Skin Patch Test Update: Stickers Begone!!

Posted on May 16, 2012 by The Giddy Tigress

After the ordeal of having to endure the incredibly itchy sticker patches on my back on Monday, I was really looking forward to Wednesday morning (today), when those patches would be removed.

I headed straight for the hospital after dropping off my kids in school and waited for my turn at the doc’s clinic.  I was ushered into the dressing room about 10 minutes later and the nurse began to peel off the stickers,…most of it anyway.  She left the numbered portions stuck to my skin, and cut off the part with the little round patches so that it would be easy to identify which patch was from which number.

Then I was asked to wait for a few more minutes before my name was called to go into the doctor’s office.

The doctor then took some readings from the patches on my back, and made scary remarks like, “Wow…you have quite a lot of allergic reactions!”

Among them, she told me it was clear that I was allergic to nickel and chromium, which were present in some costume jewelry and accessories.  She said I had to abstain from wearing bras with steel parts. (and errr…that means all my jewelry needs to be gold and platinum, yes?).  Another substance I was presumably allergic to was a preservative chemical present in most makeup products (didn’t quite get the chemical name from her verbally)…so do I need to stop wearing makeup?

Results after 48 hours also showed I am allergic to the dishwashing detergents I had brought in AND the rubber gloves I provided.  The doctor said, “I don’t even know what to do now, since you are allergic to both the detergent AND the rubber gloves!”

Also, true to my suspicion was my allergy to some ingredient in the two sunblock lotions I brought in.  I’m suspecting homosalate, as this ingredient is present in both the Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock and the Australian Cancer Council Everyday Sunscreen.  The doctor recorded an “IR” (Irritant Reaction) for both of these substances.

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Hubby will have no excuse about not using sunblock now that I have these *extra* ones to pass on to him. 🙂

The doctor then ordered a retest of 3 items, including a new test from the rubber gloves from the hospital, so I still have a little patch on my back now, with 3 little round stickers.   The rest of my back has scattered red rashes, some looking angrier than the rest.

My back is to remain as dry as possible till Friday (read: showering remains a chore), when my next appointment would be, and I would be provided a full report of my skin allergy patch test then.

The itch has subsided somewhat, which means I could be also allergic to the stickers used to stick the patch samples on.  SIGH…does anyone have a good method to remove the sticker/tape stains on skin?

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“Sure Boh?”

Posted on May 15, 2012 by The Giddy Tigress

I am a self-professed bargain hunter.  And lately with the age of group discounts on the rise, the consumers are the ones who are on the happy receiving end.  Just take a look around the internet and you can compare prices and deals for a fraction of the original cost.

As a matter of fact, I have landed myself some great deals from group discount sites such as these, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a friend of mine recently embarked on a similar group discount site.

Cheekily named Sure Boh!, a mangled up form of “Are you sure?” from English and the Hokkien dialect, this site promises great deals aplenty (without the “beat around the bush” and “sometimes over-flowery” language – teehee).  So go check it out…I saw some delicious-looking deals for Klang Valley peeps…

I sure hope Sure Boh! will bring more fantastic deals for the Penang population soon …

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I’m Finally getting a Skin Allergy Patch Test done…

Posted on May 14, 2012 by The Giddy Tigress

So what IS a Skin Allergy Patch Test?  Basically, it’s a test that determines a person’s level of allergic reaction to certain substances, especially useful to detect allergic reactions in people with eczema or contact dermatitis.  I have been advised by my skin doctor to take the skin allergy patch test for a long time, and she advised that I only do it when my hand eczema is *under control*.

My eczema condition has been yoyoing over the past few months, and just these past weeks, it feels rather controlled, so I figured I would do it this week.

The catch?  The test needs to be done over a period of 5 days; and I would need to see the doctor on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Apart from the 30 different allergens/substances that the doctor will test me on, she encouraged me to bring in my own lotions/detergents/stuff that I wanted to test on.

And since I only planned on doing this test just ONCE, I went crazy and brought almost everything I could think of.

Household detergents and cleansers, including a pair of rubber gloves:

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Skincare products, sunblock, oils etc:

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So on the first day (today), I passed all the stuff I brought in to the nurses and waited while they prepared the patch test for me.  It was a long wait, of almost an hour and a half, but application of the stickers to my back was just a mere 1-2 minutes.

One little round sticker patch will be stuck to my back for each substance I was to be tested on.  The doctor had 30, and I brought 20, so I had 50 little round stickers on my back.  They were sticker sheets of 10 round patches on each sheet, numbered accordingly with reference to the substance being tested on.

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Not a very pretty sight, actually.  And yes, it is uncomfortable.

Another bummer from having this test done is that I am NOT supposed to get my back wet.  No water, no showering and hence….no sweat.  Which meant…..(sob sob) no gym for 5 whole days!  And since the test completes this Friday, and I don’t go to the gym on weekends, that would mean 1 WHOLE WEEK of no exercising! 🙁 🙁 🙁

As you can see, I am not in a very good mood now, and on top of that, the stickers are making my back itch, and it has only been what…. 12 hours??!  How on earth am I going to get through the next 48 hours?

On Wednesday, the stickers will be removed, but I am still supposed to keep the area dry.

NOT. LIKING. THIS. AT. ALL.

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Me-Time Luxuries: Stripped Off and Masked

Posted on May 11, 2012 by The Giddy Tigress

There are 2 main reasons why I avoid using those sticky nose strips that claim to “extricate” the white heads and black heads on your nose.  Having tried them years ago when they were first introduced by a popular brand in Malaysia, I found that they leave sticky residues on my nose and also, they made me break out, perhaps due to my sensitive skin.

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Hence it was with much trepidation that I decided to try Beauty Clinic’s Sulfur Blackhead Suction Nose Pack.  I did a quick google on this product and everyone who tried it had good things to say about it, so I was curious too.  Also, with a name like that, I could almost feel it working on my nose just by reading it.  Ha.

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The suction nose pack includes 10 individually packed nose strips, and directions for use are provided on the box in Korean as well as in English.  I would personally use the nose strips a maximum of 2 times a week, mainly because I don’t want the natural layer of my skin to be “stripped off” too often, but of course, the frequency of use is dependent on the individual.  At the time of writing, I had only used the strips twice, 4 days apart.

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So how did it fare?

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My Thoughts Thus Far on Creative Ziio’ s PlayChinese Tablet

Posted on May 2, 2012 by The Giddy Tigress

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I blogged about our initial experience with Creative Ziio’s PlayChinese tablet about a month ago.  Since then, we have been playing with this tablet and experimenting with it as much as possible.  I know that there are so many more things this tablet can do and teach us, but for the moment, I feel that it is still underutilized, and you will see in a moment, why I think that way.

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Initial Experience

My son is the main user of this tablet and he uses it to practise writing whatever characters he fancies.  I don’t come down hard on him and force him to write on the tablet at least 15 minutes a day.  I feel that at his age, learning should be fun, and should not be forced.  He seems to enjoy writing on the Shenbii application, especially when he rakes in the points.

What We Have Discovered and Learned

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  • The Shenbii writing application is a great tool for users to learn the correct strokes and remember how to write them, through practice and repetition.  Learning Chinese is, after all, all about repetition and memorizing.
  • On top of the that, the Shenbii application is able to provide the meaning of words, simply by clicking on the Dictionary button.playchineserev4
  • The size of the tablet is a 7″ one, which I think is perfect especially for kids to hold and grasp.  Fits nicely onto the palm and also doesn’t take up much space if you want to tote it around in your bag.
  • The Shenbii writing application requires the user to write using the correct character strokes in the correct order, and then repeat after the voice pronouncing the word.  While erroneous strokes are detected very well, my son very quickly discovered that the error threshold for the pronunciation is way way below par.  The application will accept ANY verbal input: my kids actually had a good laugh because they found it hilarious that the application could not detect their mistakes.  I did speak to the sales representatives and they told me the threshold was lowered because initially, users got frustrated because they could not pronounce the word accurately.  So they have now opted for a lower verbal threshold in the hope that users would follow the voice and repetition would produce a correct sounding word.  I would have preferred a slightly higher threshold for the verbal pronunciation though, merely for accuracy’s sake.

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