Allergy Solutions by Infinite Ideas

Author:Infinite Ideas [Infinite Ideas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Infinite Ideas Ltd
Published: 2012-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

12. Getting creamed

Moisturize, moisturize, and then moisturize it some more. This is the key to keeping skin healthy. But what should you use and how can you avoid ending up in a sticky mess?

Whether it’s dry skin, itchy skin or a scorching red rash, giving the skin a gentle rub with some cream will overcome most irritations quickly and easily.

You’ve had dry skin at some time in your life. Everybody has. Perhaps you’ve spent too much time in the sun, or it’s the morning after the night before, or one of the older members of your family – I’m not mentioning any names, but you know who you are, grandad – has turned the central heating up in an attempt to convert the living room into an oven. The skin loses its usual soft texture and feels rough. It may feel a bit sensitive and uncomfortable too, or downright itchy. It gets like this because it doesn’t have enough natural oil to maintain the protective barrier that should be there. No protective barrier means the skin loses moisture through evaporation. Loss of moisture means the skin becomes drier and less supple. This isn’t exactly nuclear physics, but the situation still needs to be reversed, and this can be done by moisturizing.

Did you know that the skin is the largest organ in the body? Now there’s a fact to astound and amaze your friends with. It’s a fantastic piece of kit that protects bodies of all shapes and sizes. It’s waterproof, too, and helps to regulate body temperature. And that’s not all: when it’s exposed to a little sunlight it manufactures vitamin D. So it needs looking after.

Those with skin conditions such as eczema or other skin allergies, and those who spend long periods of time in very cold or very hot weather, will have had plenty of experience of dry skin and what it feels like. They’ll know how important it is to moisturize, moisturize and moisturize some more. So even though you may not want to get creamed, be it on the sports-field, in the office or anywhere else for that matter, spare a thought for your skin, which is desperate to get creamed and will love you for it.

Moisturizing, or emollient therapy, to give it its correct name, is what is essential. Emollients come in cream, ointment and liquid forms (which are added to the bath), and supplement the skin’s own natural oils, helping to prevent further water loss. By doing this they restore the skin’s barrier function and protect it from further drying. They are also brilliant for soothing skin and relieving itching. So when you feel the need for a good scratch, don’t. Rub in some emollient instead. Resist tearing at your skin with your fingernails since, although this may bring temporary relief, it will create further problems by releasing histamine, which in turn causes more itching. Scratching also causes breaks in the skin, enabling other skin irritants to enter.

Now here’s the trick. When

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.