Feb. 12th, 2015

flexagon: (blech)
As you might remember, eight days ago I was pretty upset with the horrible rash on my face... and with the vague-sounding diagnosis of peri-orificial dermatitis... and with the doxycycline (oral antibiotics) that the derm recommended I take twice a day for eight weeks to fix it. I don't blame myself a bit, by the way. It was all pretty bad, between redness and bumpiness and lots of blister-like vesicles that were not associated with pores and not remotely satisfying to pop.

It is not, however, on track to be bad for as long as a broken bone. The antibiotics kicked in with surprising power after about 48 hours. On Friday I wrote in an email:

Think pink instead of red, and a whole lot of skin peeling off, bad-sunburn style, from various quadrants around my mouth yesterday. Still bubbly under eyes. It's funny... peeling skin is harder to cover with makeup, and maybe it's nastier than the initial rash in terms of "ew, person's face is falling apart, don't want a piece of their face to LAND ON ME and give me cooties", but I totally welcome it because it's so obviously part of the healing process.


Since then I've had several more peelings, including scaling and sloughing of all the skin under and beside both eyes (acceptable, made me feel like a dragon). My skin is still producing a few tiny vesicles, but smaller and fewer; most of what's happening is peeling. And I think that at this point, when I wear makeup on the pink areas that remain, it doesn't really show at all to someone at normal conversational distance. If it were to stay like this at a low level for a few weeks, it would be livable.

The only side effect of the antibiotics so far is a small hemorrhoid that a doctor mentioned to me once but that never bothered me before; it got inflamed, probably a result of lowered poop pH, and the doctor had to tell me how one takes care of such a thing. I find it strangely congruous, having this affect the areas around both ends of the alimentary canal.

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flexagon

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