REVIEW: Dirt Devil Simpli-Stik Lightweight Corded Bagless Stick Vacuum aka My Skin Flake BUSTER

I don't want to bog everyone down with posts about how depressing my skin is all the time and my flare is dying down! So today, I'll review this product that has really helped me during Topical Steroid Withdrawal.

>>NOTE: I promise I'm not trying to sell it to you but I'd like to share the little things that help me get through the days.

To the review!

We all know that skin flakes are a huge issue during TSW and we are constantly trying to figure out how to keep them at bay. At the time, I was on a budget and needed a vacuum fast because ants were scavenging my flakes (GROSS!) and I found this little guy for under $20 at The Home Depot.

Dirt Devil Simpli-Stik

click above to purchase!

Why I love it:

• It's light! - vacuuming 2-3x a day whenever I have an itch attack would be tedious but I keep him plugged in and can get my flakes out of my sight in a second.
• Enough power to pick up all my flakes 
• Converts to a handheld dust buster for corners and bedding - I use the attachment a lot when dust (skin) accumulates under my desk, around my power cords etc.
• It's ridiculously cheap. - I had quite low expectations, was ready to return it but it's become a staple for me. 

Some drawbacks:

• It does lose suction when there's too much dirt, but I find I can get away with emptying it once every two to three weeks. This will probably depend on your skin shedding rate. 
• It doesn't work well on carpet -- My room is pergo (faux hardwood), so this is perfect. 
• It's red -- but tbh, the color has grown on me. 

To speed up the process of emptying it and keep the filter clean, I've adopted this paper towel method as demonstrated in the second half of this youtube video:

Hope you guys found this helpful as I know for myself, seeing my skin flakes can make me feel all the more itchy so having this guy around has certainly helped me deal with having to see them. 

How do you guys deal with your extra "dirt"? 

FLARE: 10 month update

So... 10 months down and I don't feel much better. 

My sleep is totally F#*34eD! I wake up at least once a night in itch fits, and stay up for an hour or so. The main culprit is my hair, or more specifically, my scalp. It is intensely itchy. I've tried baking soda/vinegar, regular shampoo, tea tree oil/mint shampoo and anti-dandruff shampoo (nizoral). None have really helped. Only nizoral has made my scalp flakes slightly finer, but the itch is still quite bad. 

It's been a month since I started selectively moisturizing. And my overall conclusion is... (drumroll please)... I just don't know anymore. After my experiment last month, I did a couple things. For the most part, I'm still moisturizer free. Here are the exceptions.

1. Moisturize 1 arm with grape seed oil. Result: No difference so I just stopped due to sheer laziness.
2. Moisturized one side of face with grape seed oil. Result: No diff. 
3. Moisturize 1 arm with Eucerine Professional Repair. Result: Bad rash so I stopped.
4. Moisturized cracked hand with Vaseline. Result: Inflammation seems to have increased so I stopped.
5. Continue moisturizing right foot with Cetaphil moisturizing lotion (in lieu of vaseline). Result: Slight improvement (maybe?). Continuing this one spot.
6. Moisturized upper lip where deep crack is. Result: Thick skin peeled off (which is what I wanted). Subsequently going to stop moisturizing.

There's no verdict and it seems to be a case by case basis. So far as I can tell, deep thick cracks can benefit from a short bout of moisturizing.

This month I've definitely been in the throws of a pretty bad flare. Though the past week, it's been settling down again. 

My face, which for months was being reasonable with me, just started shedding pretty badly again. The photo below is today's condition. Much better than this past month. I have a crack down the middle of my upper lip that likes to stay open whenever I eat. This is where I mentioned I briefly vaselined it just to allow the skin to thin out a bit so the crack could actually close. Now the seam is staying closed. 

My hands have been very unhappy. Oddly, from the knuckles to the first digit, all of my fingers became reddened and a bit peely between. My left hand's pinky and ring finger down to the side of my hand are going nuts. This is the best they have looked in weeks. Before this, my whole pinky and ring finger were cracked at the knuckles. I resorted to taping the cracks closed with medical paper tape so the skin would fuse together. For the most part it has helped. Though, who knows what will happen tomorrow...

Left hand, pinky and ring fingers look better though still very scaly and sometimes oozy if I move them too much. 

Outer edge of left hand. It's tore up. What can I say.


Right hand is doing okay. Itchy in between the fingers.

And finally, my lovely feet. They are also looking much better than they have most of the month, though, it appears, worse than last month. They were cracked at the tops and would ooze through my socks and so again, I resorted to taping them with medical tape so they wouldn't open up when I walked. It seems to be working because right now there actually aren't any open cracks on my feet. As you can see, there's not much difference between the left and right, despite the fact that I have been lightly moisturizing (less than once a day) on the right foot.

I should note that I've been peeling the skin off (perhaps not the best idea) when the scabs start to lift. Before, they would ooze like mad when I did that but my skin is able to dry down even after I wear socks! Whaaaaaat?!?! Amazing.



As for the rest of my body, it's just very dry and flaky, shedding more skin than last month but luckily not developing any trouble spots.

So I suppose the most helpful thing for me this month has been this paper tape:

click above!

THOUGH I MUST CAUTION, if your skin is too delicate, it will rip it off. It's best to keep it on for a whole day so that your skin can regenerate a new layer and then remove it really really really slowly.

Also trying out a chinese medicine, ling zhi extract, which my mom is desperate for me to try. Her friend had awful eczema (finger tips so cracked she had to wear gloves) and is now free of it "and can even paint her nails" my mom adds with enthusiasm. In my desperate state, I can't say no.

Anywho, that's all for this month. I'm really hoping I heal up as my best friend's wedding is this year and I don't want to be miserable at it!

Happy healing all.

9 Month Update: Is Moisturizing Harmful? Let's Find Out!

Update

Is it time to give birth to my new skin yet? (get it, 9 months)

Well, it sure has been a long a$$ time since I've been dealing with this. I feel like I'm on the verge but I just can't get over that last hump.

My skin is in limbo right now. It's not getting better, not getting worse. I've noticed when I stop taking allergy medicine my sleep worsens and I scratch more, so I still have to keep this in my routine.

Arms/face look almost normal to a laymen but the skin is still thin and delicate, shedding all the time. However, I have a nasty eczema spot growing on my armpit. Worst place to have it because it won't dry down and cool down unless I raise my arm! And I can't be doing that all day. Behind the knees have pesky spots that won't go away. Ankles and wrists are still thick elephant skin when bent, especially my left ankle which looks like there's deep permanent lines.

Moisturizer withdrawal notes

At this point, I've been also doing moisturizer withdrawal for about 1 and a half months. At the beginning, it seemed like there was a drastic improvement but for the last 2-3 weeks, there seems to have been a standstill. Any very eczematic-like scaly spots just kind of stay there and don't change day to day (or week to week!). Now, this is okay if the skin is closed and not in high movement areas: my chest and shoulder have some of these fairly inocuous spots that just stick around and aren't bothersome. However, in high mobility areas (i.e. my feet) it seems to be more of an issue.

Let me elaborate. The top of my feet, as I documented previously, was an oozy mess and finally, with the help of moisturizer withdrawal, dried down to kind of a thick scab. This is great, except for when I'd walk around for the day, the scabby bits are rubbing against each other and have opened up into a crack (or many cracks), thus perpetuating the cycle of irritated skin.

I was resigned to just deal with this until I went in for my annual physical. My doctor, aware of my choice to withdraw from steroids, looked at my feet with a little concern. She said the issue here is infection and having cracks open on your skin are just asking for trouble. I told her I was using tea tree oil to help prevent infection but unfortunately no in vivo experiments have been done to prove its effectiveness in this application so she was skeptical. "Your feet look like some of my senior patients," she said, and strongly urged me to try any sort of lubrication to reduce the irritation that my skin was exhibiting.

Well, I went home pretty resistant to the idea. Dammit, I'm on my course, I'll just stick to it. But then I realized this was the perfect platform to test the hypothesis: Is moisturizing going to slow down the healing process?

My Experiment

So I needed to use something relatively innocuous. I think we can all agree that olive oil is the worst choice because publications have shown its deleterious effects to the skin layer (Citation: Now a classic, Effect of olive and sunflower seed oil on the adult skin barrier: implications for neonatal skin care.). 

I went with Vaseline, a.k.a. patroleum jelly, per the suggestion of my doctor. It has been my fail safe moisturizer over the years. Other one ingredient lubricants I've tried have have irritated my skin one way or the other: olive oil, shea butter, coconut oil (I'm allergic to this) have given me negative reactions on my skin.

(Side note: I was moisturizing with my beeswax, olive oil, honey mixture for months before moisturizer withdrawal. Was this what caused my possible delay in healing??)

I also think overmoisturizing, and the mechanical rubbing of the skin, impact the skin layer negatively. If I rub my dry topical steroid withdrawing skin, ooze comes out. Thus, I needed to make sure that I moisturized minimally. I decided on a thin layer of Vaseline 2 times per day, applied with minimal pressure to my right foot. Any other treatment to my skin, I would apply to both feet. 

TL;DR Left foot no moisturizer, Right foot light layer of vaseline 2x per day.

So... I took 9 days of photos but I'll just keep it short and simple and include a three day progression:

Day 1: Both feet are about the same, cracks are more prevalent on right foot but for both feet, covered with dry skin which is brown and thickened. 

Day 5: Right foot cracks disappeared after 2nd day. Subsequent shedding of skin is thinner but integrity of skin has remained the same. *note* both feet are "wettened" in this photo for a fair comparison.

Day 9: Right foot irritated area has shrunken compared to left, which has not much improvement in condition. 2nd toe on right has almost no rashy skin remaining while left remains irritated on 2nd and 3rd toes. *note* both feet are dried down for a fair comparison. 

Discussion and conclusion

I was not expecting such a drastic difference by the end of this experiment (which I set to when the sides differentiated themselves). In this experiment, it appears that applying a lubricating substance to the skin allowed for proper healing of cuts, resulting in less irritated skin overall. 

I must point out that through the course of this experiment, I didn't refrain from scratching. In fact, I can freely admit that I have no self control and scratched both sides pretty aggressively. From previous experience, I assumed the moisturizing side would break easier and regress after scratching, however the skin has held up under these conditions and perhaps the non moisturized side got it worse because there were thick scabs which would rub against each other and result in broken skin. 

Given these results, I have begun lightly moisturizing (vaseline, thin coat, 2x a day) chronically irritated areas which have not healed in weeks. The result is yet to be determined but with this experimentation, I feel a little more comfortable applying small amounts of moisture as needed again. 

Currently, my right foot isn't 100% healed (day 9 picture) but it looks like it's closer than the beginning of this experiment. I'll keep you guys posted if and when it heals.

For now, I am only moisturizing as needed. I do find that I can still reach that point where I moisturize a bit too much and my skin feels a little wet so I have to let it dry it down again. It's a delicate balance!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting back to life (starting to work out and get a routine back). Hope you all are healing up nicely as well! 

8 Month Update: Adjustments to routine, Moisturizer withdrawal continues...

Guys, I think I need a taller collar

2nd day since showering, skin's a bit flaky

All joking aside, this adjustment to moisturizer withdrawal has not been that bad.

The current condition of my skin is decent. Face, pretty healed except for periphery and upper lip having flakes. Neck down is all fuzzy with flakes. Extra itchy and larger flaking areas are wrists, knees, chest, back of neck, chin, ankles. Actual eczematic looking skin (by this I mean red, oozing, scaling) is contained to left ring finger, and tops of feet close to the toes and 2nd toe of left foot. I deal with these areas by applying tea tree oil or silver gel and then trying to leave them alone. Feet are covered w/ bandages/tissues then wrapped up in socks with leggings tucked in at all times.

This month, my seventh month in TSW, is the month of moisturizer withdrawal. It seems to be the latest rage in the TSW community and I think there are valid points to giving it a try. My skin has become stronger. Specifically when I have scratch fits, my skin doesn't ooze out or break unless I really have at it.

My highlights of my first few weeks of moisturizer withdrawal including how I dealt with each:

• Pain similar to first month of TSW first couple weeks, I coped with it by using pain killers sparingly.
• Tightness in skin of first couple weeks has dissipated. Driving (and moving around in general) was difficult in the beginning so I'd recommend staying in bed if possible.
• Flakes started out thick and large, have become fine but still persistent. Change clothes often! I changed clothes 2x a day when my flakes would build up in my clothes. I'm currently changing clothes 1-2x a day still. If I feel itch building up, I change clothes.
• Itch fits continue to stick around, though less and less frequent. I try to avoid scratching b/c it's counter productive (case in point, my foot) to healing but I have had a good number of scratching fits and it's ok. Cover as much skin with TIGHT clothing as possible. Prevents direct scratching of skin and movement of flakes. I wear shirts with thumb holes, leggings tucked into socks.
• No moisturizer also means NO LIP BALM! My lips became intensely chapped and cracked in first two weeks. Later, skin thickened, then peeled off to reveal softer skin which has persisted.

Delia's thumbhole shirts - Affordable and comfortable enough for work days

One major change that I've introduced into my routine is reduced washing. Previously, I routinely took a comfortably warm shower a day, approximately 15 minutes, including shampooing my hair once a day. The past few weeks, I have washed once per day Monday through Friday, then taken the weekend off of showers. My scalp was shedding like crazy so I adjusted to only washing hair Monday and Thursday with baking soda for my scalp followed by a 1:5 apple cider vinegar rinse. After not showering for the weekend, I've noticed my skin has felt stronger. In addition, by cutting down hair washing, my scalp is less flaky, albeit still contains flakes.

This week, I'm trying out even less showers, perhaps every other or every 3rd day. My reasoning for this is simple. We shower to remove oils which also retain scent resulting in us feeling (and smelling) dirty. Right now, I have no oils and I'm adding no oils to my skin. Not much scent builds up when I don't shower or wash my hair. The only down side thus far is looking a bit flaky on non showering days. My face is a bit flaky on my forehead and upper lip and I try to deal with it by using sticky tape to remove extraneous flakes.

At this point, I've completely let go of feeling insecure about my appearance. I mean, frankly, idgaf if I'm covered in flakes and I can't afford to stress over it. If this is what it looks like for me to heal, then so be it. Yes, I've gone to work with flakes scattered throughout my hair b/c I know that showering would do it more harm than good. And I have jet black hair, woot woot. I have a sickness that I've come to terms with it and I'm okay with others seeing it; in fact, it's good that others can see what I'm struggling with it.

Though I am not super close to healing yet, I've started feeling more positive in general and it definitely helps the day to day go by more quickly. Keeping busy with other things and not stressing over the little things (triggers, food, etc) is key! One month closer to healthy skin!

Moisturizer Withdrawal Log: Week 3

Happy Friday! 3 weeks down of no moisturizing, still holding strong! (and almost 6 months of TSW)

I've been back at work for a week now and though my face started out very flaky, it's normalized and only has a few flakes on my forehead and chin. I found a way to manage these too with the help of trusty masking tape, which only removes flakes that are hanging on by a thread making skin appear smoother.

My skin is still remaining stronger than when I first started. It is very rare that I scratch until ooze is generated, and this happens only after many long minutes of scratching in a row. Still shedding fine flakes whenever I derobe but it has come to be expected. 

The itch still continues, and is definitely correlated with the size of flakes that I see (makes sense). For the most part I try my hardest not to scratch directly onto the skin. It's difficult overnight to control that but during the day, I'm dressed neck to toe so as I don't give myself access.

My foot saga continues, unfortunately, and while the ankle skin is pretty much intact, the tops of both of my feet still don't form a complete piece of solid skin. Swelling isn't completely gone as I'm on my feet all day and after work it's very lymphy, though not nearly as insane as right before Christmas. I'm continuing to manage by applying silver gel, tea tree oil and covering with tissues before putting socks on.

Mentally, I'm feeling stronger. My main emotion toward my skin and my situation now is annoyance rather than desperation. Annoyance toward the flakes, finding clothes that are comfortable, being stuck inside, constantly smelling my skin in my room, etc and so on.

So annoyed in fact that I became determined to make my own TSW gear which is made of soft cotton, has flat felled seams (read: no exposed seams on the inside), thumbholes so hands are covered and has a tall enough collar to cover the dried flakes that decorate my neck.

May I present Megan's line of TSW Friendly Fashions! Just kidding, but it's definitely a good way to channel my energy into something productive instead of lazing around. After making this prototype, I'm already planning my v2.

Besides this, I've been watching a lot of Hollywood classics and planning on catching up on the Oscar favorites this year!

How are you guys keeping your mind off TSW/MW? I'd like to know :)

Moisturizer withdrawal log: week 2

Well 2 weeks down of moisturizer withdrawal!

I can't say I'm looking much better. Still covered in dry skin flakes. 

But compared to the first few days, I am in better shape. I am shedding way less. When I take my clothes off, instead of an avalanche of skin, it's now more of a light rain. Pain has subsided and I am off the pain killers for sleep. 

Itch is still an issue. Though now no longer mind numbing, I still get itch attacks (I think when too much skin flake is building between my clothes and skin) so I've found taking all my clothes off and shaking off the shedded skin helps a lot. Also changing clothes every 12 hours if possible, but I'm not always doing this just because it's a lot of laundry to do and the shaking off normally suffices. 

My skin on my foot is now mostly dried down, save the top by the toes which is an easy spot to scratch. I dry it down with a blow dryer and cover it with tissue before putting on socks. The skin is still extremely scaly and large flakes persist but the swelling has gone down significantly. 

I am feeling mentally withdrawn, hence the lack of posts, as I would prefer to stay in bed or in the dark than look in a mirror or go outside. I feel pretty self conscious when I have gone outside. But I feel like I am on the right path, I just need more healing to occur faster! I've even taken pictures of my skin but find them so disgusting looking that I quickly delete them. So sorry, no picture update today but I feel as though the description is enough to log my progress. 

edit: here's a quick foot pic. less swollen, ankle skin is intact but around toe is still struggling. 

Anyway, I hope you are all starting the new year off well and I'm looking forward to healing in the near future. 

Moisturizer Withdrawal Log: Day 7

Merry Christmas to all! Hope you are all enjoying your holiday.

I had a family dinner yesterday so just staying in today and I'm still dry! I'm finally getting used to it by now BUT...

I'm so frickin' itchy!

So, I've been sleeping 4AM till 2-3pM these days which is good b/c while I sleep, I don't really itch.

During the day it really isn't that bad but once midnight hits, ungodly amounts of itch set in. I have been uncontrollably scratching my neck skin, probably because it's the only area that's exposed and past couple of days I've been really been oozing out where I scratch.

I know we're supposed to prevent scratching during moisturizer withdrawal but I've really been having trouble lately. At least by the next day it dries up. I think it's more about itch/pain management and I'll have to start preemptively taking pain killers before the itch hits.

What are some of the ways you prevent itching/scratching? I'd really love to know.