Day 27: Looking Up?

I’m going to tentatively say this: I’m feeling pretty great.

Yes, my face is still peeling. Yes, I have small patches of itching. Yes, the eczema spread to my other hand where my wedding ring was (I look forward to the day I can put it back on). But the overall feeling of inflammation is down.

This could just be the end of one cycle. In the past, at least on my fingers, it goes through a cycle of inflammation and itching, oozing, drying and cracking, then healing and then all over again. I am hoping this is not the case for my face and neck.

As awful as this looks, it is a heck of a lot better than yesterday. I used ASAP365 Silver Gel that my Aunt had recommended to me, and though I’d used it prior to this breakout, this is the first time I really saw its effects: it is amazing at helping the body seal up open wounds rapidly.

And, of course, the ultimate goal is to be completely eczema free so that I can do ceramics again, play the ukulele without pain, wash as many things as I need to during the day without irritation etc. I want to be back to 100%.

It’s now been almost a week of : green smoothies at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Plus eating a vegetable dominant diet with as much raw as possible. I cut the refined sugars, including honey and any other “natural” sweeteners, all dairy and wheat, cold turkey. I do get some fruit sugars mostly from apples and pears in my smoothies…but not bananas and other high sugar  fruits; oranges, mangoes, pineapple I decided to leave out based on a gut feeling – which is fortunate because I just got a message from mom who went to see a Chinese doctor and he recommended I get off those fruits immediately if I hadn’t already. I love potatoes but those are also out because they essentially turn into sugar in the body. Interestingly I made the connection between eating eggplant one night and increased inflammation. I looked it up online and it said exactly that, eggplant is a nightshade, so it can cause inflammation. Thus tomatoes for the present moment are out too. Eggs too! And most red meat..I have some chicken and fish.

Did I mention I am hungry all the time? Yeah, a nursing mamma is ravenous. It is proving challenging to come up with things to eat. My toddler is also looking at me cock-eyed. Suddenly the smoothies she used to enjoy along with me in the morning are no longer to her taste. When I open our picnic lunch box she is underwhelmed by the selection of raw cauliflower wilted in apple cider vinegar, avocado with lemon ( which she loves but is getting too much of now), celery with almond butter.  I’m sad to see her palate has been corrupted to want only the sweet, fatty, salty things. Totally my fault because that was what I was eating along with her until last week. I am trying to slowly adjust it for her, and begging my husband to not give her so many sweet treats.

The hard thing is serving up food for my kids, and then just tossing the mound of left overs that are inevitably on their plates. I am so used to being the human garb-orator, eating whatever remains. Not anymore!

All that to say, that there is an improvement. Maybe it’s mostly in outlook, but I’ll take it. For the third time I hit the park with the double Bob and did some walking/running. I don’t have a whole lot of energy (the reason I haven’t been motivated to start until now) but putting out the energy begets energy.

The kids are both definitely sick. Lots of deep coughs, congestion and now my oldest is crying out from earache pain. I am crossing my fingers that I can stay healthy on that front, because I really don’t know how I would handle another blow.

Was feeling so upbeat, that I actually thought about shopping. Crazy. Stupendously stupefying that in a moment of elation, my idea of celebrating would be to shop for some nice clothes. Luckily, that is out. But I am glad I caught those thoughts. Not detoxed on that front at all! SO much work yet to do.