I Love Being a Girl!

Stupid dermatitis. For 5 years, I have had to use all unscented products - laundry detergent, body wash, lotion, no perfume, and sunblock with zinc only!

No smell at all?! Sadly no. Without knowing exactly what sends my skin into a hissy fit, with little red bumps that look like hives, itching like crazy and burning like fire, everything smelly was considered an "irritant."

It all started on my face. I started waking up every morning with my eyes swollen shut, face on fire, itchy and puffy. So weird! At night, I would have to ice it to fall asleep, only to be woken an hour later by the intense burning and itching. Being the typical poor, college student, I had zero insurance and only the nice nurse practitioners at the school clinic to help me. Well, they didn't.

Their diagnosis: "You're allergic to the blue dye in your birth control pill. Stop taking it. Let's put you on something else. It may take a month to clear up though. Sorry honey."

They would look at me with sad eyes, unable to assist me further but clearly seeing my pain. My boyfriend was as supportive as he could be - constantly filling my bag up with fresh ice, replacing damp towels with dry ones, and rubbing my back when that was all that was left to do.

For a month, I had had zero sleep. I was going to school full-time, and was in the middle of finals. On top of that, I worked two jobs, and could not afford to take time off.

Then one day, my dad called. ("Dad" opens up a whole other aspect of my life. An entire category dedicated to him is forthcoming....) I immediately started crying. He asked what was wrong and I (as coherently as I could through my blubbering) explained what was happening to me. He immediately came to get me, and drove me to a dermatologist friend of his. (Way to go dad. Hmm....too bad this is one of the only times in the million that I've needed you, that you stepped up to the plate. But I digress).

The doctor took one look at me, sat me down, pulled out a big needle, and gave me a shot in my arm. Then he ordered me to stop using anything scented, and to stay out of the sun.

"You have contact dermatitis. Why didn't you come to me sooner dear?" He tsked, tsked as he turned around to put away his supplies. (Um, I don't know Dr. M, could it be because you charge $100 a visit?)

Within a few hours though, the itchies subsided! Can you believe it?! For goodness sakes, I got into one of the worse accidents of my life on the freeway because of the condition, driving back from school. My tips at work dipped down considerably because of my lack of attention (and my unappetizing appearance, I'm sure), and I had probably done a lot worse on two finals than I had hoped. But whew. It was over.

Since then, I have never had an outbreak on my face. Usually the outbreaks are on my arms. But I think I figured it out. It's really all about dry skin! So as long as I lather up with sunblock before a good spell in the sun, and make sure to lotion up afterwards, I'm relatively free of this whole bothersome issue. I've had outbreaks here and there, following times of laziness (and supreme stupidity). For instance, going for a long walk outside wearing a tanktop, and not putting sunblock on. Yeah. Bad idea.

But now! Now oh now! I decided it's been long enough with the unscented stuff. Which by the way, begins to pick up the smell of whatever container it comes in, since it has no smell of its own. Smelling like plastic sounds quite appealing, no?

Last week, I tried smelly body wash. Nothing floral or particularly odorriffic. Just a Dove body wash. And after waiting the 2-3 days that it normally takes for an outbreak to appear, I got ........... NOTHING!

And as I write this, I just started my first load of laundry with regular ol' smelly laundry detergent. I can't wait for the results! Whew, now that I think about it...I should have done a smaller load, just in case there IS a problem. Uh oh. Well, maybe I'll put aside an extra $100 dollars in case I need to make an emergency call to Dr. M's office. (Please oh please oh please work in my favor!)