So about 2 months ago I posted about Skin Health 1 – What is Perioral Dermatitis?, and as promised I said I would follow up on this. At the time I didn’t really go into it much, but I was fighting a very annoying rash on my face, which I have found out since it is called Perioral Dermatitis. It is really common in fair headed females, my age and who blush easily! Uhoh! It is also aggravated by heating your body and sweat on your skin….so exercising makes it redder!! Double Uhoh!
This perioral dermatitis turned up the day I put some sports sunblock on my face, I don’t wear sunblock usually, but I was going to be in the sun all day, so used some and given the sun we have had there weren’t too many days like that. For some reason the sunblock affected the PH in my skin and just made it all come to the surface. This perioral dermatitis then decided to just hang around, get worse and never disappear! Then over time it got angrier and angrier and so I have had to go in very deep and try and find the cause and root to this problem, because clearly the sunblock just ignited the fire and wasn’t the actual issue!
The first place I went was to skin specialists, and got myself on the right organic natural products for my skin and got there advice. Turns out perioral dermatitis is particularly common in Tauranga and has a nick name of the strawberry rash, because it turns up a lot when strawberries are in season….hmmm I may have had my fair share of strawberries at the time, so who knows with that one!
The good news is, I have learnt so much about my skin and I believe I am on the best path not only for my skin but for my overall health. So I really keen to share with you what I have learnt and hopefully help you if you are having skin/digestive problems or if you know of anyone with something similar and feel like there is no end to it you can share with them what I have learnt and help them.
I havn’t got a picture of when it was at its reddest, but trust me, it was pretty awful and you can’t cover it up with makeup, so you just have to ignore it. I didn’t exactly want to take photos, but have decided it was a good idea so I can show you. This picture was taken 1 month ago, so still pretty angry and red, but not as bad as what it was in full flight! Photo not the best, but you can see on chin and around smile lines.
So here is where I have been….
Skin specialist told me Perioral Dermitis has been suggested to turn up when you eat to many foods that heat the skin or inflam the blood vessels in it to make it seem redder? What the? What foods heat the skin??
1. First port of call was to remove all sugar from my diet, so that means all fruit and I wasn’t eating much anyway. So any processed foods and fruit had to go and this seems to be a very common agravator of perioral dermatitis. So for 30 days I removed fruit and of course anything processed. (It takes 30 days for your skin to replace it self so anything that I was trying I was giving it 30 days.) So I still had this rash! It had days when I thought it was getting better, and days when it was just full on angry, so was really hard to know if fruit was working or not. So after that, I decided I had to go further
2. Next step suggested to was then to remove any alcohol, coffee, and chocolate………..hmmm. So on Jan the 30th I took my self off all those things, I wasn’t exactly drinking much alcohol, or loads of chocolate, but coffee…..that was my weakness. So with these were all out the door, as well as all sugar and hoped that it would work, because I had been putting up with this rash now for a good 10 weeks, so I had to go all or nothing and so I did…..got some great headaches and withdrawels from the coffee and that was hard week teaching that week while I was coming off coffee, but I was busy so just got on with it….. So 14 weeks later, still had the rash.
3. So at this point I was lost! Doctors would of put me on antibiotics at this point. So that was alot of the advice I was getting no matter where I asked, however I was refusing to do that, because I know that something on my skin like this is a true indication of my digestive health, so I had to be missing something! Was time to dig even deeper……..
I will let you know on the next post about skin where I have been and if it has worked because at this point I feel it has, but im not 100% sure so need to give it a good 30 days! :)
Here is my original post on Skin Health 1 – What is Perioral Dermatitis?
