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sun exposure, hand soap
Despite start my low-vitamin-A diet about three weeks ago, I had some increased symptoms:
- new rough/calloused/flaky skin on both palms
- new chapped lips, dry skin around mouth and nose
- urine seems foamier and oranger than before
- moodiness and suicidal thoughts returned
- feeling of fullness in throat and gut, lack of appetite returned
With some more experimentation, I've isolated two factors that have probably been continuing symptoms:
First, I've observed that exposure to direct afternoon sunlight -- even less than 20 minutes -- caused me to feel hot/tired in maybe 10 minutes. This can happen despite my skin being covered except my face. Afterward I'd feel increasingly brain-fogged and sleep -- my usual "nap attack" symptom I've been having for three years now. In retrospect, my nap attacks did seem to usually follow after walking outside or traveling, not just after drinking water. Today I stayed inside until sunset, and symptoms were noticeably diminished.
After a nap attack, I'd still have symptoms for hours, most noticeably fullness in throat and gut and low appetite. When I forced myself to eat anyway, that when I got the worst discomfort and mental health symptoms. Recently I've been fasting during the worst throat/gut-fullness/low-appetite symptoms and my mood stays better.
Second, it appears that a hand soap contributed to symptoms. After a full day of noticeably diminished symptoms today, I did an experiment by putting half a squirt of hand soap on the base of my thumb by my wrist. I left it there for 30 seconds then wiped and washed it off. Within a couple minutes, I noticed new tiredness, slight aches, gut and throat tightness, back pain, hot and cold feelings, and a particular body odor. Note that I did have some anxiety and heart-racing nervousness before starting this test, so that could be contributing too. But I'm convinced it's a good idea for me to avoid that soap.
Here are the ingredients in the soap: water, sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, decyl glucoside, sodium chloride, fragrance, DMOM hydantoin, PEG-120 methyl glucose dioleate, tetrasodium EDTA, sodium sulfate, polyquaternium-7, citric acid, poloxamer 124, PEG-7 glyceryl cocoate, red 33, blue 1
TL/DR: watch out for sun exposure and hand soap/detergent
The Guest above is me (dan)
Hi Dan, As much as the sun may help with detox of VA, it will also accelerate it which can make you feel crap.
My daughter and I went through a period of reactions from dishwashing liquid and hand soap. In the past I have compared the ingredients but not come up with what we reacted to. Now with a VA perspective I haven't reviewed it again. I will see what seems to correlate to yours
I finally found the source of my drying hands and it was the handsoap I was using!
It's crazy how my body is now more sensitive to everything.
Tetrasodium EDTA is a hardcore mineral chelator. Probably sucking the zinc and good minerals out of your hands.
I would dump that soap and get some more gentle, like olive oil bars, etc...
I notice that Grant mentions "handwashing dishes" as one of the clues at https://ggenereux.blog/2015/02/12/eca/ but he makes no further direct mention of it.
Is handwashing dishes associated with eczema, Crohn's, or Alzheimer's? I've never heard that before. A web search for eczema and washing dishes does turns up the phrases "contact dermatitis" and "dishpan hands."
When I first got dry hands, the pharmacist's first question was if I was handwashing dishes which was the case.
Since then though, I'm seeing dishwashing more as an exacerbing activity than a trigger. Healthy hands don't get damaged from washing since the skin barrier is strong while hands susceptible to contact dermatitis are weak.