12 Jun
The itching. Nobody. NOBODY. I cannot stress this enough. I was prepared for the flushes, prepared to feel a bit tired, even prepared for the mood stuff. But this? My shins at 11pm feel like they are being attacked from the inside. My forearms. The side of my neck. I scratched myself raw in bed last week and genuinely thought I had some sort of allergy. And the dryness isn't just, y'know, dry skin. It's tight. My face feels like paper by 3 in the afternoon. I used to have normal skin. Not great, not terrible. Normal. Now I look in the mirror and I don't know whose face that is. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I'm trying to put together a proper timeline of what changed and when, because I know if I walk in and just say "my skin's gone weird" I'll get a leaflet about E45 and a polite goodbye. So I've been writing things down. When the itching started, where it is, what the dryness feels like, whether it's worse at certain times. I took a few photos too because I figured I'd forget the details. I've also been reading about protein and fats and skin integrity (fell down a bit of a rabbit hole honestly) and I've been trying to eat more eggs, oily fish, that sort of thing. Whether it's helping I genuinely don't know yet. Probably too early to say. Does anyone know what I should actually be asking a dermatologist? Like if the GP refers me, what are the right questions? I feel like I'll go blank the second I sit down. x