LDN Week 2 Update

So as promised here is my week 2 update on LDN. Nothing much to report, I am still taking a 1mg dose at 9pm. I have noticed that if I take it any later than 9pm I really struggle to sleep so if I am to stick with night time dosing this time is obviously best.

Skin on my body has remained stagnant but I have seen a lot of improvement in my face.

The rest of my body is...meh. Still itchy and sore in my 'bad' places. Hoping to see some changes when I up my dose to 1.5mg tonight :)

More updates to follow :)

S x

LDN 1 week update

Started LDN 1 week ago today, *yay*. I actually upped my dose after the first night after doing some reading around about LDN. For most, 1mg is actually still considered a very low dose and as I had had no trouble with the 0.5mg my first night I decided to throw caution to the wind and took 1mg from then on.

My plan is to stay here at 1mg nightly for another week, then go up to 1.5mg nightly. 1 week is really no time at all in terms of seeing effects so there isnt too much to report.

Here's what I have noticed...

• Vivid dreams - a very common one among LDN users, and I don't want to use the word 'side effect' because I don't really see this as a bad thing. Theyre not nightmares, just very vivid dreams. Dreams in technicolour that start the minute I drift off to sleep and stop the second I open my eyes. I actually quite like this! I used to lucid dream a lot but haven't been able to do so in the past year or so this is a very welcome change.
• Sleep changes - I really don't want to attribute this to LDN because my sleep has always been very messed up. It takes me a while to drift off to sleep and when I do I usually wake up every 2 or 3 hours. This is the same now on LDN. So I don't think it is the LDN causing my sleep problems, they exist anyway. However what I have noticed is that even though I aren't getting much sleep, I feel much more rested than I usually would. The amount of sleep I'm getting has not changed but I feel as though the quality of my sleep has.
• Skin - again, I don't want to say what is happening with my skin has anything at all to do with LDN because I don't think I've given it enough time and I don't think my dose is high enough yet to make any real difference. 

What I will say is that for the past couple of weeks I have been in a really horrific flare. Almost as bad as the beginning, which is very disheartening considering I am still taking 200mg of ciclosporin daily. I am coming out the other side of the flare now, thankfully. I will post some pictures later this week, I'm hoping this break lasts long enough that I can get some nice ones to compare to the horrible ones.  It has been really difficult. Crying in the shower, scratch fests in the toilets at work, the lot. Horrible :(

I think, as usual, what started to turn things around was swimming in the sea on Saturday. I use the word 'swimming' loosely as what it basically involved was me getting into the water, neck-deep and holding my boyfriend's hand whilst i cried and (inwardly) screamed in pain (i was polite enough not to scream out loud for fear the coastguard would come and take me away). Anyway the pain was worth it because the very same day I  started to feel much better.

Then, yesterday I took a shower and applied Cerave cream as a bodywash in the shower. I can't really use moisturiser when my skin is dry but it can tolerate it pretty well when it is wet.

A couple of things I ordered online arrived today which are going to be super helpful for me too...
I ordered a huge pink plastic tub that I can bathe in, not having a bath was killing me! Especially when it gets too cold to swim in the sea. I also ordered more probiotics, benotite clay, coconut oil and dead sea salt! So I'm all stocked up.

Anyway, sorry for the essay! Seemed I had a lot I wanted to get down once I started writing. I'll update with some photos this week and then again next week for a Week 2 LDN update

Happy healing!
S x

Allopath...

A great little video, credit to Corinna Lee from one of the great TSW Facebook groups I'm a member of.
Sums up the medical community brilliantly I feel!

Day 1, Shopping...and Burning

So I suppose this is officially day 1 of my TSW journey. My hydrocortisone, eumovate, fucibet and betnovate (yes I was on all those steroids simultaneously) are all in the bin out of my reach and instead i decided to go into town for a bit of retail therapy and to pick up some helpful things for my healing!

Even though it's only been 24 hours since I last used steroids on my skin, it is already tight, red and giving off heat like a radiator! Seriously, I live in a big draughty house and I feel like I could quite easily heat it just by being sat in my bed. I'm so itchy and raw and all I want to do is sit in bed alone but I have friends coming over tomorrow so I'm determined to keep my spirits up for that.

Anyway, here are the things I bought today.

I decided I wanted to buy some calamine lotion to soothe the burning of my steroid-free skin so I headed into Boots but was told they only had a calamine and glycerin cream. I checked the ingredients and there's nothing sinister in there so I was happy to purchase it, we'll see how I get on!
Then I popped into a lovely vegan & vegetarian cafe for lunch where a close friend of mine works and after spoiling me with lots of dairy and gluten free treats she recommended that I also buy some rosehip oil as this has worked wonders on her skin in the past. So, willing to try anything, that's what I've done!

I also bought some ridiculously inappropriate shoes to compensate for my ridiculously inappropriate skin and a lovely white t shirt which I plan to wear when there's no longer the risk of me bleeding/flaking all over it (lovely I know!)

Anyway I'm home now, covered in calamine and rosehip oil and burning up like a radiator and I'm very conscious that this is only the start...
I may well just hibernate!

I'm planning on uploading some photos tomorrow for my "before" pictures, so there's something to look forward to ;)

S x