It's just your face. : 2017

Well it's been 2 years so a lot has changed, I don't even know where to start. I guess I will start with FAQ, then my skin now (since it's why you are here) then personal life (because some of you are actually interested in it) and wrap it up with pictures (the other main reason you are here)

FAQ

1. What kind of rosacea do you have?

I have pustule and papule rosacea (the gross kind) with broken capillaries in my face and even when my skin is clear and smooth I have a "healthy" pink glow.

2. Do you still flush?

Yes! I still have things that will still make me flush and make my face turn more red than normal or feel very hot. My personal triggers is heat number one, really spicy food, or me being very upset basically anything that gets my blood really pumping and makes it rush to my face.

3. What oils do you use and what brands do you use?

I use tea tree oil aka melaleuca oil that I get from Young Living only, if you would like to order some you can become a member by clicking HERE you don't have to buy a kit and there is no minimum order, they just have the best, purest oil that I have found and I defiantly saw a difference when I switched to their oils. Being a shameless self promoter if you do sign up could you please give them my member number and sign up under me so I can earn free oils member #1365808 THANKS!

As for my argan oil I get it from Mountain Rose Herbs just click HERE they have unrefined, cold pressed oil for the most reasonable prices and really good quality. I order all of my carrier oils and dried herbs from them, they are the best for carrier oils and dried herbs.

4. What dilution or how do you mix your oils?

Well I started with a 8:1 ratio, meaning 8 parts argan oil to one part tea tree oil and slowly over 2 weeks I kept upping the tea tree oil until I had a even 1:1 mixture. I mixed my oils and then put them in it little roller bottle like this, make sure you use a metal roller or the oils will eventually breakdown the plastic ones, you can get metal roller fitments also on the Young Living website.

5. Why don't you just go to a dermatologist?

I have been to 6 different derms in 3 different states, they each put me on different expensive medications. I have taken oral medications, daily antibiotics, gels, creams, one doctor had his own concoction that he hand made of all of this crazy stuff I don't remember besides sulfur (it smelled), several rounds of laser treatments that cost a fortune, none if it worked, and it was all outrageously expensive. With insurance I was spending $150.00-200.00 a month, once I lost my insurance just ONE medication was $600, ONE. So I have been to dermatologist and did seek medical treatment but once they failed and I could no longer afford it I had to seek other options.

6. What do you think caused your rosacea and why did you end up using these oils?

I think demodex mites caused my rosacea. Once I stopped using my prescribed meds (which didn't work all that well anyways) I did a TON of research and reading and that was my conclusion. It was my face and it was already bad so really I couldn't do much harm experimenting with different holistic remedies. I tried several different washes and products and this gave me the best results and was the least irritating to my sensitive skin. I know a lot of people want to use coconut oil but for me it left my skin too oily and I would have to blot it off, I wanted something that would absorb quickly and I could put makeup on right away if I wanted to, so I chose argan oil which is a "dry" oil if that makes any sense. Also when people have messaged me and said they were not having the same results they were using coconut oil and once they switched to argan they began to see a difference. I wrote a whole post on why I chose argan over other oils and it's medicinal properties and you can read it HERE

7. What do you use to moisturize your face?

Well when I was just beginning my treatment I only used the argan and tea tree mixture and used raw Shea Butter for those extremely dry flaky patches. Now I make my own face moisturizer that contains tea tree oil and argan oil but it also contains other oils to help with fine lines and such (I've gotten fancy). Actually I make it for all of the women in my family and it's awesome.

8. What shampoo and soap do you use?

At the beginning I used tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner by Natures Gate and I used Dr. Bronner's tea tree bar soap for my body. I've moved since then and it's hard to find it so if I don't feel like ordering it online I will just add some tea tree oil to my conditioner once and a while if I'm feeling itchy (itching or crawling feeling is my first sign that I'm going to wake up with a pustule or zit so I like to get ahead of it)

9. Can you tell me if I should do ______ or look at _______and tell me what to do?

Sorry, I'm not a doctor and I don't claim to be, I initially started this blog for me to be able to follow my own progress and when I saw the changes and improvements I was seeing I thought I would share it with others in hopes that maybe it might help a person or two. Well now with about 150,000 page views and hundreds of people commenting or private messaging me telling me it worked for them I'm happy that I found the courage to embarrass the hell out of myself and put those pictures and my journey out there. But again, I'm in the medical field but I'm not a doctor or a dermatologist so I can't really recommend anything or diagnose you with anything, follow me at your own risk!

10. Any other tips?

Use good quality oils they really do make a difference, Make sure you go close to your lips or even over them, down your neck, up into your hairline a little bit because they will run to whatever area they can to get away from the oil, I remember my lips suddenly becoming a ring of P&P for a while and them running to my eyelashes and me having to rub a low tea tree oil dilution over my lashes and boy did that shit burn. (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS)

Okay if there are any other questions that you think I should add here leave it in the comments!

On to my skin!

Lets see, good news is my face is still clear! If you get close up on it I still have some broken capillaries but the only thing that is going to fix that is laser treatments. Except for the random, one off papule or pustule I haven't had a breakout in YEARS and I get a pimple like once every six months if that. However I worked for a animal shelter and whenever we would get a dog with demodex mange I would start to breakout a bit and would have to use the 1:1 ratio for a week straight, other than that I'm not gonna lie I don't use my argan oil and tea tree oil mixture all that often, maybe once a week or every two weeks, but I do use a homemade face cream that contains tea tree oil along with other oils. If my face starts to itch I will use my 1:1 high dilution tea tree oil/argan oil mixture but that is about the only time. I don't use the tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner any more because its hard to get around where I live now (I moved, that is in the next update section) I will however add some tea tree oil to my conditioner if my head feels itchy and I still use tea tree oil soap, either one I have made (I've really gotten into making my own beauty products) or if I'm lazy I will add a few drops to my liquid body soap that I buy (which has been more frequent since I moved). So that is about it on the rosacea end, I can't really think of anything else because I haven't had to deal with a breakout in so long and everything else is so routine I don't think about it much.

Let's Get Personal

Well let's see, I think I was jobless or working as a doula and I was a midwifery student last time I posted and I am no longer either of those things. In late 2014 I had a bit of a mental "breakdown" and was diagnosed as bipolar. To go further back I was originally diagnosed in 2003 but I decided I didn't like that diagnosis or the meds so I was just going to insist I had depression and go with that. It worked for a good while kinda. I was on a high dose antidepressant for a little over 10 years and it kept me kind of stable, looking back now I can really point out times when I wasn't but it was just kind of brushed off as me being flaky or irresponsible, or stubborn or selfish and just slightly weird and antisocial but now I can see it as very mild manic episodes. When I lost my insurance that covered my rosacea meds, I lost my insurance that covered my antidepressants too and after a while I just couldn't afford them and slowly weaned myself off of them. In my mind maybe I wasn't depressed anymore and didn't need them anyways, I mean it had been 10 years. BIG MISTAKE. Bipolar raised it's ugly head and destroyed my life.

When I say bipolar destroyed my life I mean it killed every dream I had, because of bipolar I can no longer work as a doula and I will never get to become a midwife. When my bipolar decided to make its appearance I still had no insurance which really left me...in the simplest words, fucked. Thank you America for not having universal healthcare! With out insurance I had to go through free clinics that I could find and it took me 6 months to be seen by a psychiatrist and get on medications and almost a year to get my meds right. One year that I battled daily with my mind, one year of some days feeling, acting and I'm sure been mistaken for a crackhead and other days being so low that I couldn't even muster the energy to shower, eat or answer yes or no questions, one year of thinking about saying fuck it all this misery and thinking to myself that me and my love ones who had to care for me would be better off without me, one year of hell. I started a blog about it and I had let it go once things kinda got on the up swing but I still have bipolar issues, I always will, I will either simply have bad days or my medications will simply stop working (this has already happened) or some days I just feel like educating and trying to remove the stigma of mental illness and will go write so if you want to learn more about that part of my life click My Jagged Mind and go read it. Not much there right now but I am going to start using it more, writing is very therapeutic for me. On to the happy things!

So, after all of that craziness I finally got my life together for the most part. I am mentally stable except for a day here or there every few months, I was able to get a job that I LOVED working at a animal shelter and life was simple and I felt it was probably the best it was going to get for me. I was wrong, it got better. You see there was this boy that I met and fell in love with at the age of 15 and like most teenage romances we didn't last, not due to lack of love but because life likes to throw curve balls at you and for reasons beyond our control he was forced to move out of state, back to his home state and we lost touch. Well being that this happened in 1995 and I don't think I had ever even heard of the internet I figured he was gone forever. Fast-forward to 2012 and Facebook! I found my lost boy but when I did he appeared to have several small children and what appeared to be a wife so I simply sent a message saying "HI" and wondering if he remembered me and asked how his life turned out, sadly I never got a response.....not until May of 2016 at 5 am. I was sleeping when my phone started getting so many messages it vibrated off the table, he had somehow never seen my message until that morning and one of his first messages was he had been looking for me for 20 years and could he drive down to see me that night. 6 months later I moved up to be with him and we have been living together in the Midwest, with him having custody of his children since October of 2016 and life is pretty damn great.

The only thing in my life that I am unhappy with is my job which I am trying to remedy and now that midwifery and being a doula is off the table I'm kinda lost as to what I want to do. Right now I work at a hospital in a big city in a department that I get to see all kinds of cool, interesting and gross things but I miss working with animals and want to see if I can somehow get back to that. other than that I am probably the happiest I have ever been with my life and where I am at in it. Yeah for finding lost love! But being a "stepmom" is challenging and scary as hell, I'm not even gonna lie, but I really didn't know I could love someone else's kids as much as I do these two. Again if you want more ramblings of my life and bipolar click My Jagged Mind , I will probably get like 3 views LOL.

The only other thing that I want to add to this because I think it might be of interest to some is I now have an addiction to oils. I had a friend who tried to "sell" me on this whole essential oil crazy when I was in midwifery school probably back in 2012 and I was having none of it, I especially wasn't spending like $150. bucks on some kit that had oils that I had no idea how to use and a diffuser, I mean what the hell was that anyways? No thanks. Then I lost my insurance and well you know the rest and once I found out how great tea tree oil worked from my rosacea I bought the damn kit, studied up on oils and basically replaced my medicine cabinet with mostly oils. I still use some medicine if needed but I go to my oils first and if they don't work, I mean I carry a bag of my "essential, essentials" with me at all times. Peppermint for headaches, Lavender for cuts and insect bites, Lemongrass as an insect repellent, Tea Tree for just about anything skin wise, Peace and Calming so I don't smack a bitch at times and Stress Away when I'm about to have a panic attack because I take enough meds with my bipolar I don't want to take a xanax unless absolutely necessary, En-R-Gee for days I'm dragging ass and I could go on and on. For real I was the biggest skeptic who was ready to end a friendship over her non stop babbling about her "Oils" to having one change my life and the others change my way of living.

OOPS!

As for the OOPS, I accidental deleted like 200 comments, SORRY, it was a compete accident I thought I was just deleting them from my comments folder not off the blog itself. Please keep commenting, I love it and I try to respond to everyone especially if you have questions. Really sorry!

Okay now that we have finished the first chapter of my future biography onto the pictures!

PHOTOS! SO EXCITING, SO NARCISSISTIC!