2 whole years

Heal, heal, heal!!!

That's what I keep chanting to my skin, lol! My 2 year anniversary just passed and I had what a lot of people would consider an anniversary flare. It was quite bad. I felt like my skin was comparable to a year ago, which is a huge step backwards. My neck was burning and stinging, often had to wrap a soft t-shirt around it to block the wind. It also burnt like hell to take a bath. My knees started hurting again too, to the point where I was hopping around again. And the itch! Omg the itch came back. That bone deep, unquenchable itch. Even the crazy fatigue came back too. But now all that has subsided (well, all except the fatigue) and my skin is even better than it was before the flare!! Ever the unpredictable journey with you, TSW.

Trying to remain positive in the new year. Starting my Whole 30 tomorrow - excited to see what health benefits I experience from it!!

23.5 months - picture update

Still counting down to my 2 year anniversary. Still can't believe its been that long.

The past 2 weeks, I've been flaring. While I'm sure stress was a big contributor, I think the biggest reason was lack of sun. It's been rainy and overcast every day and my skin has definitely missed it. I've gotten sun 2 days now in the past week and those 2 days made my skin feel so much better. I love the sun. The texture of my skin got really bumpy when it was flaring, almost like hamburger meat. And red, hot, and itchy. It felt really gross. But then a few days in the sun and I'm back to being comfortable! It's really weird - when my skin is calm, it is SO soft. Like absurdly soft. Sometimes I just keep rubbing the same spot over and over again to feel how soft it is lol! Also lately I feel the temperature regulation issue is back. If I exert any kind of energy for as little as a minute, I start overheating. Almost every night I'm having to change my clothes due to sweating. I wonder if this is part of TSW or some other issue.

Got some bloodwork back and I'm no longer vitamin D deficient! Woohoo! Probably from all my time in the sun. Overall my health has improved since a year ago when I last got my bloodwork done. Sleep still sucks though the lack of it is affecting my daytime hours less, which is great. There are still times that I get overwhelmed with fatigue for no reason, but they are much less frequent. Anyway, below are pictures from the past month. My hands are the worst right now. They keep cracking, are super dry, itchy and a bit painful. My other affected areas are inner elbows, behind knees, neck and face. So all the same areas but just lesser intensity. I always thought that it would just teeter out eventually. I feel lucky not to be one of the people in TSW who flare and then have completely calm periods because I think I'd get pissed every time I started to flare again. At least I know that once my skin has cleared, that it will stay that way. So, pictures. The first ones are flaring, the last ones are calm-ish, and the middle ones are from the wedding I went to a few weeks back! The wedding pics show how I was able to wear makeup and look and feel NORMAL. Like a normal human being. It was amazing.

There ya have it, folks!