Stopping Topical Steroids : HEALING & Before/After Pictures of Current Problem Areas

Friday, March 14, 2014

HEALING & Before/After Pictures of Current Problem Areas

I realized while typing an email to a friend yesterday that I've slacked off on pictures....I used to post pictures all the time. Now though things have been stagnant....very few mini-flares, no real problems anywhere....just the same areas ever so slowly healing. It's nice actually since I really don't think too much about my skin anymore on a continuous basis. I often wake up, have coffee, read the news, get the kids started on schoolwork, get breakfast, and then maybe I will take notice of how my skin is doing. It itches here and there...but I mindlessly scratch and move on. There's no more bone deep itching (you all know what I mean!), no more burning or pain, no more oozing, no more chills. When I took my turn for the better, the one thing besides the pain and condition of my skin that changed drastically was the chills. I no longer felt cold to the bone anymore! In fact I turned a 180 and was constantly HOT all the time. I kept the thermostat at 62-64 degrees F all winter. I froze everyone here at home! I wanted to exercise more but didn't because I couldn't stand the idea of getting hotter! Even in the bitter cold!

And this is why I know I am finally healing and on the tail end of this TSW: Not only have I not had a full body flare since October 2013 (5 months ago) and have seen consistent progress towards healing, but my body temperature thing is now almost normal....I now feel the cold like a normal person! I now keep the thermostat around 67-68 and still feel a bit chilled like everyone else here at home. I'd raise it higher but with the bitter cold still and heating costs, I'm just now trying to be rational. I go to bed and my feet are cold because our bedroom is one of the coldest rooms in the house. I wake up and put my big robe on and wrap it tight around me because I'm cold like everyone else. I have been this way for about 3-4 weeks now. I have about 1 day a week when I feel warm like before. Initially I would feel normal for an hour or so a day, then it turned into a few hours. Now it's all day nearly every day...the one day when I might feel warm or hot - it's not all day....maybe a few hours. I am very thankful to finally feel normal! I was dreading the summer thinking I was going to be dying in the heat! But now I look forward to it knowing I will feel normal for once in my life!

Maybe this is not a significant sign of healing to some...but when I take everything into account, I see a massive shift from suffering to healing in the last 5 months. As for the pictures....below I compiled a few pictures between yesterday and this morning of my current problem areas....all other problem areas are either just slightly dry/flaky with a white appearance or completely healed. My only problem areas now are my hands, ankles/feet, inner arms, and chin. I had a mini flare the other day on my neck, but the few areas where I scratched the skin too much are just about healed, so no problem there. And the good news is the 2 mini flares I've had over the last 2-3 weeks occurred within the last few days (PMS time) and there was not one drop of ooze! :) So below I've done a before and after compilation - not all before pictures were taken on the same day....though they were taken within the last 2-3 weeks. Let's just say a picture says a lot!! See for yourself:

Face about a week ago

Face this morning

Chin a week ago

Chin this morning after scratching it a little...notice the white streaks above my lip to the left - it only stayed white for about a minute or less. Chin though looking much better.