Nara Smith Details Gruesome Eczema Flare-Up That Left Her Body 'Oozing' and 'Swollen' — and How She Found Relief in Lupus Diagnosis

12/10/2024 01:18 PM

Nara Smith shared images and a lengthy caption detailing the health challenges she's experienced in the three years since her eczema started "flaring up severely"

Nara Smith is opening up about her health challenges.

The 23-year-old social media star got candid in a new Instagram post that detailed her journey with eczema and eventually Lupus after she made known that bad flare-ups were in part the reason why she notably started making food from scratch.

"It's been about 3 years since my eczema started flaring up severely," Smith began her length caption alongside a carousel of images showing her flare-ups posted on Tuesday, Oct. 10. "I had just given birth to my second child. It started off as a small cracked patch of dry skin that I just moisturized and ignored."

Her first photo in the gallery featured a topless photo showing redness on her arms, the second pictured Smith lying in bed, the third was an image of her inflamed eye and the fourth was a photo of her dry scalp — all of which she explained in her caption.

Related: Nara Smith Opens Up About Struggles With Eczema and Eventual Lupus Diagnosis: 'It Forced Me to Reevaluate How I Eat'

"My eczema spread rapidly starting on the palms of my hands and making its way onto my back, arms, scalp and eventually my face. I felt exhausted and my body ached so bad, that on some days I couldn't move or hold my babies," she continued.

Smith is the mother of three kids: Rumble Honey, Slim Easy and Whimsy Lou. She shares them with her husband, Lucky Blue Smith, who she wed in February 2020.

"As time went on my hair fell out in clumps and I could never shake this lingering cold feeling I felt in my body," she wrote. "I spend nights researching eczema since I thought that's all I had. I drastically changed my diet (cutting out grains, dairy, sugar) making food from scratch and swapped out all my products for more natural options."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by nara (@naraaziza)

This style of cooking is what the content creator has become synonymous with since going viral on TikTok. In her videos, Smith often makes conventional dishes and desserts from scratch while explaining the process in ASMR style.

"I would go through phases of it healing (never fully clearing up) and then flaring up. I saw multiple [dermatologists] and always got the same answer: severe eczema. I got sent home defeated, not listened to and with a paper bag full of steroid creams," she continued in her post.

Smith said that she was "struggling and [overanalyzing] everything" she put in her body for two years, causing her "biggest flareup" which then led "to a severe infection." She detailed, "Every part of my body was covered in inflamed, oozing, itchy and swollen skin."

Related: Nara Smith's 3 Kids: All About Rumble Honey, Slim Easy and Whimsy Lou

"I woke up with my eyes swollen shut and my hands not functioning. I stopped eating completely, l paralyzed by the fear of making it worse," she revealed, noting that she fell into "a state of depression" which caused her to seek help elsewhere.

"I got on a flight to Germany seeking help from naturopaths, doctors and other specialists and finally got a diagnosis: Lupus," the German-South African creator model recalled. She compared the answer to a puzzle where "all the pieces fell into place" and all of her "symptoms made sense."

She explained, "From my purple hands that felt frozen, to my extreme fatigue, my hair loss and sores. It all made sense now. I felt relieved because I finally had an answer but I was equally scared of what this meant for my life and my kids."

Smith admitted that it's been "a learning curve" for her and she's still "learning" to adjust each day. "I'm sharing this in the hopes of giving someone hope, comfort or the strength to keep pushing when things get really hard and lonely," she concluded her post.

Related: Nara Smith Reveals She and Lucky Blue Are Leaving Family Home in Texas and Moving to the East Coast

The transparent Instagram post came one day after Smith gave her nearly five million followers a first look at her new, picturesque East Coast home. She shared glimpses of her house in Connecticut after her family officially moved from Texas.

Smith gushed about the move in the caption, writing, "This year has been filled with blessings, and I'm bursting with gratitude," adding that she "convinced Lucky to get me chickens, so I let him get the lake" when they finally decided on their perfect home.

Lucky Blue first mentioned that he and Nara were looking to move to the East Coast in an interview with GQ back in August since it was "hard to make friends" in the city. "It's hard to relate to someone who isn't in your same phase of life," he told the outlet at the time.