My Skin at the moment

Since I found out about the whole Topical Steroid Addiction and Withdrawal I've been a lot more aware of how much of the topical roids that I'm using and how often.

Over the last few months I have been keeping a tally of how many times a month I've used TS. Generally they have all been on different parts of my body but mainly my neck, chest, arms, hands, wrists and shoulders, usually about 3, 4 or 5 days apart.

July - 4 times
August - 11 times
September - 7 times
October - 7 times

The main thing I have noticed since I have been keeping count is that I have slowly started developing mild withdrawal symptoms. Most probably because from what I can remember I used to just put on the roids whenever I felt a little itchy... now I wait until I'm at the point where my skins on the verge of breaking point and then I give it a fix.

The symptoms that I have noticed are....

1. My sleeping has become terrible! Wake up 2 - 6 times a night (yes I keep count), sometimes only getting 5/6 hours sleep a night (this is strange for me... I have always been a big sleeper)

2. My arms and wrists quite often swell up and become quite uncomfortable

3. At least once every 2 weeks my skin drys out and flakes off

4. My legs have become insanely itchy and I've never had a problem with my legs before

5. I scratched my ankle recently and got the strangest bright yellow ooze that I've never had before! (I guess this is the ooze that alot of TSWers talk about)

6. I've got a few swollen lymph nodes, a couple on each side by my hips, one in my neck and one on my shoulder

7. I occasionally get the weird metallic smell in my skin when I rub it to much

8. And in general I'm a hell of a lot more itchy everywhere than I was this time last year.

So I hate to admit it but it seems alot like I'm already in mild withdrawal faze. My body is just soooooo ready to get on with it and get this whole thing underway. But I still need to save. There is no way that I am going to do complete withdrawal without taking time off, its hard enough some days at the moment to get myself out of bed and out the door.

Anyway enough of my problems for now... next time I'm going to talk about something positive, like maybe what I'm looking forward to once I'm normal again or the supplements that I'm eating, or (semi) healthy diet that I'm trying to follow or maybe I'll post some pics of how my skin looks at the moment so that I've got something to compare to on the other side. I've had enough of feeling down about this for now...

My Bali tattoo to remind me to 'be brave'

Haha on a side note I'm looking forward to being able to grow my nails long again!!