HEY GATHER ROUND KIDS and hear a boring tale of medical issues. Dig this, I’m about to become as interesting as Obligation Visit Grandma. I’ll sweeten the pot with pictures.
Twenty pounds. Trust me.
You may have heard about this yesterday: rosacea is possibly caused by microscopic mites with no anuses. WHAT. I know! I’ve always been pink. That pink kid, who does a couple of laps and gets all flamey-red. I shrugged it off since I come from red peoples. I grew up into that lady whose face would itch and burn for no reason.
I think I was about 26 or so when I thought I was running fevers. My face would burn and I would take my temperature and wonder what the hell was happening. Hormones? A virus? I felt fine otherwise. Finally, I figured it out. The big R. I didn’t really care about my face except to slap on some moisturizer or sunscreen–it didn’t bother me until the pain started. I saw a couple of dermos and was given the usual stuff to quell the symptoms but it wasn’t really working, not really. Maybe a 25% improvement. The weak antibiotics did nothing and the strong ones brought morning dry heaves and annoying limits on when I could eat. The creams…eh.
And now with the discovery that I may have an overgrowth of face lice, I take matters into my own hands. I am very excited. I love root causes. I dove back into the remedy rabbit hole to look around. I was never interested in any of the rosacea diets. I remember one dermo asking me what caused flare-ups for me.
“Wine, coffee, being sad, being mad, being happy, not enough sleep, sex, hot weather, cold weather, sun, hot water, cold water…”
“Well, just cut those things out and you’ll see improvement,” he advised me. Would the pills cut out the burning? No, it was just for the acne. Some message boards say to cut out dairy and fats. Others say gluten. I say I would rather hang myself. If I had a legit allergy and I felt miserable and/or dead eating any of those things, then yes, it would be worth it. Otherwise, no.
I don’t shy away from the “unnatural,” because I know herbs can kill you dead also, but I am starting with tea tree oil. Also I am all about the cheap and easy. I understand the mites hide in one’s pores, but I thought it was worth a try. I followed the information I found on a support group page about cutting tea tree oil by half (I used some sweet almond oil I keep around) and swabbed it on my face and left it for 15 minutes. The oil at this concentration did not irritate me at all (I had heard a lot of advice against using it full strength on your face).
So, the next step is to do some thinking. The mites are on a 10-14 day breeding cycle. I know we’re all covered with them constantly, and my aim is to see what beating back an overgrowth does for me, so I’m going to treat daily at first with hopes of catching the population I may be teaming with now and new hatches. And if I am seeing improvement, I will go with a once or twice a week upkeep session. There’s one more thing–I’m also trying permethrin. I know it’s crap for common head lice, but this isn’t head lice. I swabbed some on this morning and let it sit for ten minutes, as the packaging suggested for scalp treatment of lice. I’m going to be very careful with it since it’s very toxic for cats.
There was something I stumbled upon accidentally among all the rosacea stuff I read yesterday as well. There seems to be some kind of correlation between people who have rosacea and people who have stomach problems. I frequently suffer from acid stomach and heartburn. I’m going to make an attempt to increase my stomach acid as well, since if it works I should just feel better overall. And this is probably magical thinking, but who knows, maybe having a more acidic system will repel the extra bugs. We’ll see. I’m starting with a hyrdochloric acid supplement. Oy with the treating of the symptoms, already.
My face doesn’t hurt today. Maybe it’s just clean. HA! I’ll let you know how it goes.
Ha ha ha, I am eating all the low berries. JOLLY TIMES!
Process berries for jam!
Process berries for sorbet!
Make a buckle!
WAIT FOR IT
And NOM
The article I read indicated the mites come out of their hidey-hole pores at night to do their tiny little mating dance. So swabbing right before bed might give better results, versus in the morning.
Gross! I missed that, typical. Ok, I’m on it.
PLEASE keep me updated, I LOVE these kinds of experiments.
I have my own disgusting skin condition and after years of just living with it I’ve done some more research (online) and there’s been a few more toddling advances (but of course no actual treatment or cure, just alleviation, and that is iffy). Ugh, human bodies. Y u so disgusting.
Re: experiments: YES. I am not going to just sit around with this scintillating new development.
I am in love with your dog. SMILING PUPPY C’MERE I SMOOCH YOU!!
When we’re done with rosacea (I have it too), can we move on to toenail fungus?
We went blueberry picking with wyatt. it was big fun. Let me know if you and the girls would like to go sometime.
I wonder if laser light therapy has any affect on these mites? Maybe that’s just for acne. I didn’t know that rosacea could hurt. :(
This is why I adore you… face mite treatments and jam making totally belong in the same post. They are next to each other in your head!
That is such amazing news about the potential for a cure, all the millions of people it will releave.
I love the photo of Mr Dog, that is such a happy look on his face.
Also, I am stupid. I spent a silly amount of time googling to find out what sort of Berries the “Low Berries”he is eating all of are. Even rang my aunty to ask what she thought. Explained where I had seen the name.
“Hmmm, no, they must be some sort of American berry we don’t have here” says Aunty Lil.
doh. lol.
Oddly enough C. has been nomming on the blackberry jam that you brought down with you last year and speaking in dreamy tones of the blackberry pie P. made. I do not know if the jam had some kind of expiration date (it’s been in the fridge) but she seems find, ha!
I love the maniacal look of joy on wee Horace’s face.
I am also curious to hear how your experimentations with tea tree oil and whatnot go. I never knew rosacea hurt either. I am refusing to think of small mites living on my skin and the fact that I feel crawly now is completely coincidental.
Thanks for conducting an experiment on the pink. I await the results with great interest as another who is pink featured.
Yes, I will join your legions of fans waiting for a cure for the dreaded pink cheeks.
Your little goggie is so so so so so precious!
Hey gurl,
Hope all things legal are sorting themselves out in a satisfactory manner. I don’t know that particular feel, but I feel for you. Horace sure is a cutie pie, it’s nice to have the dog friends around when the children go back to school.
Have you looked at GAPS diet at all? I discovered it when I was looking Ph related stuff. I couldn’t get in to Ph diet. GAPS sounds fascinating to me and like a real cure-all. I think it would be super easy for you after all the work you did with broths last year.
Mia, above: Tea tree oil is a natural antifungal, so use cotton or something to put it on your toes every day. I get a bit of tinea between the toes, not toenails, but it seems to work well. In Australia we can buy bottles of dilute tt oil, ready to use, I don’t know if that’s available in the US? That’s what you should use on your face or feet rather than the pure oil. There is a new anti-toenail-fungus cure out called L*cer*l but it’s just based on TT oil so why pay pharmaceutical companies money for something you can just buy pure yourself!
You can thank Australia for the tea tree which seems to cure a whole raft of things!
I too love root causes.
Here’s to jam and finding your root causes.
Tea tree oil is amazing stuff. It absolutely prevents lice. It has to. The schools are lice central and since I got her tea tree oil shampoo into which I mixed a bit of tea tree oil we have never seen hide nor hair of lice again.
My husband burnt the crap out of his arm and for some insane reason put tea tree oil on it and I freaked out because I read you should never put it on skin without diluting. Well, his arm healed completely in about 2 days and the skin was all new and baby soft with no scars like you usually get with a burn. Weird!
So if anything can kill anus-free mites it is tea tree oil.
Just out of curiosity did some googling and other people say L-lysine might help. Couldn’t hurt.