Wednesday 27 July 2016

Salads and Frost Bite

Diet
The leafy greens in my veggie patch are flourishing which is awesome
- Rocket
- Mustard leaves
- Pak choi
- Watercress
- etc

Cucumbers and tomatoes are also fruiting :)

So for the last 2 weeks I have enjoyed fresh salad everyday with different items:
- Blasamic Vinegar and Olive oil
- And sometimes mozarella / makeral / avocado or what ever else I feel like adding.

I have also cut out sugar/processed foods most of the time (people keep giving me cakes/ice cream/biscuits). After all sugar tends to cause inflammation in the body. I realise now that the January rash may have been caused by the Christmas bingeing. Hmm will see if I can eradicate the rashes from my body and abort eating the normal Christmas feasting.

The skin is feeling less itchy after 2 weeks of salads :)

Frostbite Reflections
Recently I've rediscovered Aloe Vera...... In 2014, I had grade 2-3 frostbite on one finger from playing in -50 degrees Celsius. I had minor frostbite on the rest of the fingers. The one bad finger suffered more than the rest as it had been broken the year. At St George's hospital in London, my frostbitten finger was treated like a rock star with the consultants. They all wanted photos of it! And the hand specialist from St George's wanted to chop the finger off!

I contacted a professor up in the Midlands (Professor Imray) who had an interest in frost bite (he's a climber and spent time in Chamonix) and he recommended applying aloe vera.

I religiously put that stuff on day and night. 6 weeks after the incident the hand specialist from St George's still wanted to chop the finger off despite there being no infection (I had to return to see him on a follow up appointment) and pressed hard to see if there was any life. I was pretty mad with him and changed my consultant.

12 weeks later I had a shiney new finger (the black outer dead skin fell off). I attributed that to the aloe vera that helped the healing and bathing the finger in salt water baths when the black outer layer became cracked.. I applied salt water at the end of the day to disinfect any bacteria from my normal day to day activities.

Back to July 2016
So I had a pretty bad scratching session one night, ripped apart my skin on the inside of my elbow. The creams of course were stinging when I applied it to the skin. Then I remembered the healing power of aloe vera. After enduring 1/2 day of stinging with constant applications of aloe vera, the skin appears to be rapidly healing again, better than when I was just applying "the mosturising creams".

Anyway been doing this for 2 days and there is a better improvement versus the mosturising creams by themselves. Let's see how this goes for 10 weeks.


Wednesday 20 July 2016

The Miracle Cure

For those people who have been sending me miracle cures.....I have tried a lot of miracle cures and really am dis-illusioned. The testimonials that I read are short term cures. I have had a lot of short term cures. So when I read the following reviews for a miracle product, I think great but has anyone provided a review a year later.


As for babies, there is infantile eczema which is short term and doesn't mean anything to an old girl like me.

For me, eczema is a symptom of an imbalance in my body. It is for me to hunt the imbalance and thus find a holistic long term cure.

I have rid my body of eczema and had clear skin for months. I have had some success with diet. But I lack discipline to continue it long term.

Anyway have decreased junk foods like biscuits and crisps. Let's see if I can continue that into winter!

Doc Review

The good news first:

Having gone the pill popping route and put some Daktacort on the fungal infected skin, the fungal infected skin is of course much improved as well as  a candida infection which I think was cleared by the anti-fungal tablets. Additionally the stomach has been a lot better since taking the anti-biotics.

When I first looked at the state of my tongue, it had a thick coating of cruddiness. I also was suffering from a cold. Since taking the tablets, it is now a fine coating of cruddiness.

A week of sleep put energy back into my being woo hoo! 

...and now the nerk news:
The Febrauary rash had temporarily improved after taking the tablets but since then went back to how it was. The January rash also has not improved, although whilst on the tablets, there was a temporary reprieve of itchiness. Am feeding the body back with probiotics

Sleep has returned to being poor again and thus a cycle happens with the rashes worsening.

The doc recommended I put the Daktacort it on my face, neck and arms. At this moment in time I will hold off that option. Perhaps I am masochistic but I now believe everything can be sorted long term with food and proper sleep.

Summer is here and there is an abundant amount of summer produce we are enjoying. I love my organic fresh greens. They taste so much better than the shop bought. Had to count angels 3 times last night to fall back to sleep.

Have a positive day

Sunday 10 July 2016

A Fight on My Hands

So off all tablets now.

Have developed a mild rash on the back at the end of day 6 on antibiotics but completed a course. Concerned this is an allergic response to penicillin. This is the 3rd time I have taken antibiotics in my life.


The March rash is more in check. Well I have been burning it off with a fungal cream and tablets. Let's hope that continues. The bonus is the IBS seems to have cleared up.

Can't believe the skin around the eyes are slightly swollen and whites are back to looking irritated. Probably due to the itchiness in the eyes. The face has returned to itchiness. Obviously if you change nothing else, symptoms return. The January rash (normal eczema) has also returned to itch mode!

Okay I have had my temporary madness and desperation of returning to vile medications (I am human!).....I will look at it as cleaning out the entire system - the bad and good stuff.

Time to fight this all off with an improved diet. (yes I let my diet slip in November 2015) and let's see if I can rebuild all my good bacteria back with strong dosages of probiotics. And hoping the foods will take care of rebuilding my immunity.

Looking forward to eating home grown vegetable:
- Rocket, lettuce, mustard leaves
- Tomatoes
- Beans
- Courgettes

Loads of berries in the garden now :)

Wednesday 6 July 2016

Day 6 of Antibiotics and Antifungal

The Flucloxacillin Antibiotics (500mg) really taste and smell "yuck". Must remember to get some probiotic bacteria to replace my good bacteria.

The Fluconazole anti-fungal tablet neither tastes nor smells.

The February face rash appears to be withdrawing. Additionally the excessive skin droppings has also become nothing. The January rash is tagging along.

The March rash has also improved greatly. Although this is an area that I have also been applying Daktacort (2% miconazole nitrate and 1% hydrocrotisone). For the first 4 days I applied the cream morning and night. I have now been applying it once a day. The skin now looks dark brown as if I have a tan rather than like an almost black colour.

Whites of Eyes and Stomach
I have also noticed the whites of my eyes appear more white. Way back in March 2016, my little nephew asked me why my eyes were so yellow. They have looked yellow for soo long, I thought it was from tiredness. My skin colour looked normal so in my self diagnosis didn't think much more. Which brings me to the stomach. November 2015 I had Salmonella poisoning. It was horrible and my gut has never really recovered from it. Though I did take some probiotic tablets which appeared to help somewhat. Yes my gut seems to be way better, so can only attribute that to the antibiotics am taking.

My system was probably beginning to veer out of control and I continually ignored symptoms. So I am thankful to the March rash for being so persistent that I was forced to the GP and although my doc is sorting out the one rash, the rest of my body has thankfully benefitted.

I have one more day on the anti-fungal and 8 more days on the antibiotics.

Monday 4 July 2016

A Case of 3 Rashes

Perhaps all the folk offering me different potions wanted me back here as I rejected all of them! Okay that's a little cynical eh ;)

During January a small bit of eczema came back inside the elbow. I accepted this as one of those things that I could sort out. I was able to control it.

During February a small rash appeared on my forehead and by June had spread to around my eyes and cheeks. My tears appeared to burn my skin and yet I had hardly scratched my skin and soon it was in a cycle of shedding skin for the sake of shedding. I felt I had dandruff on my face and around the left eye, it felt there was something crawling underneath.

During March something weird was happening on my butt cheeks. I thought it was ring worm so treated it with an anti-fungal cream. It got worst. After 4 weeks I treated it with an antiseptic, this reduced the itching and appeared to heal the skin. Unfortunately it spread round to my groin and soon on my thigh and began spreading upwards. This rash turned my skin very dark (my mother says it looked black and I am pretty fair skinned). I observed that eating sugary sweet foods seemed to be feeding my March rash.

Even more irritating each rash responded differently.

I finally gave up on the March and Feb rash and went to the doc at the end of June. Yep kicking and screaming.

The doc took one look and agreed that it seems I have been nurturing mushrooms....(sick attempt at humour). Yes doc said immediately - fungal infection!

I knew what the doc would prescribe - hydrocortisone.....combined with an anti-fungal cream as well as antibiotics for 14 days and an anti-fungal pill for 7 days.

I am on day 3 and applying the anti-fungal hydrocortisone only to the March rash. The aim is to do it for twice a day for the first 3 days and then to reduce to once a day after the next 2 days and then to reduce to once every other day. I really have no idea if this will ensure my skin does not become addicted to hydrocortisone again but at least I have been able to sleep.

The January and Feb rashes appear to be sorting themselves out without applying anything further. It might be the anti-fungal tablet is sorting out the February rash and the better sleep is sorting out the January rash.

Am sure I'll do an update later. After all I was supposed to have created a new section.....well writing takes time....so I thought I should work first, blog later.

Hope all your skin is feeling great.