SparkPeople and Sunburn
I joined SparkPeople yesterday to try a new way to lose weight...again. I think I looked into it briefly a few months ago but never really tried it, so this is all still pretty new. I have actually gained 5 lbs since I restarted the Body for Life eating plan. Yikes. And that's not 5 lbs of muscle, unfortunately. Ugh. So I'm kicking BFL to the curb again and going back to the old faithful counting calories, fat, etc. It's a pain in the heinie, but maybe that's the only thing I can do to really lose weight. I probably need better portion control. Ugh again.
In other news today, strangely enough I got a sunburn at my dermatologist's office. I went for light therapy for my psoriasis. It turns out what I thought was eczema is actually guttate psoriasis*--a kind of skin condition related to having strep or other infections. Lucky me. I have no idea what started it since it's been awhile since I've had strep. Anyway, the treatment involves phototherapy--which is basically getting zapped with ultraviolet light at the doc's office. This is done in the buff. So they are shining a bright light on things that have never seen the sun (and that only saw a tanning bed once or twice in college). Yowza. Poor chest and back are all burny and itchy. I had just 20 seconds last Thursday and they bumped it up to 40 seconds today. Those must have been 40 pretty intense seconds. So here I am with a sunburn. At least they had me wear goggles and a pillowcase over my head so my face is o.k. Yeah, I get to wear a pillowcase over my head and stand in a machine naked like that. Fun. I probably look like a pale and lumpy torture victim--but now I'm a red and lumpy torture victim. At least my only tan lines will be where the pillowcase hits my neck. Except I probably won't tan. I'll burn and then it will turn a slightly less pale shade of white. Oy.
OK, enough of that. I can tell it's already helped some of my psoriasis spots, so that's good.
*No, I do not have it as bad as the dude in the picture on that website I linked.
Posts
6 comments:
Bummer - my dad has psoriasis and it's never looked like fun. He even had one therapy that involved cream and saran wrap.
Oy, sounds so not fun. I actually did have all over hit by the sun when I lived in Greece. My roof was the highest thing around so I could sunbathe au naturel. ;-) Hope your skin gets and feels better soon!
Path to Health
There is a ton of info on Spark people, the exercises are great!! Ouch for that sunburn, sound painful!!
Phototherapy is one of the best treatments for Psoriasis! Make sure your doc is using NarrowBand lights. They are more effective and you won't burn! In addition to not burning you NB-UVB will require less tretments to get your skin clear. I've tried it all and NB is the best! Good luck on the weight loss too!
I love sparkpeople! I like that they show you how to do the execises, but the emails drive me batty! Hope your feeling better!
Take care of yourself and give yourself a chance to heal with guilting over not exercising. Maybe this is a good time to sit and do some meditation or just lounge around doing nothing. That's one of the hardest things for me to do -- nothing!
Post a Comment