I mentioned a while back that I’m feeling almost back to my pre-surgery self, excepting a few areas: occasional pangs of pain, losing some weight gained before surgery and on bed rest, regaining My core strength, dealing with hair loss and addressing my skin, which is irritated and breaking out more than normal. It’s funny how much can be affected by a seemingly unrelated organ. While all of these complaints are minor, they’re still complaints.I’m actively addressing what I can. I’m regularly hitting the gym and slowly getting stronger, My nephrologist let me know that my thyroid should be a little out of whack for the next several months. He and I are monitoring it, but I assume that it’s to blame for the hair loss.

My skin is the one that I’ve struggled with the most. I know it’s not serious and mostly just vanity, but I’m in my mid-30s. I don’t want to be back on the skin regimens I used in high school!

My specific complaints are:

  • Persistent dry patches that turn painful and leave dark spots
  • General acne (likely not helped by my trying to treat the dry patches)
  • Some spots along my hairline that could be dryness or could be acne
  • Signs of aging that I used to be able to address with creams, but I’d had to discontinue the creams because of the dry patches

This is all coupled with the fact that I have really sensitive skin and will break out in hives if I use the wrong product!

I regretfully had my annual appointment with my dermatologist about 2 weeks before my hysterectomy, so I’ve been trying to come up with home remedies. I’ve spent a lot of time on Google. Do you know what you don’t want to do image searches on? Skin conditions. Yikes! The closest match I could find for the spots I was seeing, based both on definition and images, was Seborrheic Dermatitis. That label would cover both the dry spots on my skin and the spots on my hairline. I’ve found some shampoo and conditioner that is helping and that two different kinds of skin cream that seem to be slowly doing the trick.

Now that I’ve got things moving in the right direction, I’ve been trying out skin creams again. I’ve had great luck with Imbue Naturals 20% Vitamin C Serum. I’ve used it for the past several weeks and can see the difference. My skin feels tighter and, where I’m not dealing with other issues, looks great. So often when I try out a new product, it causes me to break out in hives. I haven’t had an issue with that at all! The directions indicate that you should follow use with moisturizer and that’s definitely the case. The serum leaves my skin a little dry but it’s easily addressed with lotion.

I still have my list of complaints, but now that I’m working on addressing them, they don’t seem so bad. I look in the mirror and see skin that is a little clearer and a lot brighter and that thrills me. I’m starting to get back into my regular clothing sizes and wear things that are a little more fitted. It’s a work in progress but at least I can see the progress.

This post was sponsored by Imbue Naturals. I received free sample of this product to review. All views shared are my own.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.