DAY SIXTY-EIGHT ~ restingitchface

Where to start…

My skin was absolutely fantastic for 8 days out of 10 during my holiday. Then, on the evening of the eighth day, this happened:

Beautifully tasty, but not quite worth it.

I started to almost immediately flare on my chest, neck, stomach and back, and I knew I was doomed. On our last day, I was really quite itchy (40% of the old itch) and I had a minor breakdown in a restaurant when I realised everything had tomato in it which would make me worse. Then, at the airport, my rucksack was really heavy and the straps rubbed into my shoulders/armpits which made me flare too.

On top of this, the entirety of the back of my legs and bum came up in an itchy rash which made my mum and I panic as we thought it was eczema in the last place on my body that has never yet had it. However, when hives started coming up we realised it was just heat-rash. Thankfully, it went down after about 4 days.

A week later, I’ve (fingers crossed) got my skin back under control, but it’s meant going back up to 5x a day on my neck/collarbone and 4x a day on my stomach, back and chest. Two days ago, I put my stomach and back onto the 3x a day list again, but that means I now have 3 different timings to think about. My day is now run by this:

I do feel like once you get down to the lower apps, flares take less time to go away and less time to taper down again. Makes me feel better about the future, at least.

I’m being more careful to wean myself off the undiluted cream this time, as last time my forehead went from 4x a day to once a day and came out all sorts of crazy. I’ve been on 2x a day + 3 x compound on my forehead and arms (it’s a lot, I know, I know) but dropped to 1x a day + 4 compound yesterday. So far, so good *touch wood*. I hope to get my arms off the undiluted cream asap.

On the food front, it’s fairly obvious from the cocktail that there is some dietary juju in my system. I spoke to a lovely lady from the Dr A support group about her dietary restrictions on salicylates, but unfortunately I don’t fit the bill as my diet was extremely low (rubbish student diet) on salicylates for the first 3 years of my severe eczema. I’ve gone back to low histamine diets to investigate them properly, and I plan on taking this seriously from now until I give up, wimpering softly and pleading for Nutella.

It’s been 10 weeks since I had wine, beer, cider or champagne and 6 days since I’ve had tea. I’m not sure which one of those facts is most impressive.

Photo updates (note, my tan is patchy because new skin is growing over the tanned skin; I haven’t picked up a new disease in the past week and a half. The hyperpigmentation on my back just sorted itself out, though):