One time a few years ago, I found this amazing body wash called Ahava and spent $23 on a bottle of it. Oh the days of spending money before my student loans kicked in....
After that one bottle, I couldn't justify spending that kind of money on body wash and never bought it again - even though it is still, hands down, my favorite smell in the world. That's just a subtle hint to anyone looking into getting my Christmas present early...
Anyway, the point of this is, I put a stop to the extravagant spending on everyday items that I clearly didn't need to spend triple and quadruple the amount of money on. That is until this past weekend.
Granted, I have a very legitimate excuse for my extravagance, and thy name is allergic reaction. At least, that's what we're all hoping I had. Whatever it was, and we're ALL still trying to figure that out, I've been left a blotchy, itchy, swollen mess since Sunday.
The frantic picture I sent to my mom asking "WHAT IS THIS?!" on Sunday
As you can see from the picture I took Sunday, it hasn't been fun.
Now I'm always the person that goes to the doctor. Always. For some stupid reason, I thought this would clear up on its own and decided I didn't need to go on Sunday. In fact, on Sunday we thought it was a mild case of sun poisoning from being at a water park on Saturday.
Then Monday when I woke up and my skin was basically normal looking again, we thought I had an allergic reaction to the chemicals in the water park. That seemed pretty valid. My feet had itched all night long and were swollen that morning, and I had put my feet in the water, so we all decided that was the culprit.
Advil and Zyrtec aside, I was still pretty itchy, and headed off to Lush, and well, basically fell in love there. All of the products are made with all natural ingredients which, for someone who was just a blotchy mess for a reason still unidentified, is basically like heaven.
Also, welcome to my bathroom
When I told the nice assistant why I was in the store, he immediately pulled out Ceridwen's Cauldron Bath Melt which is chalk full of oats, lavender and sandalwood. It also has cocoa butter and walnut oil which turns the water into a big bath of moisturizer. It's amazing. Helpful side note, don't unwrap the muslin from it. I did, and realized a few minutes into the bath that it was probably wrapped to keep the wild flowers and oats together instead of all over your tub.
Next he told me to try the Dream Cream body lotion. Guys, I don't think I can even begin to tell you how amazing this lotion is. It worked in about .5 seconds after I tried some. Again, it has oat milk, lavender and chamomile, along with olive oil and cocoa butter. There's also rose water and tea tree oil that neutralizes skin irritation and makes you smell really good.
Then while I was checking out, I got a sample of their body soap that can be used on the body and face. I've used that a few times too, and it's left my skin silky smooth.
Even using these amazing products I was still extremely sore. I pretty much felt like I was an 80 year old woman. My wrists hurt, my fingers hurt, my knees and even my elbows were sore. How elbows can be sore...well I promise I'm not making this up. After trying to tough it out, I finally went to the doctor yesterday and went through a whole series of tests before I finally got the magic drug - Prednisone.
Steroids are goooooooood. I'm trying not to sound like a pill popper right now, but this is magical how fast it's made me feel better. I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is to get out of bed and not immediately wince because your whole body feels swollen when it looks fine on the outside. I can grip a pen again to write properly! It's the little things in life.
So the true moral of this story is this - if you wake up one morning and your skin is an itchy, blotchy mess, just go to the doctor then. Don't try and wait it out because instead you'll end up making your whole body inflamed and have to take steroids for the next 15 days. But you can find some good all natural products to help the miserableness go by somewhat nicer.
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