I finally tried Dead Sea Salt Baths, thanks to Dan's gentle urging and his post with instructions.
Survey says, they are awesome.
What I did every 2-3 days:
- 2 lbs dead sea salt in a tepid water bath
- Soak ~20 min
- Shampoo with Nizoral in bath water QUICKLY (I added this because my scalp was still too itchy after a dead sea salt bath)
- Rinse QUICKLY with warm water(less than 5 minutes)
- Pat dry, try to resist the temptation to rub skin flakes off.
In between bath days:
- Don't moisturize. Yep, that's it.
Results:
- Miraculously, oozing areas seem to seal over after baths (problem spots such as feet and fingers)
- For dry ashy areas, skin color is now restored. (close to healed areas such as neck, arms, legs)
- For rest of skin, my skin feels so freaking soft. My friend even commented it was "nice feeling"!
- Cracks got the chance to heal, not immediately but after two weeks, all have sealed over.
- About 50% of my nights are full nights of sleep!
- Compared to my previous update, I took same photos again and all parts are improved!
Comments:
After a bath, the skin is pretty soft and ready to be sluffed off. I tried it once and it revealed skin that wasn't quite completely formed, resulting in some oozing. However, I believe because I took the dead sea salt bath, it sealed over pretty quickly, which raises the question: Can I continue sluffing off after each bath to speed skin recovery? I will proceed with caution.
My upper lip is also still quite dry and flaky. Is it because I can't submerge it? I'm currently using a face towel to constantly drench my face with the sea salt bath water.
All photos below are with NO MOISTURIZER! And yes, I am wearing nail polish. I bought a Nailuv kit from Costco for at home gel manicures!
Upper lip still flaky but rest of skin is skin colored. Neck skin is so smooth.
Flakes are persisting on ring and pinky finger but cracks have closed, finally!
Redness at base of fingers is subsiding
Had nasty cracks previously. All are healed.
No oozing on tops of feet! Flakes are finer and skin is all closed.
My skin has completely turned around as a result of dead sea salt baths. Nothing else I've tried has offered such a drastic change to my skin so consistently. I feel like this is the final stretch thanks to them and am glad to be thinking about regular life again, like what nail polish color to wear next! I strongly urge everyone to try them! I'm sorry if I sound like a salesperson but they are truly amazing and I feel bad for lagging any longer on this post because everyone should know. Happy healing and bathing everyone!!
Yey!! Congrats!! I never used them or needed them, but then I pretty much had no oozing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jitka!! You look great in your photo. Hope you're enjoying your post TSW life! I'm looking forward to my time :D
DeleteHey Megan, great news! I'm happy for you. Thank you very much for acknowledging me for my "gentle urging", and the link. A few days ago someone else made a similar post to yours and said thanks to a "friendly reminder". My initial exchanges with that person were far more contentious then our original exchanges :) Many say I could have taken a different approach but they all seem to overlook the fact that I did take a different approach right from the beginning, but after a few months it flat out wasn't working. I think everybody that has done MW now knows it IS for nearly everyone and should be the number one protocol for tsw. And dss baths should be number two. At least I hope so. I'm just happy people are finding out the truth about MW and better ways to deal with tsw symptoms now.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the purpose of me writing here wasn't to blow my own horn, although we all know how much I love blowing my horn lol. I wanted to say Nizoral is really bad stuff. I had never heard of it so looked up the ingredients and I am familiar with them and they are bad bad. You really shouldn't be using anything on your skin. A 20 minute soak completely cleanses every pore in your skin so no need for soaps or shampoos. Soaps and shampoos are bad to use during tsw for many reasons. However, if you must, try natural Shikai everyday Shampoo. It's about the safest shampoo for the skin I can find yet smells great and cleans your hair well. I've used it for many years, and during tsw I shampoo my hair with it about once every month or two now.
I hope you don't mind if I throw a few pointers out there. When you do your dss baths put your face in face down holding your breath and come up for air when needed. Just repeat it several times then roll on your side and place half your head in the water ear down. Brush your fingers over your scalp getting it as wet as possible. Wait 5-7 minutes, sit up and dry that ear, do face again and roll over to put other ear in water as far as you can without the water getting into your nose or other ear. I slosh the water all over my head during this process so the entire scalp stays wet the whole time. My face is quite oily so I always rub it while face down with the tips of my fingers too. I haven't washed my face in 10 months now with any kind of soap. Believe it or not, my hair always looks clean and so does my face. As a matter of fact, I found that my hair is cleaner when I don't shampoo every other day like I did pre-tsw. Strange as it may sound. Then rinse quickly and not too long. You just want to rinse any excess salts off your skin but not all the residue the salts leave on your skin since it contains some of the minerals. I typically stand up at the 20 minute mark and rinse in the shower starting with my hair just using the tips of my fingers to rub my scalp as clean as I can without shampoo and then move on down and am done within a couple minutes. Always be sure to drink about 16 oz of clean water during your baths. I drink a third of it right before getting in, a third at my 10 minute mark, and the rest near the end. It's not important to space it though. You can drink before the bath.
As to your wondering about your skin continuing to slough off in the baths. You will know when to back off on the dss baths by "listening" to your skin. If your skin stays calm and continues healing back off to maintenance level of 1-2 per week. Sometimes only one per week. If it starts to get irritated, or if you have a scratch fest, go back to every 2 or 3 days. I hope this helps and thanks again for mentioning me and the link. A lot of people's blogs have a "resource" tab but unfortunately none of them has a link to my DIY Moisturizer Withdrawal Guide listed as a resource. I find it rather sad (insane maybe a better word here) that so many people don't find this information as a good enough resource to list in their resource tabs. They all list Itsan and Dr. Rap as a resource though. How ironic is that.
Hey Dan,
DeleteThanks for the comment, and however contentious our beginnings were, it was definitely your persistence that led to my discovering MW and DSS so thanks. I'm already doing exactly as you're describing for the baths! Great minds think alike, I guess lol.
As far as shampoo goes, I tried the Shikai line right before Nizoral and it was too harsh for me. Also tried a couple of baths without shampoo and my scalp destroyed my sleep so bad I was forced to go back to Nizoral again and it has made all the difference. Fortunately, I haven't found adding it back to my routine resulted in dryer skin. I think the DSS seals in the moisture so well that a small exposure to the shampoo doesn't negatively affect the skin in the end.
I'm definitely finding I can go longer without a bath now. This weekend, I went 4 days without a bath and really didn't need to bathe, except that I was getting a bit dingy. XD
And I think ITSAN is only a resource as far as identifying you have TSW. After that, I've been on my own and don't even visit the site anymore. The very idea if bathing in oil irked me from day 1.
Sounds like you have a good handle on what you're doing. I'm happy for you :)
DeleteYAY!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're getting more sleep and that the DSS bath helped so much. I just recently ordered my salt over the internet and eagerly wait it's arrival. :)
Yes, sleep is so good. Makes me in way better spirits during the day. Excellent to hear that you got some! I'm sure you'll get much needed relief from them. Let me know how it goes!
DeleteBetween you and dan, I'm sold!
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear! I'd love to hear how it all works for you once you try it out!
DeleteHeck, I'm what, a week away from month 11 and I'm still amazed at what dss baths do for me. And I've been doing them for 7-8 months. Just a couple days ago the skin on top of my hands was feeling a little irritated and I debated on whether I should wait or do another bath. I hadn't had one in only about 3 days so I was trying to figure out what would be best. Seems like this has been the case forever. Should I wait and allow more natural oils to come out, or should I do a bath. I chose the bath and to my surprise the next day my hands were very noticeably better. Not just no longer irritated but actually healed much more. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've noticed this in my late stage of healing and it does amaze me. It doesn't have the same results every bath which is perplexing and makes it difficult to know when to do one and when not to. Even after 8 months of doing these it's taken a lot of trial and error in finding when to do them and when to back off. I'm convinced I should just do one every 3 days regardless.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think if the skin is breaking a lot it's a good indication of bath time.I can always see a difference right away of the skin sealing over. I was literally bleeding the last time I took one and after I got out of the bath my skin had already sealed over. I just ordered 120 more lbs!
DeleteI have oozing fingers now too! I will return to baths...
ReplyDelete