im making quite an impression 9

Quit Smoking withe-cigarettes

Im making quite an impression

I've been making quite an impression alright, but not in the way that one might think. Over the last few months I've been developing a nasty case of inflammation to my scalp brought on by an unusual amount of stress. Things on the job have been picking up, I moved into a new house, I've got a nasty case of gout in both feet and oh yeah;...I separated from my husband of 33 years. 2009 was a fun year to say the least.

As a result of all of this stress the inflammation on my scalp became somewhat unbearable. Half the time, I didn't want to cover it up with anything but had to,... and the other half of the time I wanted to cover it up because of the nasty winter elements. One minute I'm sweating and the other minute my head is freezing like a Popsicle. Either way, I've been a confused and uncomfortable girl lately. Feeling like this brought about the decision to get some much needed treatments from my doctor.

I made an appointment with my doctor and we both felt some type of treatment was necessary to slow down the inflammation and the progression of the disease. I was desperate for relief and tried changing my diet and a few other holistic treatments to no avail. We started off with an oral antibiotic and a topical solution for my scalp. This solution helped a little but the itching, burning and inflammation started all over again. So we both decided it was time to try steroid injections to the scalp again. I've been dead set against this in the past because of some of the side effects.

My doctor again explained the benefits and side effects of the injections thoroughly as I listened and processed his every word. One of the side effects was "atrophy of the scalp". What this means is that when you receive many injections in a localized area this can cause tissue loss on the scalp which can result in severe depression or strange looking impressions in the scalp. They look like dents. Just the way your thumb print would look if you were to press it into a piece of dough. Unless the injections are spaced out properly and the site changed, the atrophy may become a permanent one. It can also change the color to the areas where the injections are applied causing a lightening of the skin.

This time around, I had to weigh the options. You see, in my case, I kept getting these infections which caused some acne resulting in breaking of the skin. Also when some hair would try to break through in a particular area, it would make the inflammation worse. The skin would break, causing scabs to form in many areas of my scalp. This in turn caused some scarring and lightening of my skin in those areas anyway. There was also the matter of the itching, burning and risk of infections getting worse. I opted to get the injections to help slow the progression of the disease and get some much needed relief. The injections gave me some relief however; I may very well find myself in this "catch 22" situation again.

So here I am about six weeks into my injections and I'm finding these little "impressions" or dents on my scalp. It's like the skin is very thin and collapsed in the small areas where I received those injections. I have several the size of my thumb print. I'm being told that this can sometimes be permanent because of the thinning in the skin. At this stage of the game, I have one somewhat large dent right at the very top of my head and several dime sized ones in a couple of spots on my head. My concern is that over time my scalp will look bizarre with all the dents and the discoloring.

After becoming bald and accepting that it will be permanent, I embraced the bald look with a feeling of being stylish and trendy. At first, I rocked the shiny bald head with pride and even went on a quest to buy some products to keep it looking so smooth, you couldn't resist grabbing my head and kissing it! Now it seems that my head can be described as this beautifully, imperfect and unusual sculpture. A representation of an oxymoron to say the least! And I still love it. While I'm not so sure what others think of what my lovely sculpture looks like on the outside;... I can assure you that what lies securely encased beneath those "impressions" are the most beautifully human thoughts. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" classic painting ain't got nothin' on "Crowned Regal"! LOL!

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