My hand modeling career was over before it even started

Current situation:

Ouch!

About a week ago, I found a support group on Facebook for the quickest way to heal from TSW (Topical Steroid Withdrawal), which I've concluded I'm suffering from. (By the way, it seems that social media is the best place to find information now... In my years of searching about "eczema" on Google and even Duck Duck Go, I never saw TSW mentioned.) While biding my time waiting for a flight, researching FB led me to a group educating people on the healing method of No Moisturizing Treatment (NMT), developed by Dr. Kenji Sato, the leader against Topical Corticosteroids in Japan.

I was very skeptical about this method, because what they recommended in this group was the COMPLETE opposite of what I'd been doing: to stop moisturizing.

That’s right: the suggested healing method for my severely dry skin was to reduce the amount of moisture I put on myself and intake in order to heal. Seems counter-intuitive, which is why I’d been putting coconut oil, body butter and mango butter on my hands like crazy.

But I couldn’t deny the reports on the page of people miraculously healing. Some of these people have TSW all over their bodies, looking like burn victims and sometimes even bed-ridden. As I experimented over the next few days of not washing my hands, I began to quickly see results.

Pieces of the puzzle began to click in my head. I had been washing my hands at work often, since I work in a public place, on an airplane. But by the end of my 3-day trips, my hands would be raw, cracked, in so much pain that it made me think twice about going to work. This week, I washed my hands maybe once a day, and I’ve begun to notice how yes, my hands are super dry and flaky and I’m leaving “handruff” everywhere (as my boyfriend jokingly called it)… but also that the holes I used to see in the upper layer of skin were not forming. Rather, they were crusting over.

Taken from the blog of a lady named Tokuko, who manages that Facebook group, is the following that sums up the theory behind the method:

Imagine this.  If you moisturize the injured part over and over with moisturizers, the skin can’t dry and it inhibits forming a scab to be healed.  If you peeled off the scab before drying in the middle of healing, it takes a longer time because your body has to form another scab again.  Besides, if you moisturize the injured fresh part, it is as if you keep [wetting] the part.  I guess the process of healing of NMT is the same thing with this.  Again, the skin needs to dry before healing.

Well lady, when you explain it like that, I feel dumb for never having thought of that!

You can find her super helpful blog here.

I haven't fully committed to the process of NMT yet, because of how extreme it is. Here's what it looks like:

1. Be sure to be in bed by 10 p.m. The time between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. is apparently when the growth hormone that accelerates metabolism is being produced, in turn creating new skin.

2. Work out every day, for about an hour.

3. Shower RARELY, like every 3-4 days. And when you do, make it as short as possible. Showering or bathing changes your skin's ph level, the bacterial flora and removes moisture.

4. Don't moisturize. Don't put any oils, butters, or other products on your skin.

5. Don't wear too many clothes or use thick blankets at night. (OK this one is hard, for someone like me who gets cold easily.)

6. Limit your water intake to 1L a day. This includes the water in the foods you eat. Exceptions can be made if you sweat a lot that day.

7. Avoid licorice or Glycyrrhizin ingredients, as these mimic steroids.

Doing all this for three months has healed numerous people. The stories are endless and inspiring. I'm gearing up to commit to this and will post my updates with it.