Month 5, Day 1

Woohoo! I'm in month 5! Which means I'm that much closer to healing. I feel optimistic today which I think is due to my increase in energy. Now it's only been 2 days that I've noticed some extra energy but hey it's better than not having any at all. I'm still not getting to sleep until around 3:30am and sleeping until 11 with one wakeup around 9. And I don't remember the last time I took a nap during the day. Not for 2 weeks at least. Progress! The itching is definitely not as bad as it was when I was moisturizing but I do still get my itch attacks. Now my wrists/hands are the worst, followed by neck/jaw/cheeks. I have been using the clofibrate ointment on a few select areas, as mentioned in my last post, but haven't noticed any improvement. If I don't see any in the next week or two I'm just going to give up on it. What works for one clearly may not work for another. Oh well! I guess I was hoping for a miracle cream but those were high hopes indeed.

So anyway, I'm starting my 3 week liver detox program today, as prescribed by my functional medicine doctor. All 3 weeks do not allow anything processed, no gluten, dairy, or soy, nothing high glycemic and no sugar at all unless a low glycemic fruit. No red meat, no bacon (ahhhh a paleo nightmare), no alcohol or caffeine, etc etc. I have to drink this protein shake which is quite disgusting but at this point, I'm willing to try anything! I couldn't seem to get the sugar out of my diet so this program, or "challenge" as I see it, will push me to do so. I know a lot of people think diet has no effect on this process, and for some that may be true, but for me sugar is definitely a trigger for flaring. And I looooove me some dessert! So I'm hopeful to see how this detox effects my skin!

Almost 4 months down!

Every day is up and down. One day my skin feels great and the next day it sucks. My diet definitely plays a big part in this. Whenever I eat lots of sugar & carbs, my skin flares the next day or two. I feel like I've been in a constant flare since this all started. When will it end?! I'm still gluten & dairy free but my functional medicine dr has me starting a liver detox program. There will be absolutely no processed foods, sugar, caffeine, alcohol for all of the 3 weeks and then in week 2 I will eliminate all meat. During this protocol, I will be taking a shake called UltraClear+ 1x/day the first few days, 1x/day the end of the first week, then 3x/day in week 2 and back down to 2x/day and then 1x/day in the final week. So I'll let you know how it goes!

I also ordered this ointment from Dr. Fukaya called Clofibrate. I saw it on ahfaye's blog (byebyesteroids.blogspot.com) and it seemed to work wonders for her! I'm scared to use it since I've not been using moisturizers at all but I have to try it based on her before/after pics. Anything to try to speed up this process!

Here are some pics of the last few weeks.

The pictures don't really do it justice. It feels alot worse than it looks. My hands have been super itchy and my neck is still driving me crazy. Now my cheeks have been itching alot too and of course oozing a little if I go to town on them. On a positive note, I think my upper lip area is finally starting to heal. I hope to have more positive news in the coming weeks! Happy healing :) xo

Last night was bad

My period is over so I'm waiting for this flare to die down. Today it actually feels ok. I even laid out in the sun for about 20 minutes and was totally fine. A month ago I would not have been able to do that. It would've felt like my neck was on fire and stung like crazy. So it's weird that I feel so good today considering how bad last night was. I had a 3 hour itch attack from 2:30am - 5:30am at which point I finally passed out from sheer exhaustion and managed to sleep for 4 straight hours with a brief itch attack at 9:30am and then slept for another 3 hours. Lately I've been waking every other hour like clockwork, it drives me nuts. Anyway, I go back and forth on whether I think my diet plays a part in my eczema. But it definitely seems like whenever I eat a bunch of junk food (sugar, chips, etc) I have problems sleeping and itch a lot more. It's always the day after a bad night that I eat well and have an okay night. Which leads to another junk food binge the next day and a bad night again. And so the cycle continues. You would think that in noticing this pattern, I would lay off the junk food, right? Well it's really hard! Next week my functional medicine doctor is sending me some detox info she wants me to look over and see if I'm up for it. It'll be some kind if limited diet, I know that much. We shall see! Hopeful for a good nights rest tonight. Again, we shall see!

MW day 42 / TSW day 108

Ugh..............Every single day I've been thinking "I gotta write something on the blog". It's stupid really because I havent wanted to update without something positive to say but then what would be the point at all? This whole process sucks so if I were to wait until I had something good to say about it, then I would never write anything. I need to stay active here so that ONE DAY I can look back and see how far I've come. So here I am. I can't believe I've been withdrawing from steroids for 4 months already. I honestly believed that I would be done by 6 months. That will clearly not be the case. I have been flaring since my last post. I always seem to flare around my period but it's like my skin barely got better from the moisturizer withdrawal, during which I was flaring as well, before it got worse again. It felt okay for like a day and has since felt awful. Im so over this shit. Right now, my problem areas remain the same as before: neck, face, hands. They hurt, they itch, they bleed. The only positive thing I can say is at least theyre not oozing, for the most part. Sometimes the skin right about my mouth oozes and when it does its like even the air touching it is painful. Every so often I get a little cut or two beneath my eye that oozes and hurts like a bitch. I obviously do not sleep at night. When will I sleep like a normal person??!! Back to the flaring...I know alot of people have calm periods and then flare again and each subsequent flare is supposed to be less painful than the prior one. That is not the case for me. I feel like ever since this started, I have been in a constant state of flare. Maybe 2 or 3 flares. But NO definite periods of calm. When this first started, I had the characteristic RED and HOT skin for a few weeks. It sucked but honestly wasnt that bad in hindsight. I looked like I had a sunburn, which living in FL is easy to get away with. At least I could leave the house. Then the itch set in. It was almost orgasmic,the way it felt so good to just scratch all my skin off. Of course as soon as I stopped was when the panic & pain would set in. I think the ooze was definitely the worst part of this whole process, so for that I am grateful to not have to deal with that anymore. But now I am just in constant low grade pain with the persistent itch, insomnia, and scabbing. I have a cocktail of drugs (atarax, gabapentin, unisom, benadryl) that I rotate to try to sleep and calm the itch, none of which really works. Yet if I dont take it, then I definitely dont fall asleep before the sun rises. I know I'm not the only one out there dealing with this though so stay strong everyone!! As hard as it is, I know this too shall pass.