Progress

Rapunzel's skin has an ebb and flow.  Some days are better than others.  She's been having some better days lately.  We're not sure what the reason is.  Is it from the steroid shot she was (without my knowledge) given during her oral surgery?  Is it from the absence of dairy in her diet?  Is it because we've been super vigilant about her skin care lately?  Is it the dead sea salt soaks we've incorporated into her regimen?  Is it the air purifier and humidifier we've added to her room?  Is it a combination of any/all of these things?  Probably.  We don't know exactly what is the cause of her improvement, but we'll take it!

Here you can see how her hands have improved over the last week.  The first pics in this series were taken on Tuesday, March 26.  The lighting in the bathroom is making the color a little off, but you can still see how red and swollen her hands were that day.  Lots of scratches and scabs especially on her left hand (top pic).  The 2nd pics were taken Thursday, March 28.  You can see that the scratches are starting to heal and the redness and swelling is really going down.  The 3rd pics were taken Friday, March 29.  The skin is still pretty dry and leathery, but the redness and scratches are all but gone.  The last pics were taken today, Wednesday, April 2.  The lighting was different than the third pics, but if you look closely, you can see that even the dryness has decreased.  There are however, a couple of spots that have popped up that are red and itchy.  Her left thumb was especially red and scratched up this afternoon, so we'll have to stay on top of that.

It's hard to not get our hopes up when she starts having good episodes like this.  I know she'll still get flares, but I always hope that the good days will start outnumbering the bad ones!

I also just want to make note that it's not just her hands that are flared.  That's just what I chose to take comparison pics of this time.