humidity
I listened with a bit of interest a few weeks ago as a
number of folks on this list discussed the effects of
humidity on sebderm knowing that I would be going on a
week-long vacation in one of the most humid areas of
the United States, southern Louisiana. To be honest,
I didn’t expect much improvement, but by Day #2 of my
vacation, I NO LONGER HAD ANY SEBDERM SYMPTOMS
WHATSOEVER. The flaking and redness were completely
gone.
When I returned to the hot, dry Arizona desert where I
live, my skin was red, irritated and flaking like a
molting reptile by the next day. In an effort to be
sure that it was, in fact, the humidity that caused
this dramatic improvement, I have been analyzing all
of the potential factors that could have played a
role. One, my diet — it consisted almost exclusively
of red beans & rice, cheese & shrimp sandwiches, and
beer. Oh, yeah, I did eat a lot of pecan pie and ice
cream. So I doubt that helped 
The water in the
south is really soft, and it is tough to get all of
the soap off of your skin, so I spent lots of time in
long, hot showers, and I washed my face with the same
soap and frequency, but with a longer rinse time to
try to get off the soap. Here in AZ the water is very
hard. Also, in humid climates I believe there are
more mold spores hanging around — could mold play a
helpful role?
That’s all I could come up with. I definitely drank
LESS water than I usually do. My diet was even fuller
that usual with foods that some feel are "bad" sebderm
foods, like cheese, bread, rice, bleu cheese. I drank
even more beer than usual. I got the same amount of
sleep. Could it be soft water vs. hard, or is the
answer simply humidity? Either way, I think there is
something important to be discerned here. Those who
are using humidifiers, do you have to turn your house
into into a sauna in order to experience any benefit?
Does anyone have any enlightening ideas about this
improvement I experienced?
January 1st, 2004 at 7:05 am
Sandra,
i noticed that effected skin feels good on sultry and
humid days…. i am now using a humidifier in my bedroom
from a week..its feels better…i can tell you more when days
pass by..try one.. may be you can figure out yourself…
pvk..
January 1st, 2004 at 4:55 pm
I think of all things you mention, most likely the humidity is what helped
you–dry air is not good for the skin at all and in alot of the literature
on psoriasis and eczema,,increased humidity is indicated as a potential
benefit.
January 2nd, 2004 at 3:23 am
Is there any way of increasing the humidity in your bedroom without
having to spend loads of money on a machine?
January 3rd, 2004 at 7:59 pm
Actually, soft water allows you to rinse the soap off. You have just
discovered how long that takes.
Hard water reacts with soap to turn it into a waxy stearate that coats
your skin and stearate does not feel slippery like soap. That instant
rinse you have been feeling is just a chemical conversion, not
removal. In Arizona, you have been wearing your soap all day, in
slightly altered form. The more watter you apply to soapy skin, the
more you convert soap to stearate. You simply cannot rinse it off
effectively.
If you cannot afford to try a water softener on your shower, to repeat
the experiment in Arizona, you might switch from soap to detergent in
your bath. I have hard water and used ordinary dish washing detergent
as bath soap for years. Get one of the unscented types and try
bathing with very small amounts of it at a time. It might help you
keep from using too much if you thin it with water a bit. This will
get rid of the stearate you are now wearing, and possibly reacting to.
January 4th, 2004 at 7:52 am
Wow! I have never heard that before! And I have
always been really annoyed by soft water. I have a
water softening system in my house and I don’t use it.
Maybe I should give it a try.
January 4th, 2004 at 6:27 pm
On the subject of humidity - I am very amazed by the posts on the
subject. I have lived in New Orleans all of my life and the seb derm started
when I
was around 26. I’m now 31 and it seems to be getting a little worse with each
year. I
must tell everyone - the HUMIDITY IS MURDER ON MY FACE! Whenever we have a
humid day and I spend any time outside, day or night, my face has a major
flareup.
Major. The more humid it is, the worse the flareup. I pray for dry days so that
my skin
can heal a bit. Now that we are moving into fall, my skin is much better and
when the
winter comes my skin will have a few months of relief. It’s like this every
year. I dread
the summer and welcome the winter - perhaps because I’ve grown up here my skin
is
different and has different reactions to humidity? Very odd…
January 5th, 2004 at 4:10 am
Neil, I am very surprised that humidity helped my
skin. I am still skeptical that that was what did it,
because it seems so counterintuitive. Sebderm is an
oily-skin condition, and mine worsens when I just
THINK about moisturizer regardless of how oil-free it
may be. It just doesn’t seem logical that our skin
would benefit from the moisture. I wonder if there
really may be something to the whole "soft water"
thing, though. I despise showering in soft water, but
I wonder if it was actually the thing that helped. It
would be interesting to know how all of us sufferers
weigh in on the soft water thing — do we all have
hard water, and we are just lucky enough to react
badly to the soap scum left on our skin? I don’t know
if I’m buying it yet, but I’m definitely going to
check it out. Do you have a water softener?
January 5th, 2004 at 6:38 pm
my skin also doesnt like moisturisers too except vaseline or
pure petroleum jelly… i observed moisturisers with lot of
chemicals doesnt help me at all and in some cases my sebderm
on my face gets worse….
January 6th, 2004 at 12:53 am
I do not have a water softener. If you stay in a hotel, though, they usually
have VERY
soft water (and so you get the annoying sensation that you can’t wash the soap
off).
The hard/soft water theory is interesting. Also, if I take a warm steamy shower,
by face
is red for about 45 minutes afterwards, but usually subsides as I head off for
work.
Neil
January 6th, 2004 at 10:37 am
Neil, the hotels we stayed in — particularly the one
we stayed in on Bourbon for four days — had
unbelievably soft water. I was swearing to my husband
about it all week. In the shower, the water pressure
was nice and strong, so as long as I stayed in there,
I could eventually feel like the soap was off.
Washing face and hands in the sink, however, was so
annoying because of the majorly soft water. It seemed
the soap wouldn’t come off no matter how long I rinsed
or how hard I rubbed. The water wasn’t just soft, it
was really really soft, and that’s one reason I think
it could be involved. Now that I hear that you live
there and the humidity doesn’t "cure" you, it just
makes me more curious about the soft water.
January 6th, 2004 at 8:46 pm
It’s such a weird condition. I have done many dietary
experiments to see what the effect would be on my
sebderm, and I have never noticed even the slightest
improvement. Last week when my condition completely
healed, I was eating an exaggeratedly "bad" diet.
Maybe that’s what we need to do! Drink more beer and
eat more tabasco sauce! Now that’s a cure I can live
with
January 7th, 2004 at 4:51 am
Hard water contains magnesium and calcium whereas soft water is "softened"
by eliminating these minerals through a softening process, I think mostly by
filtering it through sodium. I used to work in a hotel and in our system, we
had to add huge bags of rock salt to the filter device. Maybe it is the
sodium that helps? maybe our skin is irrtatied by calcium or magnesium in
the water? interesting anyway.
The ph of hard vs soft water may have some influence as well as the mineral
component.
January 7th, 2004 at 3:00 pm
Neil,
The thing about diet is that it could take weeks or months to notice any
improvement/worsening of the condition and that is what makes it difficult
to determine if diet has any effect on you. Some of us can get a relatively
short turnaround time with diet, especially with high sugar foods, but as we
each digest and process foods differently, some of us may never be able to
determine if avoiding certain foods help.
I think many would have to do a long term, hardcore elimination diet, to see
if it helps and thats what makes it tough to do and for some of us, diet
changes may never help but for some others diet changes can at least help
alleviate the frequencey and severity of the flares.
What is weird though, concerning alcohol, I started drinking ALOT of red
wine about five years ago as beer seemed to make my seb derm worse–I was
drinking at least a bottle of red wine a day (I drank for free as a
restaurant manager). I then stopped drinking altogether when my daughter
was born 2.5 years ago and go out of the restaurant business.
During the time though that I was drinking all the red wine, my skin was
perfect, don’t recall any breakouts of any significance and I thought that
my seb derm was gone forever. Within a month or so of quitting the red wine
(mostly really good chianti classicos and riservas), my seb derm came back
like I have never seen it before and was really, really chronic for the
better part of the last 2.5 years.
Not sure if it is coincidence or not, but now that I don’t have free access
to the corporate liquor cabinet anywmore, not sure I could afford to drink
this much but I am tempted to start drinking it again as much as possible.
January 8th, 2004 at 3:13 am
Before yesterday, I really didn’t know anything about
soft water besides this: it is annoyingly difficult
to rinse off soap with it, and salt is involved
somehow.
After doing some research, it seems that best methods
all involve running the water over balls inside the
system which exchange the calcium and magnesium in the
water for sodium. According to most of the sources I
found, hard water isn’t really rinsing the soap off of
your skin very well, it just reacts with soap to
create "soap curd" — in other words, a film — that
same film that leaves hard water deposits all over
your shower. Apparently this film is deposited not
only on the shower, but your skin as well. Anyhow,
apparently some people’s skin is irritated by this
film, and it causes the skin to become red and
inflamed! Here’s a quote from hardwater.org:
"Bathing with soap in hard water leaves a film of
sticky soap curd on the skin. The film may prevent
removal of soil and bacteria. Soap curd interferes
with the return of skin to its normal, slightly acid
condition, and may lead to irritation."
Here’s a quote from another site:
"Soap scum is difficult to remove and stays on your
skin after bathing or showering. It clogs skin pores
and coats hair. This residue may be a breeding ground
for bacteria, and could cause diaper rash, rough, red
hands, skin irritation and skin discomfort."
Sounds like we’re onto something here? But wait…now
for the maddening part…the only place I’m finding
this info is on sites that sell water softening
systems. Still, it does make sense. I’m going to keep
researching.
January 8th, 2004 at 11:18 am
Sandra, now you got me confused though, becasue I thought it was the hotel
with soft water that you couldn’t get the soap off of you? What do you
think?
January 8th, 2004 at 11:31 pm
I know, it seems a little odd to me too. All of the
sites I have visited claim that soft water is actually
getting the soap off of your skin, it just FEELS like
it isn’t because you are used to the feeling of the
hard water scum on your skin, so you just think the
soap is still there. I am totally not buying that –
the soap is really still there. With the hard water,
though, it isn’t just leaving soap residue, it is
leaving "soap curd" - the resulting scum when soap
reacts with the calcium and magnesium in the hard
water. I found a scientific site that goes into the
science of what is actually happening in this
reaction, and it seems legit. What I am thinking at
this point is this: the soap residue left on the skin
when soft water fails to rinse it completely doesn’t
irritate the skin, but the scum created by the
reaction of the soap with the hard water could be
locking in bacteria or just providing a "sealed" layer
on top of the skin that traps the oil and gives the
fungus a nice little breeding ground. Just a
theory…
January 9th, 2004 at 7:36 am
OK, I think I understand this now and is a very interesting theory. But if
it holds true, I think it may possibly have to do with the water itself and
not necessarily with the soap we use. For me, I never,ever use any soap on
my face and I barely get it wet in the shower (impossible to stay completely
dry with the spray and such) but I do continue to use topicals like nizoral
and desowen and cutanix and others.
So, I suppose an add on theory would be that is the reaction between the
hard water and ANY thing we have on face that could lead to this "curd" or
maybe even the hard water alone when it just touches the skin, even in the
absence of any soap or cream or lotion, causes some kind of chemical
reaction and leaves this "curd" which then leads to irritation.
Now, the hard part about testing this at home is that water softeners cost
alot of money to have installed so what do we do–I just need to win the
lottery and be done with all of this!
January 9th, 2004 at 7:49 pm
I think you are right, it may be the water itself.
The tile in my swimming pool, where there is obviously
no soap used, has a big problem with calcification –
the calcium and magnesium buildup on the tile is so
bad we can hardly keep up with it with our cleaners
and pumice stones. Here’s another reason this whole
hard water theory is very interesting to me. Two
years ago when my husband and I bought and moved into
this house, my sebderm got a lot worse, and has
remained so. I chalked it up to coincidence, but have
always been on the lookout for a real reason. I never
connected the two circumstances before this, but we
have been blown away by the hard water we have in this
house. I have never had such hard water! We have to
clean our faucets with CLR regularly or they won’t
turn off completely because of the calcification! If
we accidentally splash water on a counter and leave
it, it leaves a white mark around its perimeter as it
dries that we have to remove with CLR! And lastly, we
have a glass dining room table, and I usually keep
fresh flowers on it. If I drip any water on the
table, when it dries it leaves that same type of mark
on the glass! It is so hard! I just can’t help but
think that my bad sebderm and this hard water might be
related!
As for the expense, I have talked to my husband and we
Of course, winning the lottery would make
agree that it is worthwhile even if it is a bit
pricey. I will keep everyone posted on the results,
because I intend to give it a try. If it alleviates
this annoying and painful condition, it is definitely
worth a few hundred dollars to me! If it doesn’t,
then none of you will have to fork out the dough to
find out
it easier! What I would like to know it this: DOES
ANYONE ON THIS LIST HAVE SOFT WATER?
January 11th, 2004 at 12:32 am
— In sebderm@y…, "ralph jackson" <rj561@h…> wrote:
> OK, I think I understand this now and is a very interesting theory.
(snip)
> Now, the hard part about testing this at home is that water
softeners cost
> alot of money to have installed so what do we do–I just need to win
the
> lottery and be done with all of this!
For less than a dollar you can buy a gallon of distilled water at the
grocery store and wash your face or what ever part of your body you
want to test the hard water idea on. Use a lot less soap than you
normally would, because it will foam like crazy in perfectly soft
water. Heat a quart or so at a time in the microwave to take the
chill off. Let us know what you find out. This is a lot cheaper than
buying a softener just to find out if it does anything for you.
January 12th, 2004 at 9:08 am
Ralph, I didn’t write about diet, Sandra did.
January 13th, 2004 at 5:18 pm
yes my face to is red after shower, thats why i take at night
tony
January 23rd, 2004 at 8:36 am
I’m not sure if you are asking me or Neil — it
doesn’t affect my sebderm.
Sandra