Day 236- Learning from Your Mistakes

This last flare came on very aggressive and I was unprepared. I took a Dead Sea Salt bath on Sunday like usual, but since my skin was so bad I decided to take another one Tuesday afternoon. I don't think that was a good idea, but to be honest I don't know anymore. I've given up trying to single out the cause of flares and what not, it's too exhausting. My skin split still hasn't completely healed, and it even seems to be moving down. So I'll be sticking to my once a week bath.

My feet are looking better and they're holding out even from all that damage that I do. Hopefully this won't last very long.

Day 229- Another Flare

I was on my lunch yesterday when I started to get an itch attack that just wouldn't go away. After trying to calm my skin down for hour I finally went inside and told my manager I had to go home before it got worse.

Driving home was almost unbearable. I drive a stick, which doesn't give you much freedom to scratch during an attack. That's when the stingers got worse and the longer I avoid scratching an itch the worse it gets. The stingers get more intense until I cry out in pain and succumb to the itch anyway.

On my way home it started to get colder and then it began to rain. I rolled down my windows and tried to calm down my irritated oozing neck/chin. It helped... a little.

Had an awful time trying to sleep. Everything hurt.
My clothes hurt my skin.
My blankets hurt me.

I woke up again at 6am, with my neck oozing/sweating. I grabbed my faithful ice pack and tried to get back any sleep I could. Broken is better than none. When my alarm went off I woke up into a scratching fest, I called into work and passed back out until 12, just in time to say goodbye to the husband. :(

My wrists, arms, shoulders, back, neck, face and eyes got hit the hardest this time around. So my upper body is all very inflamed and raw from the scratching with sink hang nails everywhere. I thought that topical steroid withdrawal kinda worked down, like my feet would've been the last thing to see extreme symptoms, maybe that's just wishful thinking.
I'm sad that I'm about to go into another flare, especially since my last "break" didn't feel like a break at all. Well hopefully this means I only have two or three big flares left. :/

7.5 Months- Dead Sea Salt Bath

I took my first Dead Sea Salt bath on Sunday. I put in two cups, but after a few seconds of not feeling anything I threw in one more cup and then I felt it. Burning. Good Burning. Like the first time I took the Epsom salt bath. It burned and tingled everywhere, I felt my poor skin screaming. I felt my face throbbing and that's when Ian popped in to tell me in had been minutes. That's when I braved the rest off the bath and soaked my face on and off for the remaining 10 minutes.

Here I am, two days later after the bath.

I unfortunately attacked my wrist a little bit. :(

 For the last few days my hands and wrist have been giving me problems and I'm getting those little hives again. I know it's going to be getting bad again, I think I hit it at the right time with the bath. But who knows what will happen in the long run.

Day 220

For the past week or so I wake up every morning at 6am and my neck is just sweating!! Or oozing. I freaked out at first but I just grabbed the ice pack and wrapped it around my neck until I had to get ready for work a few hours later, dozing in and out of sleep.

I feel a flare coming on.

I'm not ready for another one.

I got my Dead Sea Salts today, but I'll have to wait until Sunday till I can take a bath so I have two days off for healing. I'm very eager to see it this helps.

Here I am in at lunch in muh car.

When I got home  I got a picture of my feet. Already looking better!

Day 212- 7 Months!

So I am now starting my 7th month of topical steroid withdrawal. For the most part things are pretty stagnant. Which I suppose I'm grateful for.  I'm still having some trouble with the split on my lip as well as some cuts on my eyelids. I' blink very slowly, and they don't fold back up gracefully or in sync.

I ordered a 20 pound bag of Dead Sea Salt, I know it's a lil late. But better late than never.

I'm still extremely dry, I'm still pretty itchy, and I'm still fairly red.

The temperature regulation is getting better, but I still have swollen lymph nodes everywhere. I still have elephant skin. It'll get better. Hopefully by the year mark...

Months 1-6 Progress Photos

I finally did it. I went through the tons of photos I had saved to make these.

The months "7-12" photo blog will be much more hopeful than this.

I hope these photos give others comfort through their withdrawal. I'd say month 3 is where it looks like a blew up. What do you guys think?

Day 202-Guess What's Coming Back!!

My arm hair!!! Oh boy! I have a blog entry back December, when I first noticed the difference.
I haven't been using the heater as much at work, I've been pretty proud. That's when I noticed the lil guys!

It's been a lil bit sine I've shown my hands. The red is slowly going down and my hands and wrists are virtually cut free.

And it's gone!!! The cut/skin split that has been above my lip since the 3rd month of my withdrawal is finally healed enough and is no longer split! Now it's just a big ol' crusty, dry healing mess. I'm going to buy some Dead Sea Salt this pay day, I can't wait to try it. I'm sure it'll help all over. I have s large cuts on both eyelids,, right on the crease.

MUH FEET! (My feet) lol

Look sat those feet heal! 

There's still a lot of cuts, which I hope the DSS bath salt will help with, but the large skin scabs are pretty much gone.