Skin & Life After Facial Incident: What You’ve Always Wanted To Know - Part 2

And HELLO again! 🙂  In Part 1 of Skin & Life After Facial Incident: What You’ve Always Wanted To Know, I answered questions on reasons why I cannot disclose its identity, the legal implications, some skin updates, and my thoughts on makeup.

In Part 2, I shall answer more questions pertaining to my skin, doctors I've been to, why I've stopped going to some, and more.

Note: This post was updated on 11 June 2016

Q: Why did you stop going to Dr Joyce Lim clinic/Clifford clinic/any other clinic? 

A: Dr Joyce Lim played a huge part in my recovery from the allergic reaction. She made the correct diagnosis, gave the right meds and by the next day my skin had stop flaring. No more new barnacles, and old pustules were starting to dry up. I continued to see Dr Joyce for a year and did microdermabrasion and chemical peeling for my wedding. I had such great skin during that period.

Then somehow the products stopped taking effect and I started to have some acne again. I guess my skin didn’t take to her products anymore.

I didn’t see any doctor for a period of 6 months until I got to know Dr Gerard Ee from Clifford Clinic. I was with the clinic from January to June 2015 and wrote a detailed documentation of my journey during the period. Then suddenly my skin decided it didn’t like the drugs and products prescribed anymore too. Sheesh, such fickle-mindedness.

I don’t think any skin doctor is superior or inferior to another, it’s just a matter of finding the right one at the right time.

Skin changes, and so should our choices. 🙂

Q: What products are you using now? Can I get them from the pharmacy?

A: I would advise that you see a doctor, and not just buy products off the shelf based on what I say work for me. Everyone’s skin is different and will react differently to products. The worse thing you can do is self-diagnose.

Q: Are you endorsing Product XXX or YYY? Does it work?

Ever since my disfigured photos went viral, many brands have taken to using them without my permission to cheat customers into believing their products are some miraculous cure to whatever these scammers want people to believe. Unless you see it on my blog, my Dayre, my Instagram, my Facebook, or social media platforms administered by me, I DO NOT ENDORSE IT. I would most likely have never used it before either.

Q: How do you find a good doctor?

It depends on what your definition of ‘good’ is. To me, a good doctor is one who shows genuine concern for my skin and doesn't dismiss my worries, and doesn't hard-sell. I LOATHE money-minded doctors and hard-selling nurses. So far I've been to two such clinics.

If you have been misdiagnosed before or see no results with your current doctor, all I can say is don’t stop searching. At different points of my life, a certain doctor was my savior, and when I knew my skin was done with that place, I moved on.

Q: I hate looking at my ugly skin. How do you deal with your acne/allergic reaction?

A: I hate it when my skin looks shitty too. I hate feeling the bumps and unevenness when washing my face. When my skin is bad, I feel bad. It’s almost as though my mood is skin-dependent.

It's not only red and spotty, the texture feels like sandpaper. Some areas are oily, while other areas are dry and flaky. Yes, all at the same time on one face. On a scale of 1 to 10 of bad skin days, the above was probably 5. There were worse times.

I’ll dread going out, to work, with friends, because I feel self-conscious of how my skin presents itself to others. I have had people make a joke of my skin and ask why my skin looks so terrible and shouldn’t I do something about it, as though I asked for any of it and am not trying my best to find a solution.

Despite all that talk about accepting yourself, believing you are beautiful, yada-yada-yada, you will not feel beautiful when people STARE at your pimples or pustules or skin imperfections instead of looking into your eyes.

If you have ok skin and you need to feel intelligent by commenting that that’s a very shallow thought, maybe you can dunk your head in acid and see if you still believe so. It doesn’t matter the degree of flaw, we are wired to look at our own imperfections in magnification.

Therefore, unfortunately I can’t give any good advice on this coz I personally don’t feel better with whatever anyone consoles me with when I have bad skin. So I guess…… just know that you’re not alone in this! There are many, many people (based on the number of emails I get everyday) in this world who are also struggling with skin issues.

We cannot stop people from saying bad things about us, but we can try to make it easier for others who struggle with skin problems too. Spread the love. <3

Q: Why don't you reply my emails?

I don't mind writing back to those who ask for help, especially those with intelligent questions. But I refuse to answer those with questions like:

"Can you tell me how you look like now?"

"Can you recommend a doctor for me in <insert a country other than Singapore>?"

"I went for a facial at XXX, did the blah blah blah therapy, and my face broke out! Now I'm going to another facial place. Do you think it will be better?"

"What did you do after the facial? I'm desperate!"

==> Apparently not desperate enough to read my blog to find links I have already put up for their convenience

"How did you recover?"

==> Next question

Q: How did you recover?

Either I did a very bad job at providing all the links to the other parts of the series at the bottom of each post, or people just can't be bothered to help themselves. If something crazy happens to me, and I know of someone who has been through a similar situation, I would exhaust all means to understand what she's been through, and read all the links that she has so kindly put up in her post.

Another reason I don't reply to 'how did you recover' is because I don't have an answer to this. I don't think I ever will 'recover' from this - physically and emotionally.

I was told during my worst skin days that my PCOS condition is the one that causes all these never-ending acne. So then I will have to keep popping pills and live with skin complications for the rest of my life. Well, at the moment, the PCOS hasn't gone away, but I no longer am popping pills and my skin seems to like that it is not being subjected to drugs and treatments and products too strong for it. I didn't do much, just changed a doctor.

What worked for me in the past may not work for me now, so what works for me may not work for you too.

Today

After a change in prescriptions, my skin started seeing better days.

This was when Mr Mode and I were holidaying in Phuket. Shot an advertorial for Uriage Thermal Water.

This was for Revlon HD Lipsticks. (Makeup and lighting make a huge difference)

From the later part of 2015 until now (June 2016), I haven't taken much photos of my skin with a camera. With my iPhone and posted on Dayre yes, but not camera-quality. I take pictures when my skin is going through hell, so that's a good yardstick for skin performance. =) But of course, it hasn't been smooth sailing, there have been bad skin days too, just a lot less than before. I have also mentioned in Part 1 that I have so far seen three other doctors to get my skin to where it is now.

If you’re interested to know about these doctors, you can drop me an email at bunbunmakeuptips@gmail.com. Please be kind and do not DEMAND LIKE I OWE YOU. Thank you. 🙂

Because you have been such a wonderful and kind audience to read until here, I shall reward you with pictures of my naked face HAHA:

Some weird bumps on my jawline, but that's ok, I don't need flawless. I can live with this. 🙂

But you never know, my skin might just go crazy again once it's done with the skin care products I'm currently using. I'll update on my Dayre, so do follow me on the app. I'm also bunbunmakeuptips on Dayre.

I hope these FAQs have helped most of you. If you have any unique questions that have not been answered in this two-part series and cannot be found on any of my social media platforms, feel free to drop me an email! 😀

Love,

Juli