What worked for me

Hi everyone, just had to share. It’s been good to read everyone’s experiences, although I acknowledge I’ve only got mild to moderate FI, and not the kind that causes hair loss or excessive bleeding. This is just my experience, and what worked for me after seventeen years.

I’ve had folliculitis on my upper arms and shoulders ever since I hit puberty, and I’m 29 now. Gross pimply pustules all over that pinpoint bleed, scab up and scar, and just very red and blotchy skin on my arms and shoulders. Not attractive. I feel like I’ve tried so many things, hardcore acne creams, organic moisturisers, medicated soaps that strip the moisture from your skin, oatmeal masks, hydrocortisone creams, antibacterial creams like Savlon, rose hip oil. You name it. And lots of doctors that brushed me off. The only thing that kind of worked was the expensive hydrocortisone, but only after applying it every night for two weeks and then the result would only last a few days. Then I noticed that whenever I would use my fake tan (ModelCo airbrush tan), the texture of my skin would improve. I went down the list of ingredients and came to aloe vera. I thought surely it’s not simple little aloe vera that is helping, that’s too easy. Just to try, I bought a $2 bottle of pump spray aloe vera, 99% pure and tried it for a week and the results have amazed me. I wish I’d taken before and after shots. It’s mainly how perfectly smooth and non-bumpy my arms are now, and the blotchiness has halved after only a week. I've since missed a few nights of using it but there has been no recurrences of the pustules, so it's longer lasting too! I don’t know the physiological reason behind this, as I’ve used moisturiser creams and sprays before with no difference. So it’s not just the moisturising properties of aloe vera that have helped. I know AV is a good after sun treatment, cooling and soothing and all that so maybe the anti-inflammatory properties have something to do with it. But I don’t care, I’m sitting here and rubbing my nice smooth arms for the first time since I was 12 and marvelling that something so cheap and simple to apply has been my “thing that worked.” Give it a try! Julia xo

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