The last time I posted, I had shared tips for dealing with things like hair loss and such.  I just want to clarify that I’m not endorsing the products I wrote about.  I just wanted to let you know that there are products out there that can help with our particular needs.  The brands that I mentioned are the brands that I found work for me.  You might need to try different brands in order to get the ones that work for you.  Now that that’s cleared up, lets talk about skin care.

The 4 most important rules for skin care are: Stay out of the sun, moisturise, stay out of the sun and moisturise.  Get the picture?  When you’re on chemotherapy, your skin is very sensitive to the sun so you can suffer from sunburns very quickly.  You don’t need that in your life that’s for sure!  If you must go out in the sun, make sure that you slather on the sunscreen thickly and often.  There are several companies that make sunscreen from natural ingredients too.  Any discoloration of the skin (a so-called “healthy tan”) is actually skin damage and let’s face it, once you reach a certain age, skin damage ages you a lot.  You know what I’m talking about – wrinkles and age spots.  Yuck!

For my face and neck I use one of those vibrating, rotating thingies that cleans and exfoliates your skin, that way the products I use seem to work better.  I use a Clarisonic tool with a sensitive brush attached.  I really swear by it, it cleans your face and gets rid of all traces of makeup. Once my face is uber clean, I use a face oil (there are several on the market) at night followed by a good night cream, eye cream and a neck cream.  I know, I know, it seems like a lot, but like I said, your skin can get really dry with chemo.  In the morning I skip the oil, and use a serum followed by a good face cream, eye cream and neck cream.  A moisturising face masks once in a while helps as well.  Another tip is to apply coconut oil on your face before a workout then wash it off in the shower after a few hours.  Coconut oil also works well for your hair as a deep conditionner.

As for body skin, you also need to take care of that or you’ll have a serious case of the itchies.  I find that dry brushing helps a lot.  Before you shower (don’t use hot water because that’ll dry your skin even more), brush your skin with a dry brush that you can purchase at any drug store or beauty supply store.  I was told that you should brush in the direction of your heart in order to help drain your lymphatic system.  The brush helps get rid of your dry skin so that when you moisturise, your skin will absorb the cream better and leave you with soft skin.  I also use the dry brush on my arm and hand before bed because I suffer from lymphedema and I feel that the brushing helps drain my lymph nodes and my hand swells less (for the correct procedure you should see a physiotherapist that specialises in lymph node draining).

One particular chemo treatment left me with very dry hands and feet (they call it “hand and foot syndrome” – they couldn’t have come up with a better name for it? like maybe “crocodile skin syndrome” or even “skin-so-dry-you-can-sand-your-floor-itis”).  You skin can crack and bleed and it can be quite painful.  The remedy? Try not to do chores that involve chemicals on your hands and that includes dish soap.  It’s a great way to get out of doing dishes.  Rubber gloves don’t really help because it can make your hands sweat and aggravate the condition.  Use a good thick hand cream and apply it often during the day.  If you want, you can wear cotton gloves after you’ve moisturised.  The same goes for your feet.  Use a very light touch to exfoliate your feet and apply a good foot moisturiser.  Try not to go bare feet because that really dries out your feet (no socks and sandals however or I’ll personally hunt you down and bitch slap those socks right off you!).   You can, however, go to bed wearing socks (not the ones you had on all day – gross!) after you’ve applied your moisturiser.  What works really well – I’m not kidding- is slathering on Vicks Vapo Rub on your feet and slip on socks afterwards before you go to bed.  Another treatment that I find works well is a paraffin wax treatment.  You can buy a home kit (that’s what I did because I do it at least once a week) or visit an esthetician.  The wax helps soften your skin and your cuticles (those get super-dry).

I hope that was informative and I’m sorry I couldn’t inject more humour in my page this time.  I just couldn’t come up with a funny Bobby Tee story that involved skin care.  Unless you count the fact that he discovered he can use hemorrhoid cream under his eyes to reduce the bags under his eyes.  Everyone knows that old trick!