Monday 1 June 2015

Update at 42 Months With Photos

TSW is slow. Painfully slow. I'd been doing so well up until December 2014 and then  I hit a flare that never really went away. previously healed areas like my legs started flaring again and also, unusually, my hands, which up until recently had been problem-free.

I've been steadily improving since the weather has changed, but improvements are gradual and I'm still not fully healed. I thought I'd post today's photos next to the last ones so you could compare them. The "befores" are from my 40 month update; two months ago.

I'm now 3 and a half years into TSW.


As you can see, my neck has calmed down a lot. Movement has improved considerably and the oozing has stopped.




My arm isn't so tight and dry now on the elbow crease and the rash is much paler, almost gone.


The red demarcation line on my hand has disappeared, but there is still some puffiness compared to how my hand normally looks.


My face is a bit pink still, but not as rashy. The skin doesn't feel tight anymore and flaking is not a problem right now.


So you can see some good improvements here and I generally seem to be moving in the right direction again. I'm still having some sleep issues and my allergies are acting up because it's pollen season.

I have some good news about my inhaler too. I'm still having to use a steroid inhaler for my bad asthma, but the nurse has allowed me to go down from a 125 dose to a 50 dose. I'm doing OK on the new dose, but I suppose the real test will be in winter. I'm just happy that I have less steroid load going into my body, as I'm sure it has an impact on my recovery. For now, I can't live without it though and breathing is a necessary part of life!

Hope you enjoyed my update. I'd love to be posting completely healed photos, but this is the best I can do for now.

Hugs to all the brave TSW warriors.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad to see you've had a little bit of improvement & don't worry about the steroid inhaler. Asthma can kill after all! Did you look into dupilumab any more?

Much love,

xxx

Louise said...

Hi jenny. Hope you are doing OK too. I never heard back about the dupilumab trial, but I've been interested to read the progress of others on the drug. I suppose deep down I'd rather manage the TSW process without any drugs, but there's no doubt these new drugs will change things for the better for a lot of patients.

Have you looked into it?

Healthy Gazelle said...

Hi Louise,

Thanks for the update. So sorry to see that your are flaring again, but glad that you are still able to be positive about it all. At 28 months, i feel like things have stagnated; I guess that's the nature of the beast! Hope it passes soon xx

Wynter said...

That's really cool that you were able to go down a dose with your inhaler. I didn't know you could do that - do you just take it in the morning now or something?

Louise said...

No. The inhaler I was on was a 125 measured dose. I took it once at morning and once at night. The new one is a 50 dose, but I still take it the same frequency. The 50 is the lowest dose inhaler that they produce.

Unknown said...

Healing hugs to you, Louise :-) and congratulations on hitting 600,000!
Rosemarie