Comments on: humidity

By: Lucas Shea

Lucas Shea — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 05:36:37 +0000

I’m not sure if you are asking me or Neil — it
doesn’t affect my sebderm.

Sandra

By: Adolph Trudie

Adolph Trudie — Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:18:41 +0000

yes my face to is red after shower, thats why i take at night

tony

By: Odessa Estrella

Odessa Estrella — Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:08:40 +0000

Ralph, I didn’t write about diet, Sandra did.

By: Neva Marjory

Neva Marjory — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:32:01 +0000

— In sebderm@y…, "ralph jackson" 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.

By: Lucas Shea

Lucas Shea — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 16:49:18 +0000

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
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 Of course, winning the lottery would make
it easier! What I would like to know it this: DOES
ANYONE ON THIS LIST HAVE SOFT WATER?

By: Blair Blair

Blair Blair — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 04:36:40 +0000

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!

By: Lucas Shea

Lucas Shea — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:31:20 +0000

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…

By: Blair Blair

Blair Blair — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 08:18:43 +0000

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?

By: Lucas Shea

Lucas Shea — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 00:13:23 +0000

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.

By: Blair Blair

Blair Blair — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 12:00:45 +0000

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.