Skin care

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Hiccups

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Or is it Hiccoughs I never know. Last week I posted about the struggles I was having with my anxiety and depression which I thought were compounded by the medications they had me on for my cystic acne. 
 We had a birthday party to go to this week, there was a bouncy house that I indulged in. 


Run for your lives little children

There was also silly string. My husband decided when we got home to attack me with it. We have sword fights and nerf wars and silly string battles on a regular basis but that night after spending a day with people I didn’t know well and being very on edge It threw me into a full blown (hyperventilating, sobbing, convulsing, deer in the headlights) panic attack. It’s hilarious in retrospect, it was confusing and frustrating at the time and all I could think of were those stupid “triggered” memes.
Surprizingly after that night I was feeling upbeat enough to work on a project over Memorial Day but… it didn’t cooperate. It’s the tiny rocking chair I got while in Michigan. One of the screw heads broke off while disassembling it. It was rusted through and needed to be replaced anyway unfortunately, now we get to dig a broken screw out of the leg. It isn’t a huge deal but it put the breaks on that. 


It’s going to take some more finagling.

But it’s not all bad 

First look at this face!!! My skin has never looked better. It feels really raw and dry but it looks amazing. 


Ummm #nofilter? And no makeup and if I’m going to toot my own horn the library is looking pretty good too. 

 Secondly  my dermatologist confirmed that either the accutane OR (given that aunt flo decided to visit in the middle of my cycle despite the little pills telling her there’s no room at the inn) the birth control  are compounding my mental health issues and that it’s definitely time to stop. 

And the angels sang

Last I’ve decided to take a huge leap of faith in myself. I’ll have more about that mystery in later posts but I’m already incredibly excited about what is to come. 
Oh… Okay… maybe just a little hint 

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Not worth it

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In the last few weeks I’ve started and discarded about four blogs. Every time I start one I decide it’s not worth it. My excuse? Accutane.

In case you didn’t know I’ve been on accutane since April of this year to sort out some incredibly painful cystic acne.

How is it going? Great as far as my skin is concerned, everything else? Not so much

Accutane has been known to exacerbate anxiety and depression, both of which I have,  both of which I am unmedicated for. I have absolutely no objections to medication. I have had counseling and have slowly learned to live (cautiously) with my anxiety and recognize my depression and (let’s say) work away from it. 

Unfortunately I’ve been finding that harder and harder to do. Panic attacks are getting more and more frequent. I barely want to leave the house let alone get out of bed and the fear that it’s not just the medicine exacerbating it is overwhealming. 

I went off the medication both when we went to Orlando and for most of the time we were in Michigan but being with close friends or family I tend not to worry about my anxiety as much which in turn makes my anxiety better (if that made sense to you, you might have anxiety) 

So I went off it for a few days this week as well just to see what it’s like at home not surrounded by friends. Actually I primarily did it because I had the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life (that’s saying something) brought on by dehydration which was in turn brought on in part due to the medication. Luckily my husband got me rehydrated relatively quickly and within 12 hours I was feeling quite well again. Within two days of not taking the medicine I was back to rummaging around in my craft room looking for something to do. On day three I had made plans for longer term projects. Something I haven’t done in a while. I’m only retrospectively realizing that it may be due to exacerbated anxiety and depression that I’ve not started any major projects (ok to be fair I took two days off when I did the bathroom too) or finished any small ones (and that bathroom mirror still isn’t hung) even regular household chores which I normally find comfort in the routine of have fallen by and become utterly neglected. 

Unfortunately on the night of day three I dutifully took my dose of medicine. I have yet to be told by my dermatologist when my end date will be. Every time I ask she just avoids direct answers. I cannot go another month on this let alone three. My skin has been wonderful with it but eventually the side effects are simply too much. At this point I don’t care if the cysts come back worse than before, I miss myself more than I like my new skin. 

Here is a cat to cheer you up.

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(Parentheticals)

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I’m writing this in hopes that I’ll find an Internet connection somewhere out here soon. But for now here are a few updates. We made it to Michigan. Mostly we made it through Ohio because that state always seems never ending. 


(Just waiting for the children of the corn or possibly an old timey baseball team, you just never know in Ohio) 

We’re currently in southern Michigan visiting Mr. Smith’s family. We checked out the Dark Horse Brewery (apparently they’re a big deal) in Marshall Michigan as well as the aforementioned (here) Realm of Creativity. 


(The Dark Horse’s mug club)

We wandered around their quaint (that sounds sardonic, it’s not, it really is quaint and wonderful) downtown area and Boardwalk. We caught a lot (I mean a lot) of Pokemon.


See, quaint…

I (as predicted) got sunburnt but my accutane treatment is progressing wonderfully. 

Texture, swelling, redness, swelling, scaring, swelling, pain caused by the swelling and inflammation…really just the swelling is disappearing and it’s so nice. 

Today we’re headed to the little town of Battle Creek to check out their down town and yet another brewery (apparently Michigan has over 300) then maybe Kalamazoo and Bell’s or maybe the Binder park zoo… We’re going to see how the grass grows, it’s vacation we do what we want. 

Later this week we’re headed to the Fred Meijer gardens in Grand Rapids to wander around and attend a wedding then it’s farther north to see my family and hit the lake shore. In this case The Lake is Lake Michigan and the dunes at silver lake. Our summer of traveling is winding down but this trip has just begun. 

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A long absence, and a long post

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Well it’s been a while.

I have several ongoing projects that are currently on hold either due to upcoming plans, budget restrictions or,  the weather (and by weather I mean 95+ temperatures)

But I might as well do an update on my accutane experiences. So it’s been about 7weeks since I started and so far relatively good.

My skin feels amazing by comparison to how it used to. No inflammation. No pain. Very few cysts, and the ones I do have are small and pretty painless.

It’s taking a bit of getting used to. I’ve always had combination skin verging on oily, particularly in the summer. This summer it’s nothing but dry. All of my usual products which generally have some kind of gentle resurfacing acid in them (glycolic, lactic, mandelic, ascorbic) absolutely burn my skin.

I’ve had to completely overhaul my skin care routine. It’s actually kind of fun considering I do this for a living yet I am generally stuck in my ways and will only ever change out one thing in my routine at a time, and rarely at that. So here are some things I’ve found particularly helpful.

First The Essentials


Even if I don’t put anything else on after washing I mist my skin with Jurlique’s rose water balancing skin mist, and put on generous amounts of First Aid Beauty’s (F.A.B.) Ultra Repair Cream. Even before I started accutane I adored the rose water mist for its soothing quality, but now it’s an absolute essential. Ultra repair cream which I have recomended to countless people with dry and irritated skin has been a life saver for both my face and body.

The Cleansing Essentials


Now that my skin is dry not only do I have to hydrate it more but I have to be more meticulous with exfoliation. Unfortunately because it’s sensitive on top of that I can’t go my usual route of chemical exfoliation. For my face I’ve been using a gentle powder exfoliate from Farmacy it’s a combination of enzyme exfoliate with gentle physical exfoliation. Gentle enough to use weekly without any irritation to my newly sensitive skin. For every day makeup cleansing I’ve been using F.A.B.’s Milk oil cleanser.

The skin on my body has always been a bit on the dry side it’s just a bit dryer now, but I’ve not had the sensitivity I’ve experienced on my face. So I don’t have to worry as much about over exfoliation. I’ve been using a scrub from target. It isn’t foamy but does have little exfoliation grains in it, and in conjunction with an exfoliating glove from eco tools it works great for everyday cleansing. If I need an extra scrub I’ll use (not pictured) Peter Thomas  Roth’s Irish Moor Mud cleanser. I can’t use it for my face anymore but it gives an excellent chemical exfoliation to the body when used in conjunction with the glove.

As noted by the presence of Dry Bar’s Sake Bomb nourishing shampoo and conditioner even my hair and scalp have been dry. This is the first set of hair products I’ve tried so the verdict is still out on it.

Pampering


 I might have a slight mask addiction. I always liked sheet masks. But as you can probably tell I am now obsessed. My all time favorites are Farmacy, Dr.Jart water replenishment as well as Sephora’s lip masks. They are all made of this hydrogel material that is absolutely amazing.

The Splurge


Tatcha is hella expensive. But oh my gosh does my skin love it now. Their luminous dewy skin mist is something I never thought I would like. Dewy was like a dirty word when I had oily skin. Now spraying that on my face feels like taking a dunk in a pool. It feels absolutely marvelous. And their Indigo soothing triple  Recovery cream I can’t say enough about it…

Anyway… Sorry I took a long absence… Then I wrote a really long post, I’m actually going to be out of town this coming weekend so I likely won’t get a post up then either… But I’ll give you a hint where I’ll be


I’ve got a train to catch…


Clearing things up

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I’ve been working a lot of nights so I haven’t had the chance to do many projects around the house, nights throw my whole game off. 

But much like last week I have some skin stuff to go over. 

This week I started on accutane. I’ve struggled with deep, cystic, nodule, acne for a very long time. I thought “well maybe I’ll grow out of it.” “Maybe it will at least get better.” But I won’t (my father still struggles with it) and it hasn’t, if anything it’s gotten worse.

I’m sure that has to do with genetics and the hormonal changes that have come with age. 

Luckily I’ve never been self conscious about my acne. I was never bullied, I’m perfectly fine going out without any makeup on. For me   the main problem isn’t the way it looks or emotionally feels , it’s the way it physically feels. Anyone who has had cystic acne knows what I mean. It’s a terrible inflammatory response. I’ve had ones swell to the point I couldn’t move my lips properly and I’ve been getting really annoyed at being so reliant on anti-inflamatories. 


This is before birth control or accutane 


5 days into accutane 1 1/2 months into birth control 

So on to accutane. I’ve only been on it for 5 days and I’m already starting to feel the effects. 

It started the other night when I absent mindedly scratched my arm in my sleep, just the act of doing so woke me up and my arm continued to burn for the next half hour 

That’s how dry and sensitive my skin has become in such a short period of time. Since then I’ve had to completely reassess my skin care routine which is both strange and oddly satisfying. Strange because I’ve only ever had one skin type and that’s combination-oily. I have dryer areas of my skin but for the most part it’s pretty normal verging on oil prone,  at least my face is. My body has always leaned towards the dry side which is probably why I felt the effects more quickly there. 

And it’s satisfying because this is what I do for a living. I’ve had a pretty set skin care routine for a good long while now, and though I’ve introduced a few new things here and there and eliminated others I’ve never had to start from scratch. 

It’s going to take me a while to figure out exactly what will work but luckily there are lots of resources open to me from the blogging community, my dermotologist and of course my coworkers and other peers in the world of skincare. 

It’s not all itchiness and cracked lips and dry skin though. Even though I’ve only been on it a few days I’ve had a few little pimples appear overnight and be gone within a few hours. I’m not prone to little pimples all I get are gigantic deep ones that bever come to a head  so apparently  it’s clearing something out. And I’m already discovering that my inflammation has lessened. 

One thing is for sure I will definitely be taking the advice  I gave myself last week and slathering on the sun screen. 

Also I’ll be sure to give you guys updates of my progress.