLee won the title of individual all-around champion at age 18, making her the first Asian-American woman to win the title.

With eyes on the Paris 2024 Olympicsshe won the medal US classic last month, a key qualifying event for this year’s Games, before featuring elegant routines on the uneven bars and balance beam at the US Championships earlier this month.

The next step is the Olympic trials, which will officially determine who will one of five women’s spots on Team USA. The trials will take place later this month in Minneapolis, where Lee grew up.

“I get to compete in front of a hometown crowd, and all my friends and family will be there, so it will be a good race,” she told CBS News.

The physical and mental impact of eczema

The onset of eczema in childhood is common, said dermatologist Dr. Alexandra Golant, who was also on the panel. She said Lee’s experience is similar to many with the disease.

“Often there is a skin component – ​​which can be redness, peeling of the skin, discomfort in the skin, and it is almost always accompanied by this really relentless itching that these patients suffer from,” Golant said on the panel. It can even cause skin damage by getting stuck in what’s called the “itch cycle,” she said.

And the condition is more than superficial – there is also a psychological component.

Even during periods of relatively clear skin, for many patients there is often “anticipatory anxiety around when the next flare-up will occur,” says Golant—something Lee says she has experienced herself.

“Eczema flare-ups can definitely get into my head,” Lee said during the panel. “Being on a competition floor, having so many eyes on you and just trying not to worry about whether people are looking at my skin or whether they like to scratch me, because the more I scratch myself, the scalier it gets, the drier it gets. he is. going to get it.”

In an interview with CBS News, Lee shared that she was able to go from feeling insecure to being confident in her own skin by realizing that “everyone has something going on.”

“I have to be out there in a leotard where my skin is totally exposed and everyone can see, and the insecurity I feel was just holding me back,” she said. “So the more I started to accept it… and just went out there and competed with it, I was fine. And knowing that I had the support and help that I needed from the right healthcare professional and dermatologists served me so well.” .”

Lee is not currently taking a Lilly medication, but the company launched a resource page partnered with her to help those looking for eczema resources.

Stress and eczema

Anxiety and stress are common triggers for eczema flare-ups.

For Lee, stress is “a daily thing that I have to fight,” she told CBS News, but adds that it “definitely starts to build up when I have to perform.”

So how does the Olympic athlete stay calm? Journaling and therapy, she shared.

“I do a lot of journaling,” she shared. “I write a lot about how I feel because I’m a very reserved and quiet person. So whenever it comes to my feelings, I keep everything inside until I explode. To keep that under control, I like to keep a diary and write out everything I feel. I also do a lot of therapy, where I can just say how I feel and work through all the mental challenges I have to go through.”