An
affliction which first showed up when I was about 12. It
consists of dry,
scaly skin on my
elbows and head. It is
itchy at times, but
looks far worse than it is.
Highly embarrassing when you are in meetings and your
suit shoulders are covered in white "
dandruff", or when meeting a girl, and it
snows when you move your head.
There are a huge range of wives tales and supposed remedies, most of which I have tried, but there is no cure to date. Some of the treatments I have tried:
coal-tar soaps and shampoos - leave you smelling like a festering oil slick
eating proteins and carbohydrates 4 hours apart - this means eat your meat now and your spuds, rice and/or bread in four hours time, not together
A tablespoon of malt vinegar every 2 hours
massive doses of vitamin B - my pee was so yellow it damn-near glowed in the dark
cod-liver oil - bleeeech!
dandruff shampoo - just dries your scalp out more
One thing that I have found causes flare-ups more than anything is stress. I have tried to go without stress in my day, but this has the unfortunate side effect of - oh, I just don't give a fuck.
Another contributor is alcohol, which also makes it quite bad for the next week.
I have tried no treatments at all - and this just made it worse. One time I decided to obliterate it entirely, and used this ointment that the doctor gave me. It is like Vaseline, so you can imagine what that is like to apply to a hairy head. Anyway I smothered any spot on my body with this gunk every couple of hours for 3 days. The bloody spots appeared all over my face - just in time for my birthday! I gave up, and let it do its thing.
Today, I just keep it in check. If it gets too bad, and dries out and starts cracking, I put on some of my magic ointment, but really just let it devour my body slowly.