The Skin Battle for Aging and Pimples

The Skin Battle

What if I told those of you battling skin outbreaks and aging, you could save hundreds of dollars a month on skin care by making a few simple changes in your skin care routine?

I see I have your attention.

Keep in mind next time you decide to buy that expensive bottle of skin something, there probably is no research anywhere that says it works.

However, these two things do work.

If you battling skin outbreaks, buy a roll of paper towels. What????

It is simple. Using a towel or washcloth twice has given bacteria the opportunity to establish itself, build communities and by day three, work on skyscrapers. However, the paper towel is clean and sanitary and going in the garbage or in my case, the work area to be reused for something else and then mulched.

Want to keep from aging? Forget the creams, special sponges and so forth. Use your fingers. Yes, wash your hands and apply the soap with your fingers gently. Every pull, scrub and stretch of your skin expands it and ages you when the collagen in your skin begins to decline. It remembers every little tug. So, no scrubbing or electric devices. Gently apply the cleanser with your fingers to a warm water rinsed face and splash it off with cool water to close your pores.

Why isn't this in the headlines?

Paper towels aren't that expensive and your fingers are free.

How I learned about all this was from a dermatologist but even she fell prey to publicity machine. She prescribed an over the counter cream containing X. X was all the rage.

I am not the average patient. I have a medical background, albeit in psychiatry, but it taught me to research and above all, question. An X sounded like something I should find in a ceramics studio. I checked the research and found ONE study in a foreign country where they actually manufacture these little things for cosmetics. Yes, I smelled collusion. That study was inconclusive and involved taking the X internally, not smearing them on your skin. Then I looked at the active ingredients on the skin cream bottle label, and guess what wasn't listed. You got it, X. I was buying a jay of petroleum jelly for 14.95 with a bunch of inactive ingredients. I can get that at the Dollar Store and add my own free inactive ingredients. Inactive ingredients don't do anything and are usually a by-product of the manufacturing process unless they have a neat name and you can feature them because no one reads the label.

So, if you must spend money, read the label. If it is a lot of money, plug the touted ingredient into the great god GOOGLE and see what comes up. Look for real scientific studies not advertisements. You will save a lot of money that way.

The Beginning

For those who are unaware of my journey, it began at 3 AM on a Friday morning. I had not slept all night due to pain, generalized even to my hair. I had not been able to take our evening walk at BJ's because I was just too tired and in too much pain. I was tossing a bit because turning hurt when I did a little assessment of my current life. I had none. I was getting up at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and by 8 in the evening I was ready to fall down. My quality of life was in negative numbers.

It was then I made two decisions. That morning I would call the neurologist and beg for pain medications. I am already on generic Miraplex for Restless Leg Syndrome. If I could not stand being drugged and that was what I would be, then suicide was an option. You see, I am a pain management specialist, a hypnotherapist, a biofeedback therapist, an astrologer and a psychic. For those in the astrology realm, my chart is heavy in water which lends to not feeling at all well most of the time. It also lends toward absorbing everything and having bad reactions to drugs. I have had some doozies. I knew I had reached the limit of my pain tolerance which happens to be extraordinarily high.

While I was making promises to myself, I decided to go on a 900 calorie diet. I had tried everything to lose weight. I tried the soup diet I had dropped 15 pounds in a couple of weeks 15 years ago and gained 6 pounds. I tried the fruit diet I had loss 40 pounds on 12 years ago and gained another couple of pounds. I had practically starved myself since I worried about my blood tests which were indicating bone or blood cancer and gained another 6 pounds. So, what did I know the caloric content of exactly of???? It came down to boiled eggs, plain Greek yogurt and Kefir. Well, I would try that for a week.

The next morning my husband began one of his breakfast extravaganzas of meat, eggs, waffles and everything but the kitchen sink. I grabbed my bottle of Kefir and ran out the door to my shop. As usual, I was too late getting up to call the doctor but I would do that on Monday. By five I had fixed the sprinklers, done some work around the shop and decided it would be a good time to take our walk before my usual exhaustion dropped me.

Half way to the front of BJ's, I stopped dead in my tracks and muttered WTF?!? I had no pain. I had energy. What was going on? Well, I've had good days followed by bad years so I kept quiet.

The next morning I woke fairly early, fixed myself some yogurt and fresh berries and was up and about by the time George got up. I left again for the shop, not wanting to tempt myself with the cooking odors. In the middle of our walk that evening, I asked him if he noticed anything difference about me. He said I was a bit more perky and that was when I explained the pain was gone. He cautioned against too much hope for this.

Two days later I was feeling depressed because I still had not lost a single pound and I thought, a teaspoon of Nutella can't kill me. I had a migraine before I made it back to the bed. The next day I was sluggish, headachy  and sick all morning. I gave the Nutella to the raccoon that hangs around the house. And then, I started losing weight, a small amount each day.

The next week I had my appointment with my ENT and I was downright perky. I was still pain free. I told him what happened with the Nutella and the diet I was on. Immediately he sent me downstairs to an allergist for a complete food allergy test. I reacted to nothing on site of the injections but I started feeling really sick. When I got home I looked in the mirror and screamed. I had more pimples than the sum total of all pimples I had during my teenage years. I looked like I had the plague. I still had no reaction at the site of the testing but I was sicker than a dog. I went to bed.

The next day my face had gone down somewhat. I now had a barometer of what I was reacting to in the food area: my face. The degree of reaction could be gauged by counting the little pimples or blisters.

I was back to my new normal by my appointment with the hematologist oncologist. My blood work, done before the shift in diet, was still showing an alarming number of markers for cancer, however, I had no other symptoms and he felt he was 99% certain I did not have cancer. That was good news as my COBRA was expiring in two days. He then said I was having a systemic (system wide) reaction to something. I told him what I was doing and how I was feeling.

He sat down and looked at me cautiously and said, "If you has told me this six months ago I would not have believed you, but now.....my patients are making a believer out of me."

And mentally I heard as clear as day: There is something very wrong with the food.

Another doctor I respect has begun a home garden and is suggesting all his patients go to as much organic food as they possibly can afford.

There is something very wrong and I was soon to find out what.



If your mind is open, keep in mind I went from sick, in constant pain and exhausted to perky,  no pain and feeling great in 12 hours and I never in a million years would have expected it. Some days, I am ready to pinch myself just to make sure I am awake. 12 hours, my friends...from 3 AM to 3 PM...and I was a new person....you might want to know why.