Alternating Treatments
Many of the treatments I've tried, discussed here, or read about online will cause a reaction from the body. Usually, this comes in the form of peeling, but some treatments will cause inflammation, then peeling when treatment is stopped. But as you probably know from wound healing after sunburn or cuts, peeling only happens once, or a handful of times, before the wound moves to the next phase. I wonder whether the same is what's at play when it comes to BXO?
When I began treating myself, I would often see peeling. I would get excited about it, and expect for it to continue indefinitely. Then when it stopped, I would get disappointed and think that I was stuck with this condition for life. Anyone who has dealt with treatment for BXO knows why I would have thought like this - it's crazily slow to treat, and for someone who felt like the first person in the world to even dream of doing anything other than treating the symptoms, I had no material to read to suggest otherwise. But years on, we now know that that's simply not the case. But now I'm out of the emotional clutch that BXO can have over you in those early stages, I am thinking back to why that might have happened. Why did so many treatments cause a good reaction at first, followed by little to nothing after continued use?
I don't know the answer, and as I know next to nothing about the mechanism of wound healing, it's unlikely I ever will. But what I will say is that I just have a gut feeling that we could work this mechanism to our advantage. If I were to start again knowing what I know now, what I would do is alternate treatments. I'd try one for a couple of days or until it started peeling, then stop and take a few days off, then try a different treatment under the same regime. Perhaps the two different treatments would both cause peeling, perhaps only the first would. Perhaps each effective treatment actually does the same thing to the skin, hence the reaction would only be noticed after the first treatment, and not for a while afterward, but the point is that even alternating something with nothing would surely be an effective treatment plan.
The thing is, skin heals to its own schedule. I think we need to work with that a bit more. What peeling is is dead skin coming away. You can't expect your BXO skin to be dying any faster than the body can generate new tissue underneath, and the body isn't going to shed skin before it is ready. When that happens, it's usually very painful.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has found alternating treatments to be more or less effective than constant treatments.
When I began treating myself, I would often see peeling. I would get excited about it, and expect for it to continue indefinitely. Then when it stopped, I would get disappointed and think that I was stuck with this condition for life. Anyone who has dealt with treatment for BXO knows why I would have thought like this - it's crazily slow to treat, and for someone who felt like the first person in the world to even dream of doing anything other than treating the symptoms, I had no material to read to suggest otherwise. But years on, we now know that that's simply not the case. But now I'm out of the emotional clutch that BXO can have over you in those early stages, I am thinking back to why that might have happened. Why did so many treatments cause a good reaction at first, followed by little to nothing after continued use?
I don't know the answer, and as I know next to nothing about the mechanism of wound healing, it's unlikely I ever will. But what I will say is that I just have a gut feeling that we could work this mechanism to our advantage. If I were to start again knowing what I know now, what I would do is alternate treatments. I'd try one for a couple of days or until it started peeling, then stop and take a few days off, then try a different treatment under the same regime. Perhaps the two different treatments would both cause peeling, perhaps only the first would. Perhaps each effective treatment actually does the same thing to the skin, hence the reaction would only be noticed after the first treatment, and not for a while afterward, but the point is that even alternating something with nothing would surely be an effective treatment plan.
The thing is, skin heals to its own schedule. I think we need to work with that a bit more. What peeling is is dead skin coming away. You can't expect your BXO skin to be dying any faster than the body can generate new tissue underneath, and the body isn't going to shed skin before it is ready. When that happens, it's usually very painful.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has found alternating treatments to be more or less effective than constant treatments.
This is basically how I'm approaching it mate. A few days of cortisone cream. Stop. A few days of TT oil. Stop. A few days of iodine/peroxide.
ReplyDeleteWhich... Has... Believe it or not... Resulted in: YOU GUESSED IT... some form of peeling! Lol. Don't get me wrong it still looks like a war zone and I swear looks ten times worse than when I started at the moment. But at least something is happening!
Ps: hell knows how ANYONE manages to keep the Manuka honey from going everywhere but where it's supposed to when trying to use it for treatment/healing! Any tips on this much appreciated
DeleteThat's great news. One thing you may not have read (it's on here, but the content goes back so far it's probably easy to miss) is that peeling doesn't always scream out "I'm peeling". Often, the peeling is so subtle it's hard to detect with the naked eye. I found dusting the skin with talcum powder made it easier to see the edges as they peeled away, but it certainly didn't come away in sheets, like other skin does. When you say it looks like a war zone, how do you mean? In what way does it look worse?
DeleteIn terms of Manuka Honey and keeping it on, I only wore it at night. Sticky underpants were a fact of life for me (gee... that really came out wrong) but I also never smothered so much on that it created a huge mess either.