Good To Know About Scarred Skin

The Tomboy!

Ever since I put the silicone sheet on my arm, as instructed by my plastic surgeon, in order to minimize the distinctively ugly, and solid 30 inches of scarring - which, incidentally, gives me a rather distinctive resemblance to the bride of Frankenstein - and then had my horrible allergic reaction to the sheet, I've been intrigued by silicone. (Described here: here) 


And my fascination is not surprising - in my head at least - since most cosmetics out there, as well as a pretty vast majority of skincare, has quite a bit of silicone in it.  Since that unfortunate allergic reaction, I've been in a bit of a quagmire trying to figure out which products with silicone will cause a bad reaction and which ones have formulations which don't appear to give me a problem with the silicone.  It all really reminds me of Bayer's aspirin. The chemicals used by Bayer were basically the same as in all aspirins: it was the bark of a willow and its acetylsalicylic acid.  However, it's the formulation, the "buffered" part - which is a secret - that distinguished it from the rest of the aspirins out there, a formulation which allowed for a larger part of the population to "stomach" the aspirin, by diminishing the side effects of nausea and gastric pain, which made the original owners its vast fortunes.  


So, where am I going with this trivia?  Well, it's just that I can't help wondering why it is that silicone is so successfully carried out in some products while in others, not so much.  Each time I buy a new skincare product or a beauty product, it seems as if I see silicone in almost every product out there.  If you tried to stay away from these silicones, it would be almost impossible, and I do try!  On the other hand, I have products that do contain silicone and they don't seem to bother me.  Is this because the products that don't bother my CFIDS, ME, fibromyalgia skin have a different sort of formulation than the ones that do bother?  Is it a case of what happened to Bayer aspirin is now happening in the generic vs brand name medications? (State secret here: generics do NOT work as well as the brand name and I do get so annoyed with my insurance company when I have to fork out the mucho bucks for the name brand  medication or make a judgement call and go with the generic: it's quite the dilemma, though I realize how trivial it must sound: there are people and children out there who can't eat and I'm complaining about generic vs. brand name meds?  Still, when I take a med and it works sometimes and doesn't at others, I know it's because I've been forced to go onto another (inconsistent) generic.  But don't get me started!)


And so here we are - finally! I know!!! - with the subject at hand:  how to deal with skin that is damaged and that we want to prevent from scarring as much as possible.  And let me tell you, I am much more clumsy now than I was before I became so ill.  Part of that is age, of course, but most of it is that when you have an undependable sense of balance, depth perception (because of eyes that don't function the same hour to hour) and just a general feeling that things are "off" in the world, you had better build yourself what I call a "scarring kit."


One interesting factoid I came across in doing research for this post is that if you have stretch marks or injuries that are still pink, there is still time and a good chance of ridding - or at least vastly diminishing - the appearance of scars.  The pink shows that there is still blood flow in the area and that's crucial.  


I've had my fair share of injuries, be it from small surgical scars due to small things such as my appendix taken out, to the ridiculously big, like my latest with my compartment syndrome surgeries, something so nasty that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.


I've also had nature-made accidents, scrapes from gardening, falls from trees as I was (supposedly) growing up, gravel burns and abrasions.  Just about everything, luckily, healed beautifully and I never minded the appearance of scars...as long as none were on my face.  The face: to me, that's sacred and where my vanity begins and ends. I even missed my smallpox vaccination scrape: how did THAT manage to disappear without my noticing? 


But for those of you who do not have a good relationship with your scars, the following may help.  These are my favorites for fighting these sorts of problems:

• Essential lavender oil, neat or in a carrier oil, I prefer the organic high-altitude lavender oil.

By "neat" I mean that a drop can be put right on the skin.  I know that a lot of the literature out there says to blend it in a carrier oil (such as jojoba, avocado, olive), but with lavender I find that putting a drop on directly will not do any harm.  This is a very old-time and old-fashioned "fix."  It's even perfect for burns in the kitchen, for example - and putting it on immediately is key so in our household we have little bottles of it stashed around the house at crucial places, like next to the stove.  My kids, who would rather go without eating for a week than admit that I'm right, have secretly borrowed my "extra" bottles from me, even asking for it if desperate enough when leaving home for an extended period of time.


I prefer to buy the organic, high altitude lavender oil sold by Aroma-thyme here .

• Bio-Oil - a classic that I've only started using since my surgeries for compartment syndrome back in November/December.  

I'm going by the recommendations of others since I'd never even heard of this product before, and my arm/hand is major scarring that will take years to heal, due to both the huge amount of area  and the place affected, so I won't know for years if and what is effective, come what may with my arm and hand.  Bio-Oil is widely available but I happen to buy mine from http://www.drugstore.com/bio-oil-scar-treatment/qxp165709?catid=182889  There are huge fans of it out there, so I use it when I think to.

• HealGel, invented by a team of dermatologists, is a new product and though I'm a bit skeptical about silicones, I use this off and on.   

HealGel is a relatively new kid on the block and has an incredible pedigree: it was developed by five dermatologist and one surgeon in order to treat post-operative scarring, blemished skin and aged scar tissues, keloid scar, as well as the everyday sunburn, bruising and inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis.  I have no hard data for it, only an "eye" for how things appear to work for me.  It's a problem in that I've never cared one way or another as to how I do with scarring - the true sign of a person who doesn't have big issues with healing skin, I now realize. I think it's worth trying, however, because it IS based on science and has such a huge fan base.  Also, my feeling is that if you're desperate enough, you'll give just about anything a try: at least this gel has quite a bit of science to back it up.

• Creme de la Mer and La Mer: the Concentrate are classics.  

These are the number two products in my arsenal, along with essential lavender oil and  the LaMer's have helped me when nothing else has.  The concentrate may very well contain a bit of silicone, I'm rather sure, but is formulated in a way that it doesn't bother me.  For best results, massage the concentrate onto the scar and then "seal" it in with the Creme de LaMer.   I'm not sure if there's anyone on the planet that hasn't heard the story of how this product was discovered: a physicist had set out to correct the horrible scarring he had sustained in a lab accident and after a few years and thousands of different formulas, he came up with LaMer and the rest was history.  It has algae (and I do so love algae for skincare) and needs to be fermented for a few months.  When a duplication of the elixir was attempted by other companies, the results were never successful and so it had to finally be bought by Estee Lauder.  I have to wonder if EL tried to fudge it on some of the steps (it's a time-intensive process: think scotch!, which is why it costs so much) because I do not think that LaMer is the same as it was when I first started using it back in the '90's.  But this is just one person's opinion and it's still an incredible team that deserves room in your arsenal if you can afford it in any way.  


Happy Monday, everyone!  Here's to all feeling their best: if not better!

Another Reason Your Diet May Not Be Working?

The summer before my body stopped producing HGH.

Do you have Fibromyalgia and happen to also have a big belly?  Well today's post may help - or at the very least open your eyes to an avenue you may have not yet considered.  


Today I'd like to touch upon a health problem that is often seen in those who have CFIDS/ME and Fibromyalgia, but often WHY this problem is happening seem to escape explanation.  A rather large subject, I'd like to simply start an intro into this area and explore it more in the future, if necessary.  Sometimes I feel as if I'm opening a can of worms when I start to address a subject: today is certainly one of those days.


It's that of the big belly that is so often seen in patients with CFIDS/ME and Fibromyalgia.  The pituitary part of the brain is broken, to put it simply and succinctly.  I'm going to give you MY story and hope that you realize that this is just one person's experience. (Oh, how I hate all these disclaimers!  They make me sound so SERIOUS, whereas I do prefer laughing about the ridiculousness of my situation.)  On the other hand, aspects of this may help you reach some conclusions in your own cases.


I've been embarrassingly frank about the nature of my skin in past posts.  Yes, I get hives and all too often have all sorts of skin sensitivities, but like my mom and both her parents, I've been blessed in the wrinkles department and most especially in the healing-of-the-skin department.


I have numerous stories of scratches, scrapes, cuts and burns over the years which should have left scars but didn't.  Of course, I do have scars, but not as many as one would think, given the escapades of my tomboyish childhood.  


But to move this story along: one day, in particular, I was told by over-protective hubby that I wasn't to get out of bed that day because my face told him that it would be a day when I'd be vulnerable to accidents, falls, whatever.  As I've written before, my family can usually read how I feel much more accurately than I can.  To me, basically, each day is pretty cruddy, health-wise, and I have to learn to rely on others' observations.  On this particular morning, I'd evidently not learned that lesson.  Later that morning, feeling as if I just had to get out of my skin or I would go crazy, I decided to make myself a cup of tea.  Granted, I had to go downstairs for this, but I honestly thought I could handle it.  


As I opened the cabinet with all the "tea necessities," the little Cuisinart coffee grinder fell onto my head with the sharp blade slicing my forehead open, blood suddenly squirting everywhere.  I finally called hubby - and how much I didn't want to, you can only imagine, since I had been "warned" that bad things would befall me (groan: a pun) if I got out of bed - and he said he'd take me to the ER.  And thus an argument ensued. I was simply in no shape to go to the ER, no matter what.  By the time hubby arrived home and saw the mess, he was really insistent that I needed that area stitched, but I had to make him understand that I didn't care about the darn scar which would, undoubtedly, form smack in the middle of my forehead.  I simply could not move or have anyone touch me.  Hubby said he'd call an ambulance.  I told him that if the house were on fire, I literally would not be able to move.  I was just feeling that sick, weak, nauseated, and a myriad of symptoms that I can't even describe.


Hubby did the best he could with sticking on a few steristrips and a couple of days later, when I actually cared enough to think of how I'd look for the rest of my life, I looked at my arsenal of healing things and decided to try the lavender essential oil I had.   That summer, many people (doctors) shook their heads when they saw my "wound" (I mean it was right there on my face, hard to ignore!) and everyone said how stupid I was not to have gone to the ER and had a plastics guy fix it up.  This was said to my face at parties...I can't even imagine what was said behind my back!  Even then, the consensus went, I'd have a rather nasty scar.


Well, the joke was on them: my forehead healed wonderfully, thanks to my Bulyga and Lisovsky genes. There was not even a TRACE of a scar, which even by my own standards should been a mess.  Essential lavender oil started getting a reputation in some circles around town, as it rightfully should have.


So, imagine how surprised I was a few years later when each time I turned around I'd either burn myself taking Christmas cookies out of the oven, scratch myself moving a piece of furniture away from a certain spot in order to vacuum, or cut myself doing some silly bit of prep work in the kitchen.  Suddenly scars were forming that simply wouldn't go away.  More than one friend asked why the heck wasn't I using that "voodoo" stuff I'd used in the past.  When I realized it was the lavender oil they were talking about, I didn't know what to say.  They were right: why WASN'T the lavender working?


But the incident that really hit it home for me was the one in the garden.  I was putting in annuals, a very simple job even I could handle.  After the flowers were all in, it was such a great feeling.  The garden was going to look pretty good this year, I felt.  A couple of days later, I noticed a scraped area on the top of my foot, the area above the arch.  I looked and couldn't figure out what the heck was going on and was puzzled. That area had been a bit red after gardening, but it shouldn't have scabbed over...it should simply have disappeared.  It was a result of my kneeing down at times and the grass rubbing against my foot as I scooted along with those annuals.


Because the area wouldn't heal AT ALL, I pointed it out to my doctor a few weeks later during my monthly visit.  He didn't think much of it at the time but I wasn't letting it go.  I had to defend my ancestors' genes, after all.  Much was at stake!  I reminded my GP how the lavender had helped during that unfortunate forehead incident and he more or less did see that it was an unusual scenario for me but still thought I was a bit "over concerned."  The following month, my foot looked no better.   Now, I really wanted answers. 


More cuts, burns, scratches occurred - naturally, since I'm not the most "stable" person in the world.  Hubby likes to say I've fallen in all the great cities of Europe and it's true.  We can now even add Australia to the continent count.  Back then, I was horrified to see what the heck was happening to my skin and was getting royally upset.  


FINALLY, the time came to have blood work done, a relatively regular occurrence since there are certain meds that I'm on which can have nasty side-effects and also because we always find some sorts of goodies to address.  My HGH level was taken because I had suddenly started exhibiting a huge belly. Pregnant I was not: the emergency hysterectomy performed fifteen years before insured that. 


Well, lo and behold: my Human Growth Hormone (HGH) byproduct (IGF-1) was at the level of a 98-year old woman, whereas I was only in my late 40's.  Essentially, I was dying as organs became weaker, including my heart, my lungs, and so forth.


Yes, I'd become so weak that I was now completely bedridden.  Another test was run, and yes siree, there was no mistake.  My body had basically stopped producing HGH.  I had to be taken to Pittsburgh to a specific hospital to have "the gold standard" test done on me: the arginine test. If you fell asleep when the IV arginine hit your system, that suggested that you had no Human Growth Hormone being made by your body. I, the insomniac whose insomnia is so severe that it's actually been labeled by one neurologist as being "malignant," fell asleep the second that arginine hit my system and proceeded to sleep it off for the next few days. What bliss!  Don't I wish I had access to some arginine most of my life?


It took almost two years from the day we realized that I had an HGH problem to the day I finally started taking the HGH.   My hubby would call the insurance company, the government, the company that made the HGH and would beg to pay for it himself until the insurance company could get its act together for me to start with my daily shots but was refused each way he turned, as I got progressively worse and even ended up in the hospital.  And the scary part was that each day we were all afraid that I would soon be dead.  My organs were barely making it.  I was now at about the "age" of an 109-year old woman.  There were many long and funny stories around this period of my life which can be addressed at some other time, but only funny now so many years later when time has taken away the sting and we all know the ending.  One "cute" story: having to be carried out of the auditorium as my daughter's NYU class came in for their graduation.  All I kept thinking was, "thank God this is not her wedding!"


Eventually I was given the OK by all agencies involved.  But then the spy vs. spy scenario started.  You see, HGH is not something that you can simply pick up at your local CVS pharmacy.  No, an APPOINTMENT with a courier is made each month for the delivery and it must also be confirmed each month as to time and place. I love envisioning my hubby behind some dumpster making the illicit trade-off of the refrigerated HGH.


In the spirit of shortness, since I really do want to make my posts much shorter, I'll just make a few points.


First, it took two years for my body to recover to the point where the proper amount of HGH was reflected in my body for my age group.  They were an extremely rough two years, to put it mildly.


Second, I was extremely lucky.  My blood turns cold when I  realize that HGH was approved for use in adults only two years before we realized that I'd need HGH.  Had my body stopped producing it just a few years earlier, I'm afraid I'd have been dead.


Third, I suffered much irreparable damage.  Two discs totally dissolved and the bottom of my spine is gone also, among other "goodies."  My cholesterol count is really off and because I can't get it under control, I've given up.  It doesn't seem to matter what I eat: in fact, when I adhered to a heart smart diet, my cholesterol went up, when I ate whatever I felt like eating, it went down, though still at a totally unacceptable level by anyone's standards.


Four, I must see an endocrinologist about this and not all endocrinologists are built the same, evidently. That is, not all endocrinologists are "inclined" towards prescribing patients HGH.  Don't ask why since I've yet to figure out what THAT's all about.  The tests are there to show that I clearly need it.  Why only some endocrinologists can or will prescribe is an issue I'll never be privy enough to answer.  Worries of governmental agencies coming in and auditing the doctor?  I have no idea.  It's an extremely controlled protocol and has very rigid criteria. I live in fear of what happens to me as a patient when the very senior endocrinologist I go to finally DOES retire.  He's only working because he has so many patients who are dependent on him.  His is not an easy life when half his patients are brittle diabetics who, of course, often need to make middle of the night emergency calls.


Five: What is the insurance max in my case?  The medicines I take are costing us a bundle, even with insurance.  Add in the HGH and it's really a huge cost.  What IS my cap?  


Six: where the heck is this stuff coming from?  I don't even want to know and have purposely stayed away from all in regards to this part of my care.  I literally cannot live without the HGH and I don't want to know what problems may lie ahead of me because of my having to get daily injections.  Yes, close monitoring is done to make sure that I am getting only the amount that occurs in a woman my age, but there are always complications to everything a patient takes, and I'm sure that this is even more so in a case such as mine, given the bucket load of problems I already have.


And finally, what scares the crud out of me?  That for some "funny" reason, arginine, the amino acid which they inject into you for the "gold standard test" to establish if you are severely HGH deficient, is suddenly, mysteriously disappearing!  


To end the story (and hopefully I'll still be around, the pharma's not sending anyone out to bump me off because my mouth is too big) -  I don't heal as well as I used to before I ran out of my own ability to make HGH.  I'm alive, and yes, I realize I'm older, but really, I know where I should be and I'm not there.

I also worry about the people out there with growth hormone insufficiencies.   I so hate that word, "insufficiencies," since if you're making the hormone at all, you are then not ok'd for the manufactured hormones and your goose, it could be said, has been cooked.


If you have a belly that makes you wonder how you could possibly be pregnant or if you suddenly start getting scars from incidents that you normally wouldn't scar from, check into your HGH level. 

But I'm glad to report that despite all, including my son very inadvertently jinxing me by calling me "the weird mom with no wrinkles," I have not disgraced those ancestors of mine and that THAT part of me is doing OK: the Bulyga's and the Lisovsky's should be happy I still have so few wrinkles!  (Knock on wood and a tphoo! tphoo! tphoo!)

Beauty To Consider: BB Creams and Silicones....

East meets West:
In light of this being "Western Easter," Eastern Orthodox Easter next week, I thought it'd be fun to show the first compromising of our two cultures blending together as one family.  I love the skeptical looks on the females in hubby's family and won't even try to say what my mom's probably thinking. The tiny bunny was probably the only thing all agreed on!

Just over a week ago, in order to try to cut down on my feebly slow "getting ready in the morning routine" for my appointment with the beauty heaven I was (hopefully) heading to, I thought I'd try a few new beauty products properly.   As always, I'm on the hunt to look my best - with a minimum of effort, please! - in the ever-desperate hope that the savings in time will give me more time/energy for the actual event.  And I'd hoped that I'd have tips or new info to send on to my readers as well.  

I thought I'd test a few more of those BB creams I'd mentioned in an earlier post. May I say how surprised I am by the fact that so few people I've spoken to lately have never even heard of BB creams?  Wow!  For perhaps the first time ever, I may be at the beginning of a trend as opposed to the end of one. Excuse me while I pat myself on my back - and try not to break my arm doing so!

A few days ago, my daughter stopped by the house and I ambushed her as a very reluctant tester for two products, one of which was a luxury sheer coverage foundation I'd put on half of my own face hours earlier in the day.  Yes, the makeup looked nice and I could  see a difference but it was not really worth the exorbitant price. On the other hand, I liked it enough to want to try the fuller coverage version and will get back to you on that when I get up my nerve to order it - enough damage has been done to my wallet lately in the beauty department.

At any rate, when asked if she could tell which side of my face had the sheer coverage, my daughter could see the difference immediately, though she too agreed that it wasn't worth the price.  After putting some of the sheer coverage makeup on her face, I wasn't impressed with it either, though for a different reason. The makeup didn't melt into her skin.  Something was off.  Perhaps it was just too mask-y looking. But, aha!  I thought to try the Dr. Jart+ Premium BB cream on the other side of her face.  

Oh how I love having a daughter!  She too loved the packaging - UNLIKE her dad, who had a hard time finding ANY enthusiasm for it a few weeks ago when I showed him the beautifully engineered and designed "tube."

The Dr. Jart+ went on beautifully. I loved it and best of all, she loved it enough to take my tube home with her.  Actually I think what she loved most was the fact that the SPF was a whopping 45 and though the skin tone had evened out beautifully, she still looked very natural with her freckles peeking through.  I loved it because you could absolutely tell the difference: it just lifted up her skin, making it so fresh and looking almost as if she'd been on vacation, masking the signs on her face of the influenza (not just the "flu") she'd battled a few weeks ago and was slowly recovering from.

So, the next day I tried two other BB creams in order to not have to borrow my daughter's for my one day out of the house... my replacement, which I'd just ordered, would not arrive in time for my great escape.  I tried Clinique's and Boscia's versions. Both companies I like quite a bit.  I've bought their products in the past and been happy with them.  I must say that one of the BB's was OK, but something was still off and it was hard to put my finger on what it was that made it look so wrong. And one or both caused bumps on my face, as well as redness. Furthermore, I had to wash the BB's off BOTH sides of my face within less than a half hour - why I thought the burning would go away for both products I have no idea.  And, BTW, I've never before returned a beauty product - with the caveat that I don't ever REMEMBER doing so - but you can bet that those two were going back; they were in the mail the following day.

I suspected, but now am fairly sure, that I've a problem - I may have an allergy to silicone.  

After my first office visit with my plastic surgeon to get the stitches out for "The Claw," what I affectionately call my arm and hand these days, I was given a silicone sheet to wear on my approximately 30 inches of scars.  I waited for everything to be healed with no broken skin, as instructed by everyone I saw that day.  I swear, I felt as if I were Moses receiving the commandments by God when the silicone sheet instructions were given.  I was nervous but I was really excited.  When I arrived home I sent an email to my best friend and told her all about this miraculous new treatment. I'd googled it, of course, and had been so thrilled to read the rave reviews. Naturally, I'd want my BFF to know about this immediately.  (Oh, of course she must have known this telepathically, but I just had to be SURE she'd gotten the message!)

Finally, I figured out how I would cut the sheet to allow it to fit all of the scarring.  The directions said I could wear the silicone sheeting for just about all day and night, only taking it off for a little time.  My surgeon and his support staff said to put it on for only six hours and no more, but definitely for the six to get the full benefits.  That was rather complicated, since as mentioned before (Ha!) I don't have any predictable sleep patterns.  If I put them - the now cut-up strips - on during the day, I might fall asleep.  If I put them on at night, the same concern.   A few days later I bit the bullet and told myself to stop all the tomfoolery and just get on with it.

Well, after about five minutes, my ever-observant hubby looked over at me and said, "You know, if it hurts you SHOULD take them off."  Well, I had no idea why he said that...I hadn't noticed the tears rolling down from my eyes, "the tell." I answered, while staring at the TV, "That's OK.  I can do it."

Hubby looked at me (again) like I was the crazy one and said, "If it's hurting, take it off - IMMEDIATELY.  Are you nuts?  You're probably having a reaction."

Me?  Nah! "Oh, I can take it," I, more or less, whimpered.  "I don't want those scars!"  

"Are you bonkers? Take those things off and let me take a look at that. Really!" he said, a tad exasperated.

Well, the entire area covered by the strips was red, angry and inflamed. And the spots and lines where the staple holes were - the ones that make you look like Frankenstein - had, more or less leveled off before, but were now back to being ugly, pimple-looking creepy bumps. Gross!

It was awful.  I could take the nettle-stinging feeling but to have such a huge step back in the healing - well, you know how vain I can be.... Or should I say how much I'll give up to look good.... This was a definite mistake.

Of course, I emailed my BFF immediately because with our luck she or one of her (grown up) kids would just have had the sudden misfortune to also be in a position to need those silicone sheets - at that very moment! - and someone would inevitably be told, "Oh, Irene's doctor gave her that and she googled and read in tons of places that this is the best thing out there" and end up having an even worse reaction than I did!

OK, folks, I can be slow. But it finally dawned on me that one day, at the "medical center" with my daughter, I'd put a new primer on my face and immediately, it burned so badly that I threw the sample away - right after thoroughly washing my face, first with warm water and Dove (I always go back to Dove, don't I?) and then applying very cool water compresses because my face was red and getting inflamed, followed by my skin-saving and rescuing LaMer.

After the silicone sheet fiasco, and keeping in mind the one primer reaction, I started noticing reviews on Sephora and other beauty sites about women having problems with dimethicone in beauty products.  It finally hit me that I too must have an allergy to silicone.  But I had been using silicone all along, I realized, as I started to read the ingredients on various beauty products in my cabinets and drawers.  Talk about a headache!  I suddenly realized why I disliked chemistry so much in high school.  But it was fascinating that there were some products that I really didn't care for or some I loved and it was the dimethicone that seemed to be the main difference.  The few products with silicones which didn't seem to bother me were those that looked as if they hardly had any silicone in them.  But I soon realized that perhaps some products were formulated differently - such as with buffers?  What do I know?  To further confuse the issue, I realized that silicone goes by many different names.  

The point is that the reaction didn't hit me strongly under most circumstances.  On the other hand, I seemed to get unexplained little bumps on my face that I had thought were due to nerves about my daughter's precarious situation - they may have been, instead, reactions to the silicone.  Under some circumstances I may not have been getting a bad reaction, but what were those circumstances?  So, at first I stayed away from all silicone while doing research - a guaranteed headache-producing exercise, let me assure you.

I was "outraged" when I read on one skin store's blog site, written by a physician, that Vitamin E should not be used for scars because reactions - allergies - could take place, but that silicone NEVER had any adverse reactions.

OK.  Let's see if I have this straight.  There is something out there that NO one has ever had a reaction to?  Hmmmm.... Ever heard of the exception to the rule?  Well there you go.  Someone's either not thinking or is stretching the truth if they say there's NEVER been an adverse reaction to something.  Don't even get me started.

At the same time, I was suddenly coming across sites with on-line shopping where they proudly advertise the fact that THEIR products have no silicones at all.  The reviews on any number of beauty sites report women having reactions to silicone. It's a HUGE concern.  Some women make silicone sound as bad as when doctors demonize cigarettes as if they were the equivalent of smoking crack cocaine.

When my surgeon's assistant suggested Vitamin E oil, her boss scoffed at her (in a light-hearted way) and when I piped in that I believe in the effectiveness of arnica and lavender essential oils, for example, he looked at me as if I were bonkers.  But he was all for the silicone.

And I don't blame him.  He's kept up with the medical studies that are constantly changing.  These include papers on Vitamin E oil therapy, the latest saying it was the massaging that made the difference.  And of course he wants minimal scaring.  He wants what's best for me.  Furthermore, it is, after all, his work that is on display for the whole world to see - especially when I don't wear sleeves that go from my shoulder down to my fingers.

My feeling?  I think big pharma is putting out good money to keep yet another nasty pharmaceutical problem hidden as long as they can get away with it.  Call me paranoid, but that's exactly what I'm afraid of.

I might have been foolish, but I finally made the decision to go with selected beauty products that have SOME silicone. First, I would continue with the products which I hoped weren't causing problems, for whatever reason, my go-to products.  Secondly, that was after looking at the labels and ensuring that there was very little silicone content in anything I put on my skin.  I would trust the manufacturer to adhere to the requirement that the substances in the products are listed from the highest amount to the lowest.

I mean, the silicone really makes products glide on so beautifully and there are a ton of other pro's for the way they function cosmetically.  It's an incredible new resource for the beauty world from makeup to hair to skincare.

My immunologist, however, said I many want to rethink that, given my extreme reaction with the sheet.  A first allergic reaction, as what I had with the strips, COULD lead to a more severe reaction with the second or third exposure to the substance. In other words, nature is giving a person a "pass" the first time around.  It may be nature's way of not killing off a person the first time, while giving that person a warning (i.e., the bad reaction) that something is off and not working...beware! Nature, evolution - whatever you choose to call it - may thus be offering a second chance at being smart the next time around and figuring it is the fool who goes back for a third or fourth time and Goodnight Moon!  Not necessarily so, but did I want to take that chance?  Had I forgotten the primer incident too?

Geesh!  Perhaps I really AM lucky that I'm bedridden...I don't need to go out much anymore.  Therefore, I don't need to make a decision as "to silicone or not to silicone": that is the question.

Groan...did I really say that?  I guess so!

But I definitely want to work with my Dr. Jart+.  That stuff may be joining my very tiny "hall of fame" keepers.