What Am I Allergic To

Contacting Companies About Skin Care Ingredients If you have sensitive or allergic skin or any other skin condition it may well be necessary for you to know a full product ingredient list or at the least to know that the ingredients you are allergic to are NOT in the product. In my experience you need to check both the range in general and specific products you want to use within the range as some may be OK and others not - within the same range. Please never assume it will be alright for you.  Many of these ingredients are perfectly OK for most of the population and are good at their job but if you are allergic you need to know which products carry them and avoid those products!!  I found it easiest to email each company I was interested in and I got a good helpful response from most with a few sadly not responding to me. Some were quite suspicious, maybe thinking I was just trying to find out their "secret" ingredients ? Most were fine...

Looking After Your Allergic Skin  Here are a few tips to looking after your Allergic skin. First please consult your doctor to get a diagnosis and medical advice on your skin condition.   Identify and avoid the trigger allergen. If you are able to identify the trigger or possibility for your skin allergy do tell your doctor about it. Clearly avoid that trigger ingredient.  You may need to be prepared to be referred to a dermatologist or to have skin tests to determine your condition or allergies. Use whatever washes and creams your doctor prescribes for you exactly as prescribed. If you get any reaction from the use of the prescribed creams do tell your doctor straight away, there will be alternatives they can give you.  If you would like to use other creams do check with your doctor first and use in a very small area to test out first for several days before using more widely. Watch your skin carefully for any improvement and any wors...

Avoid The Allergen... Clearly  once you know what you are allergic to the trick is to avoid it! However, it is not always that easy.  When it came to washing clothes I trawled through so many brands of washing powders and liquids yet I could not find one that I can use. I wasted so much money on washing liquids and powders that caused my skin to feel at best itchy and irritated or even started my skin rashing again. We obviously need to wash our clothes so what could we do?  One alternative was to go back to our grandmother's day and wash in pure soap flakes. So I bought some and they work really well! However, you cannot use these in the washing machine or you have foam everywhere! So I use these for all our delicates and small things but I simply am not prepared to hand wash everything!  There are quite a few varieties but they have similar things in common being- you can use them in the washing machine, they last  a long time...

How To Read Product Labels To Keep You And Your Skin Safe If you have skin allergies of any kind you will rapidly become an avid label reader! However reading labels carefully does not mean this will fully protect you. For example, if you have a perfume allergy you will need to be extra careful.  Words you will need to watch for are:- fragrance EDT parfam perfume toilet water. So that seems obvious, doesn't it? However relying on the words fragrance-free, non-perfumed, and the like does not always mean there is no added fragrance to the product. It may be - but you cannot assume.  Sometimes fragrances are added to products not to make them smell nice but to mask the unpleasant smell of the other ingredients, the amounts may be small but if you are allergic it can cause you a problem.  Other times a fragrance may be added for its use as a preservative, not as a perfume, yet it is still an issue to those who are allergic.  I...

Perfume And Fragrance Allergies  I have an allergy to fragrance and perfume. It came up on my skin patch allergy tests as quite a "good" reaction (which in my case was a big red welt that took 2 months to go down).  I was somewhat surprised as though I have never worn a lot of perfumes. I have worn one or two when going out for dinner, a special occasion etc and loved various body lotions that were perfumed.  I adored my scented candle collection and loved filling the home with natural fragrances... I always knew my skin was a little sensitive as I could only wear a couple of perfumes and they were of the "purer" variety. Experimenting with lower end teen type perfumes would generally bring me out on a little irritating rash when I was a teenager so I quickly learned to avoid those. However, with others I was OK. For years I have used washing powders and liquids for clothes that invariably tell you that they have a fres...

Ten People To Tell About Your Allergies.  So you have a diagnosis of various things you are allergic to and is it important that you tell anyone else? It is, of course, your decision... In my case, I felt that it was important to let key people know so that I did not put myself in danger of going through all the blistering and rashes all over again. Also because one of them is Penicillin it is vital that no one gives me that.   I am allergic to 5 main things:- Fragrances Balsam of peru Two preservatives commonly used in skincare and medical preparations. Penicillin. Due to this, it is important that key people in my life are aware of them and the reactions I can have. 1.  The Person You live with . In my case, my husband has had to change a lot of his products as well and we have had to change how we clean our home and wash our clothes so clearly he needs to be involved and aware. He has been very supportive!  2.  Friends and wid...

My next mission was to find products I CAN use. I trawled the shops in our high street and well it difficult. I checked skincare, haircare and basic household products ad could not find anything that was suitable for me with the allergies Next, I tried the internet. I basically went about it this way. First, I tried the brands I knew, brands my friends used and then did a search for skin-friendly products under various search terms.  This took a long time.... even when I found the brands often, surprisingly often there were NO ingredient listings! On some, there seemed to be partial listings and a very few actually did list the full ingredients. So with many could not tell if it would be Ok for me or not.  I decided that the only way I could be sure would be to contact each manufacturer and ask them if the product would be any good for me. So I composed a letter and emailed it out to probably over 30 companies.  I have to say most were very helpful, some assigned a...

Ok so I left the dermatologist with my three sheets of information about the allergens I was allergic to and I knew what to avoid.  The sheets were very detailed and useful and also gave the other chemical names of the allergens so i knew what I had to check on every product. It was very clear and excellent information.  What Can I Use For Skincare?  When we got home we checked all my skincare, haircare and body care- not one product was any good for me- believe it or not, every one of them contained an allergen!!! So they all went into a bin liner to be given away. Next, we checked the household products- things like washing up liquid, furniture polish, bath cleaner, kitchen cleaner- again Not one I can use- allergic to them all!! Then the washing liquids and conditioner we used for clothes- Nope I cannot use that either !! We ended up over the course of two days with a massive sack of pretty much useless products. We decided to give them all away..... No wo...

I really didn't expect much at this point. I mean how could I be allergic to anything. I had never in my life before been allergic to anything! I met with the dermatologist. I have to say the staff at the hospital who did the skin patch allergy testing were absolutely wonderful! They were calm, chatty , friendly and helpful. The nurses were just great and the doctor was very understanding. I knew from the Wednesday check up when they removed the patches that had been put on, on the Monday that there had been 3 reactions...  They intensified over the next day or two and by Friday I had 3 nice red welts or as they put it 3 "good" reactions! You can see them in the photo. So it was easy to tell what I was in fact allergic to. The dermatologist explained everything and gave me 3 sheets with the allergens on them and essentially told me to completely avoid ALL the allergens for the rest of my life. She said it would mean quite a lifestyle change.... I was initial...

Being the person I am I just had to know more about my possible risk of this skin condition being Lupus. So I researched and read and found out as much as I could.  I went for the blood test and I told my Doctor I was worried about maybe having Lupus.  He was reassuring and said it was unlikely in my case as I was not exhibiting several of the main symptoms...but a simple blood test would help us to confirm or not. He gave me a brief summary of what the condition of Lupus is and what it means anyway. So the links below are the ones I found most useful for discovering about Lupus and help available. http://www.lupusuk.org.uk/

I rang the doctor surgery the next morning, it was a Monday and typically there were no appointments left. The receptionist asked if I needed to see a doctor urgently- hmmm I thought well no I am not bleeding or having breathing issues so No - but I said maybe I need to see someone- so she booked me in with a nurse for half an hour later. Thank goodness our doctor is close by as the walk there was a nightmare, my arms felt heavy and the blisters were now filled with a weird fluid.  I went in to see the nurse who took one look at my arms and said you need to see a Dr today - now! She said she thought it was infected and that I would need antibiotics. she didn't really want me to leave the surgery and sorted it out for me to see the Dr as soon as he had a gap. I went in to see our doctor, I had seen him before and he is a very calm, measured doctor, nice and professional. However, I saw the look on his face when he saw my arms and knew he was shocked at what he saw.  I r...