Day 63 (photos)

Today has me hitting the 9 week mark and the reason I haven't posted recently is because last week was the week from hell with the worst flare yet. I could not even sit at the computer to type the blog because bending my legs in a sitting position caused them to ooze.

My skin has been buring since Monday, with severe oozing from my legs, elbow creases, neck, chest and behind my ears, which has caused my hair to become matted up with a yellow crust.

I have spent most of the week lying on the settee with a silk pillowcase or scarf wrapped around my neck to mop up the constant leaking, which also caused my neck to be so tight that I couldn't turn it at all. I was very depressed and in tears constantly, which makes me worried about the effect this is having on my family and kids. After all, I am usually a very "hands on" mom, who plays with the kids a lot and takes them out places, and now I am just a crying invalid on the setee. My little boy keeps asking me when I am going to get better.

However, last night, something changed. I Had a good sleep and woke up with fine white powdery flaky skin all over my face and neck. It looked bad, but the oozing and redness was gone and the skin underneath the flaking skin was soft and new. The oozing is now limited to behind my legs and behind my ears.

Anyway, I thought I would post some more "progress" photos, although they look pretty bad....

My neck has gone pretty flaky and dry, but it is a lot less red and raw than it has been in the past couple of days and the skin underneath the flakes is pretty good.

The back of my legs are really flaky and sore and walking is made more difficult by the fact that my knees are slightly swollen. If you compare it to the photo I took a couple of days ago, you can see that it has improved slightly, as the skin is dry and flaky rather than wet and juicy.

My arm looks like old lady's skin. it is very dry and atrophied. Still, I view the dry flaky skin as preferable to the wet oozy skin, so I am not complaining.

It looks like flare number 3, despite being intense, was only limited to 7 days, which is my shortest flare yet.