Glorious Gelatine Mask

Like you all know, I'm over my eczema. It absolutely sucks, and I'm trying every sort of natural remedy to get rid of it. The only one that I SHOULD really be doing is stressing less, which is the reason behind my eczema anyway. But, nevertheless, I like smothering my sore skin with stuff that I just hope will make it go away. The hope is always there. And yesterday, that wishful thinking actually did something!

The funny mask was a recipe from the lovely Wellness Mama, but she didn't add much detail so I really wasn't prepared for what I was doing. Here's what I think would be the best way to go about this mask:
- Mix the warm water and the lemon juice together
- Slowly add them to the gelatine, stirring/whisking as you do so
- Once you've got a smooth(ish) paste, paint it on with a brush of some kind. Preferably not the same brush you use for basting a raw chicken with. But you have to do this step IMMEDIATELY and as quickly as possible. And if you're too lazy to use a brush, I'm sure lathering it on with joined fingertips will be sufficient (it was for me).
- Let it dry. I don't care how long that takes, let it harden. Meanwhile, don't move a muscle, because if it's wet, it'll take longer, and if it's dry, it'll crack and hurt your skin.
- Waddle over to the shower and use a nice, warm, damp face towel to wetten the gelatine back up again. Start wiping it off if you can, otherwise take a shower. It's pretty hard to get off with just a little towel.

And the results of yet another eczema-go-away treatment?

Day 2: I put it on in the morning yesterday, and my skin is STILL oily. Not oily oily, but it's not dry! It's incredible. Of course, it's not the entire area that is like skin that is better than the rest of me, but the bits that are, MAN are they awesome! A few flakes have started to appear since yesterday, but apart from that, it's still going great.

Day 3: Still looking good! Even more flaky bits have arisen now, but it's still making it's own oils. I haven't stopped putting avocado oil on it like I always have, but it's much less drier than it normally is.

Day 4: I had a massive stressful day yesterday, followed by four hours of running around following my stressful and logically, impossible, demands for myself. At least I know now to eat carbs and sleep in when that happens, because I feel great today. Anyway, my eczema today is starting to come back to normal, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. There's still a few patches of normal-skin-ness. And I've been eating a lot of gelatine (bone broths) too, so that would probably be helping it. I'm overall so surprised at how well this stuff worked.

Day 5: Another stressful night and next to no quality sleep, but my eczema patch is still patchy. Unsurprisingly, there's more eczema than there's not (and where there's oil-producing, smooth skin) but HELLO: I've gone nearly a week with a lot of stress and my skin has basically REPAIRED italics itself from one skin mask. Edit How crazy is that?!

Day 6: I'd say it's time to stop including updates here. There's definitely eczema on my arm again, and I can't comment on the severity in one word, but it's not as bad in some spots. It's improved, I must say. But it helped me come to a bit of a revelation: maybe I'm not absorbing everything as well as I could or should be. Eczema is a gut problem, and if I have a problem with my gut flora (which I do - I have a heavy reliance on sauerkraut) then I have to fix THAT to clear my eczema.

My little experiment also proved how absorbent skin is. Obviously I absorb more gelatine through my skin than my intestine (very thin skin at that), and my body likes gelatine. But it hardened! My mind just doesn't comprehend how I suck nutrients out of something that's rock solid!! I'll get it one day.

Sleep Dosage

All week I've had pretty good sleep, relatively low stress levels, sliiiightly more carbs than normal, and I've had pretty decent energy - probably a 9 out of 10 for most days.

I've always held that I NEED nine hours of sleep to keep me sand and humanable, and that a loss of half an hour of that sleep leads me to catastrophe. That's always just been the norm for me, but in the last few weeks I've actually thought about that in a logical manner - this ain't normal.

Last night, I meditated for the first time in yonks and went to 'sleep' at 5 past 9, 5 minutes after bedtime, which doesn't affect me. By 'sleep' I mean I shut my eyes and started to get to sleep, but couldn't actually get to that stage because my train of thought is a fast moving, never stopping, loud and unignorable steam train rattling down a bumpy road. It probably takes me an hour to get to proper sleep every night.

Anyway, I woke up at my normal time this morning - 5.55am - and felt dead as a doornail. WOD not started. Food eaten miserably. Calculated correctly, I had the same 'nine hours of sleep' I have every night, but for some reason this morning, life just wasn't working for me. As I was leaving, mum said that I looked tired too, with a bit of an air of 'are you sure you slept at all?'

Something's wrong here. The government recommendation of 7-8 hours, and my personal recommendation of 9 hours, obviously doesn't solve the complete sleep and energy puzzle. There must be something deeper and more important to the hours of sleep you sleep for. I know that quality of sleep is really important, so I'll have to somehow fix that.

Goodnight.

Eggs Again

After four weeks of going egg-free, it is safe to say that not eating them didn't reduce my eczema. That can only mean one more thing... MORE EGGS FOR JORDIE! I should probably eat three eggs for brekkie every morning anyway, but now it's gonna be official. And breakfast is going to be a lot more diverse too. I won't be as weirded out by having leftovers or steak or a whopping heap of bacon for breakfast. Oh, and sardines, look out!

Egglessness

I'm sick of my eczema. It's one of the main problems I have that's gotten worse with my adoption of a paleo diet. I've had it for a couple of years now (apart from childhood), and it popped back up when I started getting super stressed about school. So my eczema is mainly due to all the stress I go through but I sometimes like to blame foods for it.

I looked up dietary options for 'fixing' eczema that go with paleo-ness, and I've found a few options, but I decided to go with an egg allergy first. Eggs are my hero. They're my staple breakfast, and they're probably the only things I make sure I get good quality of. I go nuts for them. But last October, when I started eating more eggs (and more carrots), I noticed that my skin was getting more orange, so I thought it was the eggs (but I cut out carrots for a bit and I'm much better now).

I don't know why the hell I decided to cut out eggs on EASTER. I was just sick of my eczema so much (it had gotten worse with my four or so assessments in the same week) that I decided that a month to cut out something. So I cut out eggs, because it was a single food, even though it's one of the only foods I couldn't imagine giving up.

It's been 2 weeks - actually, nearly 3 - since I stopped eating them, and unless it's a die off reaction, my body needs eggs. But let's just see how I go.

Next Thursday I'm driving out to the country to get some free range eggs to celebrate :) I don't think I'll be able to go egg free for much longer.