DAY 142

I’m in Indonesia! Currently island-hopping in the Gilis, then off to Lombok for a few days and back to Bali after that.

It’s consistently 32-34 degrees in the day, and lowest at night us around 28. I’m baking.

I can’t sit in the sun like I used to, and my experience with heat rash in Cyprus says I shouldn’t, but it’s annoying coming to paradise and only being able to sit on the beach for 30 mins at a time. Turns out, my poor boyfriend has contracted typhoid so we’re making good use of our villa anyway…

My arms have been flaring in the heat, but generally they clear again overnight. I only recently tapered off the undiluted steroid, but I think I might go back to 1001001 just to keep it at bay.

Food is really easy to control here as everything is so fresh and there’s plenty of fruit to be had!

Some exciting updates…
I went in the sea for the first time since April. In Dubai, I cried, but here it was just a minor prickle and a bit of redness on my calf, so to be safe I didn’t go in any further than my knees:

A fellow patient and ex-TSW girl, Kasey, and I have teamed up to try and get Dr Aron’s treatment out there, not because he needs more patients (he has a near unmanageable waiting list) but because we need more doctors on board across the world who understand why this treatment method trumps the current guidelines doctors are given.

We’ve set up an instagram account and have over 130 followers in a matter of days. We’ve also received some messages from non-patients in some pretty desperate states. Even though the aim is not to get more patients for an increasingly over-worked Dr Aron, it makes me proud that we can help people in the same need I was in a few months ago. Search @draronpatients or #AronRegimen on instagram to see it!

We’ve already been accused of editing our ‘after’ photos, such is the scepticism of anything to do with eczema that might actually appear to work. I don’t blame the person who assumed it though; we’re so bombarded with ‘miracle cures’ all the time that we conclude it must be fake. I admit, this one is particularly hard to believe:

Our longer term plan is to get some articles written and possibly even a petition to ask for current medical guidelines to be reviewed; I have a blogger account at HuffPost and Kasey has friends at itv, but in truth we’re both scared of the oftentimes horrendous public backlash you get from admitting you like using steroids (from both some TSW peeps and the natural remedy/nutrition sellers) so it may take a while before we perfect the message we want to send out.

Here’s one more photo of my clear skin before I get back to chillaxing!

DAY 129

Sorry, I’ve been really quiet recently. To say work has been hectic is an horrific understatement, and I’ve been working into the evening most days. It’s a good kind of busy though. In the dark days, this added stress would have led to a flare of almost incomprehensible magnitude, so the fact that the only small itchy patches I have are on my calves and the only bumpy bit is on one side of my neck (and that only appeared yesterday) is pretty damn good.

It’s silly that I haven’t updated this in a while because a lot has happened; I’ve finally enlisted the help of a nutritionist. A few months ago, I honestly thought nutrition was a load of unscientific mumbo-jumbo and would scoff at those who went down the all-natural path, but the control I felt on the low-histamine diet has completely changed my view. I do not believe nutrition is a cure for eczema – I will always be prone to it – but I do feel as though a good diet can be used as a preventative method.

Anyway, my nutritionist, Jeraldine, went through all my history, current eating and future goals to come to a big food plan for me, complete with recommended supplements, a full food list, weekly meal plan and new recipes.

I also found out that I have the metabolic rate of a 17 year old which I’m probably more proud of that I should be.

The full report looked daunting at first, especially as it’s a big step away from the histamine focus (I can eat tomatoes, hurray!!!), but I’ve broken it down and understand the need to protein to reduce blood sugars to reduce insulin to stop hormones being paused to help digestion to detoxify etc. etc. etc. Stuff I would have laughed at the beginning of this year, however, from my memory of A-Level Biology it actually makes a lot of sense.

Our emphasis now is on “clean” eating, and making sure I get (wait for it) 8x portions of vegetables and 3x portions of fruit a day. Easier than it sounds, the other day I managed 12! It’s pushing me to try new foods; today I tried avocado for the first time (bland as hell, what is all the HuffPost fuss about?!) and yesterday I tried courgette (blurgh but I’ll soldier on…).

Here are some roughly 4 month skin photos: