Under my skin
My skin has been irritated, inflamed, almost raw in places for a number of years. I had no idea why, and just learned to live with it. Most of the time I didn't think about it, but it seemed worse in summer and evenings, and sometimes I wanted to yell in pain. (In fact, sometimes I DID yell in pain, but fortunately only Mimi heard me.) I sometimes wondered if skin could just pull apart and leave gaping holes, because sometimes it seemed like it might happen to me.
I even thought I might be allergic to deodorant. I never stopped using it (of course), but I couldn't help but feel there was battery acid in it or something. I was in a lot of pain.
For all I knew, everyone had this happening to their skin. For all I knew it was normal. So I never talked about it, and never asked a doctor about it. I just tried to ignore it.
I found out, quite by accident, the cause.
I am allergic to soap.
More specifically, I am allergic to lanolin.
Now instead of showering with soap, I use Cetaphil cleanser (also have Cetaphil lotion). Celebrities use it as make-up remover and it is sold in the USA over the counter in drugstores. When I started using it, immediately my skin cleared up. I had no idea.
Here's how the discovery was made. God kindly allowed me to get a sudden itchy skin rash all over my body a few weeks ago (unrelated to the inflamed skin condition I just described), so I ran to the doctor and got shots and allergy medicine. The doctor gave me Cetaphil kind of as an afterthought, to soothe my skin until the rash went away.
Cetaphil worked SO WELL, that it was the main topic of conversation at my follow-up visit. She told me never to use soap again.
This doctor works as a general practitioner (I go to her when I am throwing up, need flu shots, need prescriptions refilled, etc.). But her specialty is dermatology.
If I hadn't had the acute rash, I would still be suffering from my skin problem. Getting that skin rash was a blessing in disguise.
Lots of blessings seem to come disguised.
No comments:
Post a Comment