Beginnings of Skin Issues in Adolescence

Beautiful, fragrant Princess Flower I saw in Monterey, CA last week

The day after my last post was a lot better – my skin started to dry out and it didn’t itch at all. I had a much more positive outlook on the healing process and even attempted to do a few minutes of gardening. Sadly, I haven’t done much gardening this season because I’m trying not to wash my hands as much as possible. I have to wear my cotton gloves so as not to get my hands dirty, then wear gardening gloves to keep the cotton gloves clean. I only have one pair of cotton gloves right now – they don’t carry them at the pharmacy anymore so I purchased some online, which should be coming in this week.

I’ve started wearing those gloves when I go out in public, because I’m worried about getting an infection in the open cuts. So far I’ve worn them to the gym and to work, which allows me to avoid washing my hands. At work, I put on my cotton gloves and then nitrile gloves over them as soon as I start working on the plane. I’ll take them off when I have down time on the plane to let them breathe and be dry again. Surprisingly, very few people out in public have commented on them. I was expecting people to make fun of me, thinking that I’m afraid of germs.

One of my flight attendant coworkers this morning said, “Nice, white glove service!” I thought that was pretty funny. Sure, we’ll go with that!

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/1374dc_17c28b313bee4215a217c4b2e44b9e00/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

White glove service babyyyyyyyyy!!!!

Bringing the gloves out again recalls memories from my childhood. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to wear gloves or protection out in public. Throughout much of my adolescence, I had #atopicdermatitis on my feet. The bottoms of my feet and toes would get intensely dry, and start cracking and bleeding. It used to get so bad, especially in the summer time when we swam in our pool nearly everyday. The chlorine and the rough bottom of the pool (before we had it resurfaced) really did me in. I remember having to crawl around the house on my hands and knees because it was that painful to walk on feet with bleeding cracks. But I wasn't going to stop swimming for crying out loud!

I also had other skin issues, including athlete’s foot one year, which I now know is due to #Candida. So at school, where I was required to wear closed-toed tennis shoes, I wore white netted sandals with white socks, with a doctor’s note in hand. I felt funny and embarrassed. Thankfully, I’m more confident these days, and wearing the gloves is just a fact of life (for now!)

So I've been dealing with these skin issues for most of my life, although it has gone away and resurfaced at different times. I'm finally taking steps to get to the root cause of it all and, although it's uncomfortable, taking time to enjoy the learning journey.

And just to gross you out, here's a pic of the handruff that falls off my hands when I scratch.