那些seborrheic dermatitis教给我的事情及其他

I'm not putting any photos of myself so google it if you want to know what this disease/condition looks like...It all started with the arrival of summer last year, the second steamingly hot and humid summer I spent in this midsouth city by the big river. It was not itchy or aching or anything, but one morning during a meeting with my supervisor and a few other senior members of the department, I couldn't help but reached my hand into my hair, and my fingers stopped at something that did not feel right a little above my left ear in my hair. There was something going on in my scalp. I missed a few sentances of the discussion that was going on. My boss noticed the weird expression on my face and asked: Are you listening? I put my hand down and followed the flow of the discussion till it was the end of it.

There was a patch of my scalp that thickened and became scaly. It shredded when I touched it, into thick yellowish flakes. It's not just regular dandruff, I knew. I do shower and wash my hair almost everyday for God's sake. So I started googling. First thing I thought about, worst scenario, was psoriasis, and it was going to get worse, and it would never go away. That thought gave me some sleepless nights, staring into the dark ceiling figuring out how to tell my family about it if it turned out true. My parents are people with abslutely no medical knowledge, and psoriasis is no difference from lethal cencer to them. They live in the mindset (maybe a lot of Chinese people in their generation share this mindset) that a disease, once diagnosed, should be treatable and eradicated, or it's the end of your life. They don't understand the meaning and importance to live with a disease that will continue to bother you but won't kill you right away, or won't kill you anytime. But wait, maybe it's not as bad as the end of life. Let me start by changing my shampoo and make sure I never leave my hair unwashed for over 24 hr. Here are the shampoos I tried:

我开始时候用的是上数1,3,4

...until I started to have red flaky patches covering the circumference of my face......so bad that I felt ashamed of my appearance going out and going to work. I used a scarf...and a hairband...alongside hats, of course, to cover myself up:

Then soon, the scarves and hairbands were not enough to cover it up any more (although during this period, I have earned some compliments about my hat/hairband looks from people who had no clue what was going on underneath). I had to look for another weapon, and this is what I found in my closet:

a foundation stick that came as a gift with my Clinique purchase

So I painted this over my red patches and, hola, it solved the problem...and this marks the first time in my life that I realized...I need makeups.

So I lived on with these weird solutions I found for myself, plus using non-gel bodywash, very gentle facial cleanser, and...even coconut oil..which kind of worked and smelt damn good. But things did not turn any better at the end of the day, time to make an appointment with a dermatologist? The soonest available time is a month later...I put it down anyway. But I didn't want to wait that long...

My technician May (someone the age of my mom and always have been like my mom in the department, thank you!!!) told me I should see a primary physician before my dermatologiest appointment. She gave me the contact of hers and said that he was fast. That's how I ended in Dr. Talbert's office about 3 days later. He is, indeed, very fast. He talk fast and he had a quick solution: mometasone...(after I told him the Triamcinolone I got from my previous eczema did not work). The thing about mometasone is, it's stronger than OTC hydrocortisone, but safe for skin during short-period of use, but not safe in the long run. As most glucocorticoids, it thins the skin by inhibiting collagen synthesis. The mometasone I got worked dramatically fast in resuming my skin tone and texture, like, in half a week, I looked the same as before it all started. Then I stopped since Dr. Talbert said it's no good to use it long term. Just when I was thinking about canceling the appointment with the real dermatologist, the flaky redness came back. I kept using mometasone for a bit longer, and went to my appointment.

Seborrheic dermatitis it is, said Dr. Overholser. She's young and pretty and fast. But she did not really tell me much more than what I could find on line. Is it really caused by fungi such as yeast? Where did I catch it? Or it's something that's floating in the humid summer atmosphere of Memphis all the time? She told her assistant to prescribe me Tacrolimus, and told me to use more types of shampoos and use them alternatively together (which just added to what I was already doing, that's how I ended up with 5 different types of shampoos in my final collection). When I got to the pharmacy's, it turned out she also prescribed me Fluocinonide solution to rub into my hair. It actually dries up as a smelly sticky thing in my hair but works...Thank goodness my insurance covererd the majority of the cost.

So here is my final collection of creams (together with some other creams I collected for other skin concerns):

The dermatitis went away during the winter, but came back again since the beginning of this summer and is still affecting my life every single day. I learnt more and more makeup tricks, even when my skin condition is fine with no obvious concerns, I grew more and more concious in subtle color/tone changes in my complexion. Here is a youtuber whose skin condition and tone is very similar to mine and I learnt some useful tricks from: https://www.youtube.com/user/RainieeTian

Now I use Maybelline Fit me foundation and concealer everyday. The whole process also made me pay attention to my appearance overall, which is gaining importance in my work life due to all the serious meetings I attend.

总的来说在美国，大家比较有live with your disease的心态，所以很多treatment只是针对symptoms的，而不是cause of disease。过度追究cause of disease让我觉得身心疲累而且没有效果。比如说我到现在也完全没有搞懂我的皮肤上是不是真的有过度生长的真菌，医生也觉得没有必要做biopsy去culture。不过美国约专科医生真是太麻烦了，不知道有primary care refererence会不会好一点。我的primary care physician很nice，我下次见她应该询问一下。希望有时间可以加强锻炼身体。

几周之前在Starbucks和好朋友Holly一起加班，好久不见的她剪短了头发。早在很久以前她就在抱怨hair loss了，说是打算用Rogaine，但也没看出什么效果。她说后来又有了dandruff的问题，也是约了dermotologist，也是被说是Seborrheic dermatitis, 但是她好像很没耐心，也很烦躁。我自己这一年多的经历反而变得无所谓了。

PS，之前几个月我没有怎么练琴，最近我看一个youtuber，突然又激发了我练琴的热情所以好好地练了一阵子。https://www.youtube.com/user/czrinasuen。希望自己也能好好成就点什么，成为一种inspiration。M同学总是说你要有自己的reportoire啊。。。好吧我来制定一个reportoire,,,,

就不放什么好看的照片了，有空要好好把相机里的东西清理一下。