April 13, 2012, 3:16 pm in public
Two weeks after being lasered, I’m experimenting with small amounts of makeup. The texture of my skin is still improving, and there is definitely an ease in applying blush on my cheeks that I didn’t used to have — I generally avoided using blush at all since my cysts left scarring because it would collect around the uneven texture and look really terrible.
My skin is smoother now but there are still noticeable impressions in both cheeks and between my eyes. If I go in again, I’ll only want to bother with the cheeks. I don’t need flawless, that would be too artificial for my taste, but I do think that I will take the opportunity to work in a little deeper with the areas that saw the most infection.
We won’t know for sure what the approach to a second round will be until 6 more weeks, which is the full life of the process I underwent the first time. As per my massage education, I’ve taken to massaging my cheeks in the morning to stimulate tissue regrowth and get the fibers to lay in proper directions as I heal.
April 3, 2012, 6:12 pm in public
My skin still looks a little strange, and a little red, but it’s mostly finished peeling. Generally what’s left is around the edges. I can now see that the peel was very light, it really was like a TCA peel but all over my face.
The healing was also similar to a TCA peel in that I wanted my skin to stay moist and protected but also let it crisp, and hold off on rubbing off the peeling too soon to make a giant mess of things.
My skin tone is much more even in the areas that I deal with acne scarring. The deeper scarring on my cheeks, while it may fill in a little in the next two months, will likely have to be revisited. My sense is that I would have rather had the laser be too conservative than too aggressive for my skin. That said, it’s been less than a week since my treatment and I can already see improvement and the promise of more.
I shot a picture of the Melanage, Elta and Eucerin products I was given to use, including the awesome Melanage creamy sunscreen I’ve really liked the feel of. The Elta is good too, but super white.
March 31, 2012, 11:31 am in public
So far so good. My face resembles the feel of sandpaper, and is turning more brown than red now. It itches, but only when I have a fresh layer of goop on it. The danger in letting it dry out is my face cracking, but I’ve adopted a good middle ground for the most part.
I’ve noticed a small hot spot on my upper lip where a portion of my skin went raw, and have taken to q-tipping bacitracin on it in the hopes that it’ll heal well and quickly. I’ve experienced this with TCA peeling and found that those fuckers can really scar and have a hard time healing, so my plan is to keep it moist and protected and not mess around with it much.
This time tomorrow, I can wash my face like a normal person, and hopefully switch back from Aquaphor to moisturizer and sunscreen.
March 30, 2012, 7:29 am in public
Slept well, with my head elevated to combat edema. So far the swelling has been minimal, I notice it around some of the edges of the peel yesterday and a bit under my eyes this morning. Today, I can see my skin turning from the bright pinky red it was to a more bronze color.
Speaking of eyes, the Aquaphor I am using to keep the burn moist eventually seeps into them and can be a little annoying, but it’s just like the Bacitracin I use for the TCA so I’m used to it.
I can already tell how amazing it’s going to feel to be able to cleanse my face again. My eyes are slick with a layer of grease. Again a comparison to dread installation, and the reward of washing my hair when I take them out. My face feels more itch than burn today, though I think part of that has to do with not having manhandled it yet today.
Speaking of manhandling, per my friends suggestion, I cleaned my face with a vinegar and water mixture before bed. That stung like a motherfucker but got the job done, as the first layer of Aquaphore was about 12 hours old and feeling really nasty.
I am disappointed to report that I still totally have a moustache.
March 29, 2012, 11:10 pm in public
About 12 hours in, and no longer numb.
March 29, 2012, 8:41 pm in public
Yeah, this feels like a cross between my TCA peels, which are tight and dry and itchy, and the 2nd degree burn I had on my hand a few years ago. I’ll be very surprised if I get through this whole night without rinsing my face, the itch and thick layer of burn cream are incessantly annoying.
And I keep catching myself scratching my jaw, like I do the first few days with a bad sunburn. It reminds me of the kind of physical annoyance I suffer for fashion whenever I get dreads installed.
I’m also having a hard time imagining sleeping without making a gigantic mess.
March 29, 2012, 5:02 pm in public I got my face fried off today, on purpose.
As some of my readers may know, I’ve suffered rather brutally from various forms of acne during my life. It had gotten so bad over the last few years that I’d end up with abscess boils that took 6-9 months to heal. That’s been painful, frustrating, scary, and left a lot of scarring on my face.
Recently, my acne troubles have subsided, in part due to finally treating a sinus infection that is suspected I had for years. Now, when I look in the mirror, or do post work on my photos, or watch video of my performances, I still see illness. I see the deep caverns on my cheeks that soak up the dark, like sockets in my face. They distort my natural shape and remind me of how much those fucking cysts hurt, how badly they effected my self esteem, and my social life.
When a long-time aesthetician friend of mine mentioned needing a stunt double to learn CO2 laser peeling, I jumped at the chance. The procedure out of pocket runs about $2000, not including aftercare products. She said I’d have a week or so of down time, but that the results would be drastically more effective than the TCA peeling I’ve been doing on my own, which was unlikely to address the texture issues I have anyway. I decided that was worth taking a few days off work.
Update while reading the pre-treatment docs: This is some legit shit man. My mug is gonna look like either a babies ass or what comes out of one, when I am all healed up from this.
We started with a numbing cream, and a bit of anti-anxiety medication. I waited for about an hour wrapped in suran wrap, facebooking, and making this video, as my face slowly lost its sensation and my eyes got a little heavy. After a time, I could feel my warm cheek but not my cold fingers touching it. Was like I was touching someone else’s face, which is always a bit of a strange feeling of disorientation.
The idea behind this treatment is to create pinpointed sights of injury surrounded by healthy tissue, to encourage cell regrowth and fast healing. Before the laser was used on me, it was tested on a tongue depressor, filling the room with a pleasent woodsy smell. Then came on the evacuator, which filled the room with a lot of deep sound, in exchange for the promise that I would smell less of my flesh burning while the peel was happening.
“How’s your face?”
‘The cream numbed my forhead straight through. It’s pretty creepy. It’s a numb fleshy skull condom.’ *poke*poke*
For the next 45 minutes, this is what was done to my face. The lighter squares were done all over my face, excluding my eyes and lips. A second pass was done on my cheeks where the worst of my scarring is. At the end, the first setting you see in the video was applied at my jaw and hairline to feather the line, and to do spot work where we needed more aggressive fug intervention.
I am currently still mostly numb, and feel like I have a very bad sunburn. I will not be washing my face for the next three days, to allow for the skin to bronze and begin to flake. Icing is also in my future, as well as lots of sunscreen and a constant sheen of lotion. In the picture to the left, you can see the texture of the little laser sites. They are dry and hard, almost like dry whiteheads or something. Weird stuff.
Here’s an ‘after’ video, though the lighting isn’t really conducive to seeing what my face looks like. Although, my numb upper lip is pretty amusing, at least to me.
I thought the smell was going to be the hardest part, but honestly, the whole thing was pretty easy, and I had a great team of people taking care of me. I am apparently the toughest bird they’ve done this to, and was notably unphased by the procedure. I’m shocked. :)
Follow my progress by checking out the mosaic CO2 tag.
January 28, 2012, 7:15 am in updates For the first time in ~10 years, I have nothing angry and/or full of puss on my face.
August 24, 2011, 9:53 pm in updates Being me ain’t always pretty. Blegh..
February 3, 2011, 10:20 pm in public Sadly, about a two months ago, a deep cyst on my forehead that I’d largely been able to keep under control broke out into infection. It was similar to the most recent one I’d had in March of 2010, in that I’d developed the cyst, seemed to fend off any notable inflammation, and then one day it just blew up seemingly from nowhere.
I’ve struggled with this element of infection since about 2006, before that I’d get cystic acne, but they’d keep to themselves for the most part and while it took a while for them to heal, the problem area would remain pretty confined and reasonable.
In the last few years however, my breakouts have leveled up, and leave scarring that’s often still noticeable years later.
At first, it seemed like I might be able to get this one under control, and I think I would have had better luck doing that if I’d given it a couple more days before covering it with makeup for HASML – One of the downsides of being a performer with crappy skin. But at one time in the middle of all this, I was actually able to cover my forehead up pretty reasonably.
I’ve been on antibiotics for this multiple times, from Bactrim to minicyclin, and had little relief from these kinds of infections. Over the years I’ve noticed that when I have an infected cyst, within two weeks of it blowing up, I get a sore throat and sinus cold.
I’ve told numerous doctors this and they’ve all maintained that the two are unrelated, however I’ve been pretty convinced they are not. As time goes by and the type of sickness I develop while cystic continues to feel the same, I am less and less inclined to believe they are not related. I’ve suspected staph.
So, off to google I went, this time to research staphs beefed out cousin, MRSA. Turns out that while the staph bacteria have learned their way around our pesky chemicals, they still can’t resist garlic. I read a few articles about using garlic against the bacteria and decided to give it a shot.
I started with a slice of fresh garlic directly on my skin, after I’d drained the abscess. I kept it there for about 3 hours, changed to a fresh bandage and went to sleep. When I woke up the next day the difference was pretty astonishing. The area was nearly flat, and the redness that had spread was localized to only areas where I had a cyst. It was pretty excited, and added eating a clove of sliced garlic to my routine in the morning.
Normally with these kinds of wounds, you get them incised and stitched open so they can drain and heal. With facial abscess though, it’s not really feasible due to the scarring that’s left behind. So every time I drain my face, in addition to disinfecting and irritating tired, delicate skin, I get to poke a new hole to drain from. Wheee…
Unfortunately, the second compress I did a couple days later went a bit awry. I’d drained multiple times since the first compress, so when I did a second one with crushed garlic and ginger, it left me with chemical burned skin. And double unfortunately, some of that delicate burned skin was under the adhesive part of my overnight bandage, and peeled off when I removed the bandage in the morning.
On one hand, my skin will heal faster now, but on the other, I’ve been treating and bandaging a burn when I likely would have been able to air the thing out by now if I hadn’t over treated. However, overall, I think I’m really onto something. Since taking garlic every morning the infection has continued to heal, the fluid that I’ve drained since has gone from thick and yellow to thinner, healthier looking fluid and the swelling is almost gone.
Additionally, a couple of cysts sprouted up around the infection site and would have almost surely collected into a giant blob of infected hate normally. In this case they’ve already started going away after a few days.
And on another plus side, I think next time I am ready for a TCA peel, I’m just gonna give a garlic/ginger compress a shot and see what happens.
Oh, and a tip, if eating raw garlic sounds unappealing to you but you want to try it as an antibiotic: I slice a clove of garlic, fill my mouth with water, drop the garlic in and swallow, then finish another tall glass of water to avoid stomach discomfort. One time I skipped the water and just about threw up in the shower a few minutes afterwards. I fended the impending ick off by drinking from the showerhead, and it worked.
As well, don’t bother with the garlic supplements, especially if they’re the no-stink kind. It’s the garlic stink, which is a lot like that of an onion when you slice it, that has the antibacterial properties you want.
January 11, 2011, 12:16 pm in updates One day, i will perform when i do not have an evil cyst on my face. One day.
June 17, 2010, 12:09 am in public I think the elimination part of my elimination diet is just about over. I don’t feel like I’m on a structured, restrictive diet any longer, more like I just have a much better sense of how what I choose to eat will effect me. Interestingly, I still don’t eat a lot of what I used to.
For instance, I have yet to incorporate grains or spices back into my diet. I suspect when and if I do, they will be in much smaller amounts than I previously used. I think some red quinoa is in order soon, though.
It’s amazing to me that taking supplements provides very little protection when I eat wheat, dairy, or drink any alcohol, even though it makes sense. There really is no escape – I simply don’t tolerate those foods, no matter what other support structures I have in place. It explains a lot of my years of frustration with my health.
Rumor has it that I can eat butter, since I react to the protein rather than lactose. I’m still interested in how I handle brown rice and alternative grains, but have lost steam on integrating new foods, especially suspect ones. Mostly, I’m spending my cheat opportunities testing the quantities I can get away with in regards to the foods I know I can’t eat – at least with wheat. I want scones and pancakes and french bread, dammnit!
I drink my water with lemon again, and just added sweet white onion to my roasted veggies. But my basics have shifted. If I want carbs, I eat a sweet potato or a banana. It hasn’t occurred to me to want rice for weeks.
When I cheat, I really feel it now. Whether its because I can really tell the difference or because my body is reacting more severely, when I eat a scone at snacktime or have a couple drinks over a long dinner, I’m feeling it for a couple of days.
On the plus side, I found a fourth food I can eat from Bartells on the corner by my office – a theo chocolate bar with no dairy. This is in addition to the canned tuna, raw almonds, superfood odwalla and canned pineapple I’ve already discovered. Hey man, it’s good to have backup options, with how busy I can get. And holy shit, chocolate I can eat? Talk about awesome.
I also invested in a Soyapower Plus milk maker, so I can make my own almond milk. It’s impossible to find by the gallon, and I’m wrung out on buying those little boxes for $2 a piece which, I believe, can’t even be recycled. I bought some bulk almonds from a farm in california and look forward to my packages arriving soon.
As for my skin, well, nothing new, however the current cyst cluster I have healing has stalled at numerous hard nodules. It’s been there long enough that I finally speared it last night to see if I could get any goop out of it. Nothing but blood, which I guess is a plus, however doesn’t bode well for the damn swelling going down any time soon. Stupid slowass lymph system…
I’ve had a couple people ask me about this diet and how they might go about trying it. These are the steps I took:
Google ‘elimination diet’
Look at 3 or 4 of the top rated links
Compare diets and restrictiveness
Choose the baseline that makes the most sense based off previous knowledge (I chose to remove nightshades because I’ve reacted to eggplant before)
Do it.
It’ll change your life. Good luck!
June 5, 2010, 2:34 pm in public I have begun to crave my roasted veggies and fresh meats over restaurant foods, though I still struggle with wanting sweets. I’m finding that as long as I have good food packed with me, it satisfies. It’s when I’m in a hurry and/or strapped for cash that I’ll settle for clif bars and things I know I won’t tolerate as well.
The Chromium supplement I ordered came in today, and this is the first day I’ve taken 500mg to help regulate my blood sugar. This should help control sugar cravings. I’ve also started taking a multivitamin again.
Through the generosity of an old friend I saw on Monday, I now have some game meats to snack on for a while. Impala, red stag, byson, stuff like that. So far, I’m finding that the meat tastes about as clean and mild as the lamb I’ve been having – which to me means it’s good.
I tried using all purpose seasoning on my fish the other night, and find that now I PREFER simpler food to seasoned. I haven’t felt the desire to repeat the experiment since and went right back to oil (Grapeseed, now) and sea salt.
I’ve officially gone through my cycle while being, mostly, on the elimination diet. The results have been positive. I’ve had the ache and some mild emotional shifts. Between my body having a respite from warding off the evils of milk protein and wheat as well as taking 1/4 tsp of maca root most mornings, those shifts have felt like waves in a lap pool compared to full on deep sea storms of past cycles.
I almost can’t believe I’m saying this; My face is really looking nice. No new cysts this month, a mild spray of some small blemishes last week and the cyst cluster that’s been healing is nearly pain free now. I’m back to mainly clear skin and using TCA peels to handle scarring.
My sleep has not been so great. I am seeming to need a tremendous amount of it and am still feeling like I got run over by a truck when I wake up. I’m pretty sure that has to do with training for There Must be Something in the Air, moving rooms in my house and getting two hours of sleep on Wednesday night.
May 21, 2010, 10:35 am in public Elimination diet is going well, overall. I’m figuring out how to afford it and spending a lot of time grocery shopping, which I’ve found to be really grounding and lovely. I spend more time in the kitchen and take the time to eat meals at the table more often, too. I feel more like a real person living a real life now, whereas before I’d decided I was too stressed or busy to do those things for myself.
I find it utterly amusing how difficult it’s been to find canned tuna that is actually in spring water. Most tuna in water is actually in vegetable soy broth and has salt. I’ve found real tuna in real water at Whole Foods, and Trader Joes, and they’re the same price either place. Yay!
The almond milk is going splendidly, even the chocolate kind, which confirms my suspicion about the dairy in that chocolate square I had. I also tried out some almond cheese, which didn’t work well for me. All it contained was almond, milk protein and salt, so it’s easy to see what the culprit was. I’ve periodically noticed trouble dealing with whey protein in meal bars as well. I can now say rather concretely that milk protein is a no-no.
At TJ’s yesterday, I picked up a can of coconut milk, and holy crap is it rad in a smoothie. My morning smoothie today was coconut milk, almond milk, banana, sunflower seed butter, 1/4 tsp of maca, and a teaspoon of organic unsweetened coco powder. It’s heavenly.
The smoothies can be tough to digest. Based on my education in school, I theorize that it’s because there’s no amylase involved in just swallowing something that’s already chewed up for you. They say to chew 27 times for a reason – enzymes in your saliva start breaking the food down and chewing increases surface area for your stomach acids to do their thing. So I’m prioritizing making smoothies that taste good enough to molest for a while in my mouth before I swallow.
I’ve added lemon back to good results. A squeeze here and there in my water or on my asparagus has been a welcome addition, and from what I can tell I’m not adverse to citrus. Yay!
I just got finished ovulating. I know this because I spent 3 days solid tinkering with the neevita backend, horny as a three-balled tomcat, wanting to eat nothing but fat. I got a typical skin reaction for the first time since I don’t know when – small little blemishes that surfaced and disappeared within about 3 days. I’m pretty happy with it. Planning to hang onto this for another bit, at least through my next cycle, and see how my skin reacts.
I’ve taken to using baking soda to exfoliate, and that’s working very nicely. Caused me to realize that I once spent $35 on a ‘crystal exfoliant’ that is basically baking soda and some oil. Sheesh. Got me there.
May 16, 2010, 11:12 am in public The elimination diet is speeding along, with a few new developments.
I’ve switched now to mainly Trader Joes frozen wild fish, as eating $8 in fish a meal was squeezing me pretty tight. I’ve also switched to conventional produce for anything of which its skin I do not eat.
I’m continuing to get my lamb at Whole Foods and lucked out on a sale last time I was there, so I’m stalked up a bit in the freezer currently. I’m still suffering sticker shock from the food receipts I have in the last 10 days, though. Hope this store lasts a while.
I’ve cheated a couple of times with small amounts of multiple of things to mixed results.
- 5/12 tiny square of dark chocolate with sea salt, while it tasted fantastic, did cause a gut reaction. I suspect it’s from the dairy.
- 5/14 The sunflower seed butter has worked fine, and is now a welcome addition to my bananas.
- 5/14 I tried 3 spoonfuls of a thick Italian-wedding type soup and a taste of someones gin-based drink after performing Friday night. I had heartburn for the next 24 hours. Pasta, beans, alcohol, spices and most anything not made by my hands is still a no-go as of that result.
Based on my cheat findings I’ve just introduced chocolate almond milk so I can make smoothies in the morning again, to good results so far. Adding in the two nut products this week and getting skanky heartburn from eating out is enough for now.
I think the biggest shift in perspective since beginning this experiment is how intently I listen. Whether it’s been a matter of focus, cutting out the white noise or both, when my guts turn funny while I’m eating something, I stop eating it.
One of my clients told me yesterday that my skin was glowing. I’d worn makeup that day but the sentiment was very encouraging. With cystic acne there are often times when no amount of makeup is going to help me appear any healthier.
As for my skin, the cyst cluster I’ve been nursing since late April felt slightly more sensitive the last few days, since I started wearing makeup over it. It continues to improve color and texture wise and based on my experience with these things is on its way out. No new cysts of late. Fingers crossed.
May 11, 2010, 12:18 pm in public I decided to go on an elimination diet, not only to detox from my trip, but to also track down what food intolerance contribute to the ailments I typically suffer. The most notable affliction being consistent respiratory congestion and my skin troubles, I’m also curious as to how diet restriction effects my PCOS and IBS symptoms, which have worsened and improved with age, respectively.
As part of this elimination, I am avoiding grains (yes, all of them, including rice), gluten, eggs, dairy, nightshades, citrus, alcohol, and sugar by eating a very specific group of foods. I took my approach after googling “elimination diet” and reading a few sites. I went with a more restricted diet than some because of known sensitivities to nightshades and grains, and designed my diet based on both new and known information.
I also cut out all spices and drinks, including herbs and herbal tea. I’m cooking with only sesame oil, and sea salt. Coupled with fresh, wild, weirdness free meats, I’m amazed at how good this food tastes. I’m having some of the best meals of my life right now.
I’ve done a lot to improve and change my diet in the last 10 years but I’ve never just sat down and roughed it for a while to see what my sensitivities are, exactly. I’ve not decided yet whether I will go for two weeks or a month or more, I’m waiting to see how I feel once two weeks are up as to whether I am ready to start re-introducing high risk foods.
I’ve already seen some notable improvements, like my pee being a normal color in the mornings, not having a film on my tongue and naturally being down and up with the sun. I sleep sounder, fall asleep faster, and I have more stamina when I get going, like riding a bike. I find that I am tired mid-morning and often have headaches in the evening. The headaches are subsiding now that I’m nearly a week in. My face is steadily healing and the swelling from my most recent abscess is continuing to go down.
Oh, and I’ve got a lot of gas, since most of what I can eat is gas inducing. Probiotics seem to be taking care of that.
It’s amazing how expensive it is to eat well. I’m now getting the previously perplexing paradox of poor people in this country being fat. All I’m eating are select vegetables and fruits, lamb, and fresh fish – yet there is simply no possible way I can keep up this diet longer than a month or two, financially.
It’s due to this that I really hope I’m good with Brown rice or some kind of cheap grain when I reintroduce it. And buying organic is bleeding me dry. Right now, I’m going through about $15 in food in a day. My budget is more like $6 a day. Switching to conventional for anything I don’t eat the skin on (bananas, mango) and things that are generally safe to get conventional like broccoli and sweet potato next week. That will help a lot.
I am looking forward to the day when my little makeup bag no longer consists mainly of concealer and other ways to cover up my face.
November 7, 2009, 11:43 am in public Since about the age of 22, upon attempting the Depo-Provera birth control shot, I have had severe cystic acne. The breakouts have changed over the years. I used to get a few deep nodules on my chin and cheeks that took months to heal, every few months – so I usually had 1-3 I was nursing at any given time. Most of the time when I left them alone, they just hurt like hell but generally didn’t pose too much of a cosmetic problem.
Now I get a couple breakouts a year that are very severe acne conglobata, generally on one cheek at a time. They quickly develop into a pus-filled network of abscess’s that take about 6 months to heal to scarring. In the last year I’ve had one on each cheek.
In addition to what happens to my face, I also get ovarian cysts, usually monthly, and have high androgen levels – both things indicative of PCOS. After tweaking and trying just about everything under the sun, my acne breakouts appear to be largely controlled by 100mg of Spironolactone a day to inhibit my androgens, and heavy supplementation of Vit A, D and Zinc.
I’ve not gone the accutane route. That shit freaks me out. I have tried all kinds of prescriptions, topicals, antibiotics, supplementing and home remedies attempting to avoid that option – but this combination, at least for now, seems to be working. Which is really nice. It’s hard to convey to someone who doesn’t know, how painful and maddening it is to have a constant festering wound on your face and how much it hurts – and that’s aside from managing the cosmetic aspect.
So what about the scarring, then?
I couldn’t do a thing about it until I started having calm periods in between breakouts. Once that started happening, however, the scarring left behind was much deeper and long lasting than anything I’d had before due to the type of acne I’d developed. At the suggestion of a coworker, I’ve been pleased with the results of TCA peels.
There is a ton of research to be had on the subject via the wonder of google. I am not one to shy away from experimenting with my body, even when there is some amount of pain involved, and I’m very body aware. So, I’ve done these peels at home. I do not advocate everyone do this. If you can’t follow directions, for instance, or can’t be accepting of a negative result if you screw yourself up, suck up the dough to get it done by a pro. For me, I’d usually rather have my fate in my own hands than those of someone else, even if it means I don’t have anyone to point a finger at if things don’t go my way.
I bought a tiny bottle of 100% TCA off ebay with instructions for maybe $14. The bottle has lasted me about 9 peels and barely seems to have a dent in it, partially due to the dilution of 50% I’ve generally used. I’ve experimented with both lower and higher percentages, and find this to be a good one for my face. I cut my TCA with mainly with lactic and glycolic acids rather than just water – they are mild enough for me to do so. Some times I will do lighter peels if I’m performing or have something important happening, other times I do deeper ones to get quicker results in exchange for an uglier peeling time.
My favorite peel was one of my first, which was deep enough that the peeling was all one piece which got dry, dark, and sloughed off all at once in the shower a week later. It was ugly, but not fussy, dry enough to cover with makeup while on vacation after the first few days (in which you constantly keep the burn lubricated with bacitraycin), and effective. The lighter peels tend to peel like sunburn and have flakiness, but the color change is less severe. I think that peel was actually 100% TCA with marathon rinsing after a couple seconds – when I dilute the TCA I leave the solution on my face longer and often layer it over the course of a few minutes.
Yes, I put 100% TCA on my face. No, I didn’t keep it on longer than about 5 seconds. No, I didn’t die. I also don’t recommend it. If you aren’t quick you can really screw yourself up. Once I did a quick spot peel when I was in a hurry, using 100% TCA on a q-tip. My face was red spotted for 3 months. Read some of the TCA forums. I got off lucky.
My typical TCA peel looks something like the “age spot” example at http://www.tcapeels.com/
My scarring is much worse than the example, so I am doing multiple peels over time. The most often I peel is 3 peels two weeks apart, then a break for a month or three. I started my 4th set of peels today, which prompted me to write this up.
There aren’t a lot of pictures out there of my facial scarring without makeup, and I lost all my snapshots for the last few years in a drive crash not long ago. Here is one photo from last may, that shows the scarring on my left cheek after two TCA peel sets:
I thought maybe it might be helpful for people who deal with this to know that a) There is hope in finding some relief eventually and b) Even seemingly glamorous people who spend time in front of cameras and live audiences go through this, manage this, and continue to do what they love despite it. No doubt about it, acne sucks. There’s also a lot more to life than acne sucking.
Good luck.
October 8, 2008, 4:13 pm in public
November 29, 2005, 6:09 am in public There are a number of women I care about who read this journal, so I wanted to talk about this here. Hopefully the information will be helpful to someone.
I’ve become a little concerned (but not much) about my current womanly cycle, which is now going 7 days strong when my usual is 3-4. This brought up the subject of depo in my IRC channel, which caused me to bleed solidly for 4 months straight when I tried one shot back in 2001, among a number of other extremely rancid side effects.
I googled around a little bit about it and started reading other peoples stories, when it hit me. 2001. That was the first year I had this adult cystic acne shit I’ve been dealing with ever since, and it started when I tried the depo shot. I also became more sensitive to foods like pasta and lactose around that time, started having random joint and muscle pain and a number of other ailments that still bother me but to a much lesser degree.
It never really hit me that a shot of that shit 4 years ago could still be resonating in body, but it’s entirely possible. As more time goes on these things become less noticeable, but are still present none the less.
I can’t be sure. All I know for sure is that depo provera is fucking evil. My symptoms while on depo were horrible. Within days of the shot I started bleeding and getting sick. I have always battled depression and this stuff made me totally suicidal. Moving around was like walking in sand. I was fatigued constantly and became anemic shortly after the first month that crap was in my system.
My otherwise clear skin broke out into deep cystic acne that still plagues me to this day. I got migraines with auras, was excessively dehydrated, had digestive problems and became sensitive to wheat based foods like pasta. My libido disappeared. The bleeding didn’t stop for four months, a month longer than it was supposedly due to be out of my system entirely.
I still get migraines very occasionally, and some cystic breakouts, and have to watch my food intake more than I used to, but otherwise have recovered. I caution anyone from ever going on this horrible synthesized hormone as a means to control pregnancy, unless turning into a leaking acne ridden sickly wonder and no longer WANTING sex is how you’d like to accomplish it.
I am not alone in my depo issues, and beware of going on it even if you’ve had a good experience with it in the past; Many people who did fine the first time have horrible side effects when returning to the drug, based upon the personal stories I’ve read at the depo provera horror story site.
October 6, 2005, 9:28 pm in public So I’ve been off the antibiotics for my face since I got back from NY. My skin has been just fine until about four days ago, when suddenly it became red and sensitive, slightly dry on my upper lip and chin, almost like it was burned slightly or something. When I would rub a cheek on my pillow trying to get to sleep and shifting in bed, it would have an after-hurt sensitivity like sunburnt skin tends to if you accidently rub it.
I don’t go out in the sun, and I wear sunscreen pretty much religiously on my face.
Now, I can feel a number of cysts forming under my cheeks.
*sigh*
|
|
Two weeks after being lasered, I’m experimenting with small amounts of makeup. The texture of my skin is still improving, and there is definitely an ease in applying blush on my cheeks that I didn’t used to have — I generally avoided using blush at all since my cysts left scarring because it would collect around the uneven texture and look really terrible.
