And The Verdict Is In...

In my last post, I talked a little bit about the T.R.U.E Test and what made me seek out contact allergy testing. After over two years of mystery itching, it was time to figure out what was going on. And so I finally dragged myself into the dermatologist on three separate occasions in a single week and let them stick itchy tape all over my back. I was just praying that I wasn't allergic to my nail polish!

The T.R.U.E test is a skin allergy patch test that looks for contact sensitivity to the 35 most common skin irritants. According to the T.R.U.E Test website, the test includes:

Nickel sulfate
Wool alcohols
Neomycin sulfate
Potassium dichromate
Caine mix
Fragrance mix
Colophony
Paraben mix
Negative control
Balsam of Peru
Ethylenediamine dihydrochloride
Cobalt Dichloride

p-tert-Butylphenol formaldehyde resin
Epoxy resin
Carba mix
Black rubber mix
Cl+ Me- isothiazolinone (MCI/MI)
Quaternium-15
Methyldibromo glutaronitrile
p-Phenylenediamine
Formaldehyde
Mercapto mix
Thimerosal
Thiuram mix

Diazolidinyl urea
Quinoline mix
Tixocortol-21-pivalate
Gold sodium thiosulfate
Imidazolidinyl urea
Budesonide
Hydrocortizone-17-butyrate
Mercaptobenzothiazole
Bacitracin
Parthenolide
Disperse blue 106
2-Bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol (Bronopol)

My most prominent reaction was to gold, but apparently gold frequently produces false positives. I haven't worn much gold over the past few years (ever since my fingers got too fat for my wedding ring), so I guess I'll just have to see if it's something that actually bothers me.

I also tested positive for Carba mix, Cl + Me isothiazolinone, and Thimerosal.

Carba is an accelerator that is often used in the manufacturing of rubber products. This makes it incredibly difficult to trace down, as it is not a true "ingredient" and requires knowledge of specific manufacturing procedures. While the safest bet is to avoid all rubber products, this is proving to be quite difficult for me. Everything seems to have rubber in it. There is rubber on my steering wheel cover, rubber on the grips of 95% of the pens I own, rubber on my eyelash curler, rubber in my shoes... the list goes on and on.

Thimerosol is a mercury-based preservative that up until a few years ago was a common ingredient in many contact lens solutions (but more about that later). Luckily, it has been phased out of a lot of products. Thimerosol may still be found in some vaccines, ear/eye/nose medications, and antiseptic sprays. While it may make me think twice before getting a flu shot (I haven't had one in years because they always make me sick.) it looks like this one should be pretty easy to avoid.

Now my dermatologist seems to think the the substance most likely to be the cause of all my woes is the isothiazolinone... Ah, isothiazolinone... why must you taunt me? This little guy comes in many different forms and though the T.R.U.E Test only seems to look for methylisothiazolinone and chloromethylisothiazolinone, I think I'm going to just go ahead and avoid anything ending in isothiazolinone...

Ode to isothiazolinone

Goodbye to soap

Goodbye to shampoo

Goodbye to all of my favorite hair goo

Goodbye to lotion,

Goodbye to anti-aging face potion

Goodbye to sunscreen

Goodbye to cream

Goodbye to my entire beauty routine

My Origin Story

I use to think that my skin was as tough as nails. While I had friends who complained about having "sensitive skin" and the woes of finding products that worked for them, nothing seemed to bother me. Sure, my fair coloring burned easily in the sun, but for the most part my skin was good. I didn't have to worry about what I put on it.

Those were the days...

In the spring of 2013, after a particularly harsh round of anti-biotics, I developed a nasty looking rash on my left hand that just wouldn't go away. Some days it itched. Some days it oozed. Nothing helped. Perhaps it was fungal, my doctor suggested. Or bacterial. Or maybe I just had eczema. But no matter what manner of creams or potions I rubbed on my skin, the rash wouldn't budge. My primary doctor suggested that I see a dermatologist—a task which I put off for over a year. I told myself that I didn't have the time to see a specialist. I told myself I didn't have the money. I told myself that it would eventually get better.

Then last winter I developed a bad case of what I can only describe as "zombie face." My skin dried up and started cracking. My cheeks oozed puss. It looked like my face was falling off. In hindsight, I wish I had taken pictures to show how bad it was, but at the time I was far too embarrassed to face a camera. I finally made an appointment with a dermatologist, who was convinced that I was experiencing an allergic reaction. She recommended patch testing—something I would later come to find many dermatologists are hesitant to do. I took her advice and stopped wearing makeup for nearly six months and while my face improved, I felt naked without my tinted moisturizers. Yet I still didn't call to schedule the test.

In June, my husband and I went to Italy where I slathered my face with sunscreen daily to prevent myself from turning into a lobster. While I didn't burn, my face began to itch and peel once again. I spent the evenings in our room slathering it in lotion and wondering why my skin just couldn't seem to behave.

Finally in July, I bit the bullet and went in for the T.R.U.E Test. The T.R.U.E Test is a thin-layer rapid use epicutaneous patch test (try saying that three times fast) used for determining contact dermatitis and skin allergies. It was a week long process that began with a nurse taping three large bandages covered with possible irritants to my back. They then sent me home with strict instructions not to get my back wet or do anything that would cause me to sweat—a difficult feat in the middle of summer.  Within hours I was itching. By the end of day two it burned so bad that I had a constantly running daydream about scratching my back against a tree like a bear. Something was definitely going on back there! On the third day I went back to the dermatologist so that the bandages could be removed. The nurse's jaw nearly dropped when she saw my skin and she later told me that in her 15 years of working in dermatology she had never seen such a bad reaction. The doctor, however, seemed unfazed and sent me home to let the irritants brew in the open air for another two days before the final diagnosis. Still no showers allowed. By the end of the week I stunk and I itched, but at least I knew what was going on with me...

I had skin allergies.