Soak in salt water, maybe? I mean, that would probably hurt and be awkward, but salt water does help heal wounds.

I have food in my fridge that will go bad if I do not eat it tonight (since I'll be gone tomorrow and Thursday), but I do not want to cook it, and I don't especially want to eat it, either. Hrmph.

I don't think there's a mute on my regular phone (an ancient cordless), but since I work from home I have a office-type phone with a big mute button, and an attached headset that also has a mute button.

You're the people to ask this! The question of drag queens came up between Hubby and I, and we were discussing people we've met who crossed gender in terms of clothing. Hubby said that transvestite is no longer the term of choice, that transgendered was appropriate, whereas I thought transgendered was used when there was an attempt to change the actual physicality. Or is the truth much more nuanced, as usual?

The only suggestion I have, Teppy, is to ask your doc if zinc ointment would be ok to use in that location. When Daniel's leg. Would. Not. Heal. As in, we consulted a wound specialist after a year of trying at home, and it took the guy a few months to get it under control. The thing that finally, finally took care of it was slathering his whole leg from toes to knee in zinc ointment, and covering it in a not-quite cast thingy, and leaving it that way for two weeks. Not that you could manage quite the same there, but perhaps (if zinc and goolies are not unmixy things) applying some a couple times a day would do the job.

Or is the truth much more nuanced, as usual?

More nuanced. There are a lot of different flavors there. Sticking just to men in women's clothes for a second...

There are certainly transvestites who are straight males who crossdress.

And then there are gay men who crossdress but like their bodies just fine as is, thank you very much. That is, they like to wear drag but don't identify as female.

Then there are men who crossdress who don't feel comfortable in their bodies. But their gender identity can be separate from their sexuality, that is they might prefer men or they might prefer women, but the body that feels right to them would be female.

And there are lots of other options in between. Some men want to be feminine, and have breast implants but keep their penis.

Some people just have very fluid sexual identities which could be any combination of those.

But the impulse to crossdress is one thing, the gender identity is another and the attraction to a particular gender is yet another thing.

Transgender is being used more and more as an umbrella term for anyone who presents or lives, even part of the time, as the gender they were not born as. When the person undergoes surgical/medical/hormonal/other physical procedures to effect that change, that's where the term transsexual is more fitting.

"Cross-dresser" is generally used instead of "transvestite," and that tends to be a little narrower of a descriptive term, more about the dressing itself and less about living as the opposite gender. It's gotten a little fuzzy.

In tend to just say "trans" and leave it at the prefix.

NEVER "tranny." That's the eqivalent of gay slurs (and, like some gay slurs, some trans people have reclaimed "tranny," but it's not cool for a cisgender person to do do).

I am sometimes amazed at my life.

And then there's genderqueer, gender fluid, dual gender, third gender -- it can get complicated. But so can gender for some people.

Tep, possibly a steroidal cream if your doctor concurs? Those can heal spots that just want to stay aggressively pissed off with my fragile skin.

I say this as the girl who looked like she was sporting a black eye last night from allergy inflammation. It's ... getting better. I am resorting to teabags once I can stand to have against the skin. Fucking tree sex.

Basically I would ask your doctor specifically for something to make the skin feel better and then something to heal. They might not be the same thing. But just waiting and seeing is clearly not the answer. I wish your goolie calm, unabraded skin and happiness. Um, in the not porny way. ... In the porny way too once it's comfy though.

My doctor prescribed a steroid cream but said to not use it until the Giant Gaping Abyss heals. (I may have paraphrased there.) Generally, that's because steroids can interfere with wound healing. I'm tempted to start it, though, and just not put it directly on the wound, but around it.

Steph, you can develop a sensitivity, even an allergy to the polymixin in Neosporin. It's actually three drugs in one cream, I'm told, and I'm allergic to two of them, polymixin giving me blistering rash in minutes. Try Bacitracin. It's the one AB ointment I can use, and it usually helps.

There's a reason I don't want my food touching on my plate, or to use packaged combined "spice mixes" or blended scents in a candle or incense. Or, you know, scotch. There may be one ingredient my body/nose/skin/stomach rejects, sometimes violently. I'll combine my own ingredients, using things I know are safe for me.

On me, polymixin will make an open sore ten times worse in minutes. YPMV.

Teppy, that is just lousy. I would call the doctor - 2 months seems like too long to me.

I have some painful sores and irritation and keeping the area as dry as possible does seem to help healing. That means several changes of underwear a day, using a hair dryer on cool when you're home and using fragrance-free corn-starch based powder. It seems to me that creams just seem to keep things wetter. It is absolutely No Fun.