Day 199 (photos)

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was posting my progress at 100 days. Now here I am at nearly 200, the time is flying by! I thought I would post some progress photos to illustrate how things are going for me.

Life is pretty good. My skin is not perfect, but it is tolerable, and trust me, with TSW, tolerable is way preferable to oozy, red, itchy and sore! I can go about my daily business as normal without my skin getting in the way. I feel good and that is the main part. The rest will come with time.

I have been reading a lot of comments from the itsan form lately from newbies just starting out on this steroid free journey. They have all the same questions that I had, namely wondering whether healing is really possible by quitting steroid creams. They are red, sore and oozy and see no end in sight, just like I was a few months ago. But things do get better. Slowly, very slowly, but things do get better.

If you compare this "mug shot" to previous ones on the blog, you can see that my face is definitely less red. The skin is mainly white, although it has some dry patches and blotching.This is the area where I used the strong steroids, so it will take the longest to heal. Progress is slow, but discernible.

The same goes for my neck area. The blotches are really lightening up. The oozing has stopped again and the area is healing well. The neck area had been really problematic for me during TSW and at one point I could not even turn my head because the skin was so tight, but now the skin is soft and supple, even though it is slightly blotchy still. I am happy with how far I have come with this.

The skin on my arm is pretty much normal. I'm very happy with the progress here. If you look back over the blog at previous pictures, the skin on my arm was very tight and had no elasticity, but it is great now. I can bare my arms in the sun (if we had any!).

This is the latest photo of my troublesome wound on my calf. I can get it to this stage using moist wound healing, but cannot quite get it to return to normal skin. It is the best it has been since January though, and isn't giving me too many problems. I think it will go away on its own when it is ready. The wound on my other calf has almost vanished completely. Look at the lovely skin around the wound. It is normal skin!

So, almost 200 days off the steroids and things are progressing nicely. I am so happy with the way things are going and how I feel. I have come a long way from that incapacitated, burning, oozy person that I was at the end of last year.

There is life after steroids. I hope my photos help people believe that. The next lot of pictures I post will be even better, and I can't wait to post some of completely healed skin.

These things take time.

Baby steps...baby steps.....