Morning or whatever. I have about an hour before I have to head in. It's nice having the extra time to sit around, but I'd rather get off 2 hours early since I was already ready for work on time.

{{{{{Nora}}}}}

P-C, that rocks.

Ok...I've answered three questions on my take-home final. I can take a break now, right?

No, you say? I still have five more to go? Damn.

Susan, if it is eczema, I cannot recommend DermaSmoothers highly enough. It's prescription body oil, and it works wonders.

Right now I just hope she'll be able to look at it on Monday and know. Well, that, and that there will be a treatment available to make it go away for good.

The other thing my dermotologist gave me was ProTopic, which made it itch like hell for a few hours, but cleared it up completely in a couple of days. (Sadly, winter came back, and once the humidity level drops below a certain point, my skin freaks the fair fuck out. I never had any skin problems at all until a few years ago -- not even teenage acne -- and I think my skin was starting to feel left out as the only working organ system in my body. Now we're all one big happy chronically broken organism.)

Huh. Whatever I have was worse during the summer--it seems like it's somehow caused or made worse by sweating, which I do a lot more and on a wider area of my body in my unairconditioned house when it's 85 or 90 degrees out than I do now. One of the reasons I finally got around to going to the dermatologist is that I really want to start exercising again, but have been reluctant because more sweat=more rash.

Susan, does the rash tend to be in areas where your clothes touch your body, such as around the waist?

Not around the waist, exactly, but there may be something to that. (whitefonted for possible TMI) It's mostly been armpits and places that are either under or close to the elastic bits of my (always breathable cotton) underwear--hips, inner thigh, etc. In the summer I was also getting it on my stomach and under and around my breasts, especially around where the edge of my bra hits.

Oh, and I always use unscented laundry detergents and never use dryer sheets, so that rules out some of the more obvious allergies for this pattern of a rash.

I ask because a rash associated with sweating is often related to being allergic to your laundry detergent. You might want to try Tide Free. I can't use anything else, and I used to recommend it in karate and it seemed to clear up rashes for a number of people. (You think people in karate classes are talking about serious martial arts philosphy? No, they're talking about how they wash their gis and what hurts.)

eta: Susan edited to make my post sound crazy. Is there something else that could be reacting with sweat, such as soap or lotion?