At first, it started out as one or two little red spots and I kept thinking it would go away. It slowly spread and I eventually went to a dermatologist who looked at it, consulted with other colleagues, and then told me she had never seen that before in her life and had no idea what it was. I had no insurance at the time and wasn't willing to fork out $800 for a biopsy so that was the end of that for a few more years.
My sister, who is a nurse, suggested I go to her dermatologist, that he could probably look at it and tell me exactly what it was w/o a biopsy. So I made an appointment and went a couple of weeks ago. Turns out she was right. He knew exactly what it was, but he did tell me that it was really rare. He also said that it was treated with steroid cream and light sessions, but that insurance no longer covered the cost of the light sessions. He then told me he would give me the cream, and as much as he hated to suggest this due to skin cancer risk, that I could go to a tanning bed and get the same results.
So as of a couple of weeks ago, I now go to the tanning bed 3x/week to try and lighten the rash....there's no actual cure. To tell you the truth, I don't see a difference yet but I know it takes some time. To speed things up, I finally decided to try the magical flaxseed oil that mom has been pushing on me to see if it helps. I certainly don't see how it could hurt.
Today was the first time trying this mini meal. I was supposed to add 2 TBSP of ground flax seeds to the bowl as well, but for the life of me, cannot get my coffee grinder to work. Apparently you are supposed to grind up your flax seeds to get the full value...otherwise they pass right through your system and don't do much good other than to act as a source of fiber.
There is a video on You Tube that shows how to do this. It's 6 TBSP of cottage cheese to 3 TBSP of flaxseed oil. You use the cottage cheese as a binding agent to mix with the oil. Don't ask me...I don't really understand the science behind it. But you use an immersion blender to fully mix these two ingredients until it's a pudding texture....about 60 seconds. Then you can add fruit, nuts, etc. I added a few raspberries, blueberries and walnuts.
I'm going to be honest. As appetizing as the end product looks, it tastes like ass. The oil taste is really gross. If I would have used 3x more fruit it might have masked the flavor better, but this was just nasty and that's all there is to it. Now, if you're fighting cancer or some other major ailment, then I can see happily eating bowl after bowl. But for a leg rash...not so much. I paid $13 for that stupid bottle of oil so I am going to use it. If I actually see some improvement in my legs by the time the bottle is gone, then I will probably buy another and continue to use it. I'm just being up front about the taste. I definitely need to add more fruit!
And here is the link to the video on how to make it in case you would like to try ass pudding :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSoddptWL0s&noredirect=1
I got my Ebay listings put up for today and a few scheduled for tomorrow. I need to do some meal planning this evening after dinner and do the grocery shopping tomorrow. As I said in my first post, I'm getting my cooking inspiration from Biz's blog. In fact, I'm making some chicken tonight that I saw on her blog a few posts back. I sliced my chicken breasts in half long ways and put them in a marinade of Greek seasonings, olive oil and fresh lemon juice I'm going to grill them on the Foreman grill and then serve them atop Caesar salad. I bought a mini loaf of bread from the bakery that I will heat, slice and serve on the side and that will be my carbs. I'm not going to make it anywhere near 150g of carbs today. Turns out it's going to take some real effort to change my mindset that 150g is just way too many for a diabetic. I know it's not (see yesterday's blog post), but I'm just not ready, lol.
As soon as you wrote the ratio of the oil to cottage cheese, my first thought too was "that's gonna taste like ass!" I've never heard of that rash before - hopefully the tanning bed helps. Happy Monday - here's to us both having a great week!
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