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#28947 - 06/13/13 06:30 AM Soap/Bathing Help-New here-Appreciate any input!!!
Jessica422 Offline
New member

Registered: 03/07/08
Posts: 2
Loc: Wilmington, DE, USA
Hello everyone. I'm a 34 yr old female. I've been reading all these posts and now sadly (and happily!) realize I pretty much know NOTHING about this condition I thought I basically had all figured out! I actually only discovered Eucerin a few years ago, before that, all I'd ever used was Lubriderm! My head is swimming with all this new info and many tips and ideas. I realize now that maybe there are some things that can help me improve and I'm just gonna have to do A LOT of experimenting! As I kind of felt that my skin was in an "acceptable" state now (since I'm an adult, and married, very happily) I honestly just wasn't worried about trying to improve at all....until I had my beautiful little boy! I kinda feel as if I owe it to him to put a little effort into this endeavor so I can have something more to tell him to do then I got from my dad (not his fault). By the way, I'm pretty sure we have CIE. Anyway, I'm rambling, but here are my questions-

#1-I was always hesitant to add any kind of additives like bath oils to my tub because (although they felt great on my skin to soak in, and for about a day afterward) they always made me waaay too slippery to rub down, which was the main point of my bath! (Fyi- I've always just used my hands to rub down)Can't get any friction/traction if there's any kind of oils/lotion on my skin! Any one else have this issue?

And #2- Along the same lines, every time I've tried to use any kind of body washes or moisturizing soaps, it just doesn't seem to effectively "cut through" all the cream residue, once again leaving me too slippery to rub down and feeling just plain not clean. I always go for a nice, strong, deodorant soap like Irish Spring. It is Very drying, but at least I come out feeling clean. Again, is this an issue for others as well?

Just so ya know, my routine is as follows- shower daily (most of the time anyway!), take bath hopefully about once a week (although sometimes it gets postponed several days), shower to wash off all the lotion, then fill up tub, soak a couple hours, then rub off soft scales with hands. It's totally a crap shoot, after soaking sometimes I get a ton off, sometimes a little, and sometimes it just doesn't work at all!! Can NOT find any rhyme or reason to it! Would love to hear your thoughts and specific routines! Thanks in advance!

#28967 - 07/26/13 01:51 AM Re: Soap/Bathing Help-New here-Appreciate any input!!! [Re: Jessica422]
Glori Offline


Registered: 08/14/00
Posts: 499
Loc: Elk Rapids, Michigan
I use straight baby oil in my bath, or Alpha Keri oil, but I use very little. It just takes a little drizzle to make my skin soft enough to exfoliate after soaking. I take my shower AFTER the bath to get rid of the oiliness and then when I towel off I feel clean and you get that traction that you were talking about!

#28970 - 07/26/13 10:26 PM Re: Soap/Bathing Help-New here-Appreciate any input!!! [Re: Jessica422]
Hearsay Offline


Registered: 01/16/04
Posts: 1449
Loc: Richmond, VA, USA
Hi, Jessica! Everyone's routine is a bit different depending on their symptoms. Do I understand correctly that your dad, you AND your son are affected? If so, I suspect that CIE is the wrong diagnosis! Whatever you have sounds like a dominant condition - so vulgaris or maybe EKV or PPK or some form of EHK. I know it's a bunch of alphabet soup, but getting the diagnosis right helps a lot in figuring out what works.

For us, we have ichthyosis en confetti, which even the ichthyosis families have never heard of! It's basically really thick skin that keeps on growing, so we're doing hours on end of scrubbing to keep it under control. For us, we find that the shower works better than the bath. Get wet, then just sort of hang out in the steam while scrubbing. When we use the bath, the skin hydrates a bit too much and then it tends to get sore, so we stick to showers most of the time.

As for products, have you ever tried some of the acid washes or lotions - things like ammonium lactate or Aqua-glycolic? We like St. Ives Apricot scrub. It's cheap and has both walnut shell bits and salicylic acid in it to help control the scale. We also do a lot of manual scrubbing with those heavy black files like the nail salons use and a flea comb to manage scalp buildup.
Ichthyosis-en-Confetti Type 2
I also have an unaffected daughter, age 8.

email: jennifer at confettiskin dot com


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