Advances and discoveries in medicine over the last 100 or so years have been incredible - from first using insulin in 1922 to treat diabetes to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, from developing vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, to stem cell research, so many more things are treatable now, giving humans longer life expectancy and a more comfortable life in general.
But it can also have its downsides, as 27-year-old mother Natasha Das Gupta and her baby daughter Indica found out. Natasha, who's from Mississauga, Ontario in Canada, watched as Indica's eczema got worse after applying creams intended to alleviate the condition.
According to The Mirror, she was prescribed four different kinds of steroid medication for her daughter, but realised it was actually aggravating her condition.
As you can see from the pictures, little Indica - who is now eight months old - really suffered, despite Natasha applying less than doctors recommended.
She's now stopped applying the medication, but she fears the drugs have left her daughter's skin dependent on steroids - since quitting in March, Indica's skin has burned and torn off to become an open wound, before oozing and then scabbing over.
Since coming off the medicine four months ago, Indica's condition has been slowly improving and her painful phases are reducing in time, but Natasha - a mother of two - says she rarely sleeps due to her daughter's screams as a result of her inflamed skin.
It seems these awful, painful and rather gruesome side-effects are a phase of Topical Steroid Withdrawal (TSW), which can occur to some people after stopping strong or long-term steroid-based treatments, but try explaining that to an eight-month-old.
"It took three days for the first flare to reach its peak," said Natasha. "It was more gruesome than anything I had seen before and worse than her eczema had ever been.
"She had no skin on her cheeks. It was red, wet and raw. Her skin was peeling off, it was terrifying.
"She would scream like her skin was on fire all day and all night, there were times where I didn't sleep at all and would stand rocking her all night.
"I couldn't put her down or leave her. You could watch her face scab-up thicker than coins, then every time she screamed they would burst and she would cry more.
"It was like her skin was melting off and there was nothing I could do about it. It was horrible. She would scratch all her skin off, then different parts of her body would break open and weep. It's shocking that these were the effects after a month of, not even daily, intermittent steroid cream usage."
Indica was first prescribed topical steroid creams in February to treat a case of eczema that affected her entire body. At first, her mum said her daughter's skin would clear up after applying medication, but would then get worse.
"I used it less than the recommended amount as I knew it was no good for her," said Natasha. "I underused the prescription and not every day.
"Her skin would get better over short bursts of time, it cleared up and then came back after. You could see the significant difference in three to four hours, it acted so quickly because she was so small.
"But then it reverted again overnight, that's how quickly it worked on her. The last time it came back worse than before and I threw the steroid cream in the garbage."
Recovery time could take up to a year, and Natasha has now started warning others about the potentially harmful effects of using steroid-based treatments.
"It's insanely scary what these things can do and that you don't know it's going to happen," she said.
"It's pretty devastating as there are a lot of holistic ways to permanently cure eczema through environmental and diet control.
"I don't think she will remember it, but hopefully it will become a stronger person. This is the devil incarnate if ever I've seen it."
Featured Image Credit: Caters