Light therapy update

Now that I have been having light treatment for a few weeks I thought I would give you guys a short update.

It has been an odd experience really. After the first couple of times I noticed that my face was becoming irritated and blotchy which is completely out of the ordinary as I don't suffer from psoriasis on my face.
I raised this with the nurse at my next appointment. She looked me over, looked a bit puzzled and then took a sharp intake of breath as she realised what was happening (I expected a little light bulb to appear above her head). "You're wearing make-up!" she said as if this was meant to mean something to me. Well it turns out that she had neglected to tell me I am not to wear any make-up, perfume or deodorant and also that I am not to wash my hair or body the day of my treatment due to the perfumes in the product and how it reacts in the machine. I'll be honest I didn't really ask why.

So from that session onward I now shower the night before and have to go to the hospital bare faced with no deodorant on... FYI if you ever see me at the hospital when I am in this state please don't try to talk to me, the pure humiliation of not wearing make-up renders me blind to other people... well except the man who was screaming at me this morning because I would not let him jump the car park queue (a story for another time).

Oh that reminds me I realised that my early morning appointments mean I miss the horrendous parking queues so yay I always get a space straight away.

So the treatment is going ok. I am about 6 sessions in (I have already lost count) and am starting to see some improvement already. This has amazed me considering my sessions started with 36 seconds in the machine and each time it goes up 20%. Today I was in there for 1 min 27 sec and this evening I actually do look sunburned.

The real downside is the itchiness. The nurse had warned me that it would get worse before it got better and she wasn't wrong. Even as I type this I want to just rip my own skin off but I will perservere as it will be worth it.

***Don't scroll down any further if you don't like seeing gross stuff.***
The pictures below are from session 1 to session 6. The change is subtle but trust me it is so much better already

Session 1

Session 6

Comments

Do what makes you most happiest...

This is something I have long forgotten but something I am aiming to rectify. I have been looking inwardly for a while now as I realised I have lost myself a bit. I have spent so long being mum, wife, councillor, chauffer, chef, cleaner, dog walker business owner etc etc etc (you get the idea) that I don't really know who I am anymore or what makes me tick. My son asked me last Mothers day what I would like to do as it was 'my day' - I honestly couldn't answer and my 11 year old boy just said "that's really sad". He was absolutely right, that is sad! When did I just stop living my own life to serve everyone else? I like to paint and have recently made time to complete a run of adult paint by numbers to decorate my living room with. I also started doing acrylic paintings and watching some Bob Ross for inspiration. This is a good start but I'm not passionate about it. Today I remembered what I used to be passionate about and that was writing so I am back

Dark cloud closes in

During my second pregnancy I wrote about my battle with, and subsequent diagnosis, of depression. During this time I stopped my medication and assured myself that I would reconsider the pills after I had my baby. When Dexter arrived I felt fine and strong enough to go it alone. This tactic has worked up until recently. Having a 5 year old who rebels against everything you say, an 11 month baby who just won't sleep, a husband desperately trying to give up smoking, a hectic, full time work schedule - throw into the mix money worries, family worries, going on an extreme diet, beginning a novel and seemingly untreatable psoriasis and you can start to understand why the downward spiral is happening again. For me the key to all of this is to recognise when it is happening which isn't always easy until it has gone too far and the dark cloud has really set in. Deflection is something I adopt when the pressure is on. Rather than admit that I am not in control of my mood swings

Light therapy - The results

I have been very bad at keeping a written update on my light therapy so now that I have had the last session I thought I would share the results. Before I go into that I will give you some pros and cons of the light therapy from my perspective (everyone reacts differently). Cons Gives you a constant tan - May not sound like a con but I have become paranoid that people think I am using sun beds... I point out constantly that its medical. Redness on days of treatment - Immediately after treatment I am fine but throughout the day you get redder and redder until you become a human glowstick. It doesn't hurt but does make you very hot. Goggle marks - to begin with I had to wear these little goggles which left my burning red face with ridiculous white goggle marks. It was getting ridiculous so as I don't really have Psoriasis on my face I opted to use sun block on my face for the last 10 sessions which helped alot Burnt nipples - true thing! how often do your nip

Kat-out-of-the-bag

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