A dull update

Yesterday was a day of flakiness, especially when I woke up. The shaking off of dust and waiting for my emoluments to dry meant I was almost late for my train to work.  

Today  I've had a headache all day. It feels like a hangover. Last night I had 1 glass of wine. No idea if the headache is related to the methotrexate, Wednesday's flu jab, stress, or just one of those things. Nothing else to report other than I weighed the amount of dust I've hovered up from my room over the last week. 45 grams. 

Visit to the Dermatologist

I saw my dermatologist today. I didn't put any emoluments on so he could see the skin in all its glory. It was a fairly flakey day so when I took my top off the small consultant room became a snowstorm. Having said that he was pleased to see the  many islands of sparing and blotchy skin. He thought it was heading into the recovery stage, we shall see. I know its slowly improving, far far too slowly for my liking.  

Not much to say

Another week with not much change. Flaking  is still there although it's definitely calming down. It's been months since I had a Daley face. I usually have some flakey/spotty things around the eyes. 

Also from this photo you can sort of see my blotchy forehead

Other peoples blogs

A couple of quick things to mention, first I am very pleased to see someone new blogging about their experience of having this disease. The Pityriasis Chronicles is shaping up to be a great blog.

When I was first diagnosed with this condition I did lots and lots of research.  There was a fair amount of clinical information available as well as the facebook group and the PRP Support Group website.  I also wanted to read a blog of someone with the condition to give me an idea of day to day life as well as a picture of how it develops and affects someone over time.  The only really good blog I could find was http://trevs-skin.blogspot.co.uk .While this was great,  it was also slightly depressing because the last post was from 20 November 2013, Trevs Week 33 and included the line:

 "I’m fed up of this and I want it to stop."

After a couple of badgering comments on his blog I am very happy to report he has responded with an update

“I am well, very well in fact and had largely recovered from most of the conditions by Aug 2014, the only problem that persisted for another 8 months was an ingrowing toenail. 

I will add to the blog to provide a more complete picture over the next few days but just to give you a bit more hope, recovery was rapid and I'm sure it was largely because I was fit and in good health beforehand and keeping well hydrated and active as much as possible (cycling mainly) was the key to this, if you don't cycle then get out walking preferably in the light.”

This really did cheer me up, especially as I am about to head into my own week 33 and like Trev I am fed up of this and I want it to stop.  Trevs update has provided a little light at the end of this tunnel

Update list

• Skin shedding.  Changes from day to day. There is always a cloud of tiny flakes around me.  There have been a few days this week of fairly heavy shedding
• Scalp. I am constantly putting a nit comb through my hair and dragging out a clump of white dust. 
• Hands. Today my palms are dry and a little bit peeling.
  

• Eyes. I don't seem to get the eye worms any more, which is good. The skin around my eyes is always dry and a bit flakey. Also my eye brows are usually full of flakes. It seems particularly uncomfortable when a flake of skin pulls away from below my eye brows. 
• Itchiness. Again this varies although not directly connected to shedding. I had one night this week where I was itchy as hell but not shedding 
• Skin colour. Blotchy on stomach , chest and face. 

Still shedding

Ok I'm no longer waking up with the flakey zombie face but I still have heavy shedding days.  This morning I woke up in this 

Today I have been continuously shedding on my chest neck and face. Although it didn't look really really bad it felt like this 

Blog word cloud

My 2015

Blotchy

Again not a great deal to report. My skin is blotchy.   Still pink all over apart from a clear patch on my left calf which hasn't changed in weeks. The clear islands of sparing are all over my stomach and chest. They are now on my face as well, cheeks and forehead. On my chest there are also a few dark red spots. 

My flaking varies from day to day. Some days it is minimal but on other days, like today, I feel like I'm drowning in dust. Today I woke with a thick layer of dust a cross my chest. I spent a long time scraping off the dust all over my body any putting emoluments on. Later I went out and every breath in was full of dust, I could feel the skin coming off my face,arms and neck, I looked in the mirror and my jaw and neck were white with dust. I used an old loyalty card to scrape off what I could and added more emollient. But I had to go back to the house as soon as I could.