Story time. Buckle up.
Last December I got strep throat from my daughter, Evelyn. I didn’t know it was strep throat as I didn’t have white patches on the back of my throat, but did have an extremely sore throat for 4 days. Finally I called my primary doctor and got an antibiotic. I would have sooner, but I was looking for certain things that said “yep this is strep” and I didn’t have all of those things wrong.
A few days after the antibiotic, my body started breaking out in a rash/hives. I thought it was a reaction to the medication, but my doctor and I ruled that out eventually.
The rash continued to spread, everywhere. All of my skin, including my scalp, except on my neck and face. I got into a dermatologist and after a strep culture and biopsy, I was diagnosed with Guttate Psoriasis (strep induced psoriasis – yes, I got this autoimmune disease directly from strep throat). My dermatologist gave me a few things to try to get rid of the guttate psoriasis. One thing she wanted me to do was take Methotrexate, which is a drug that is super strong and chemotherapy/immune suppressant. I opted to not take an oral medication after researching the side effects. It just wasn’t something I was willing to go through. So we opted for a few topical steroids. I used them off and on for months. Steroid creams thin your skin and your skin can “crave” or become dependent on them. I didn’t really know what that meant exactly. What I found out is that my skin would hurt when I squatted down, or sat on my knees, or itched. And it would get inflamed and super red if I didn’t use the cream – that’s the “craving”. You’re only supposed to use it for 10-14 days. My doctor had me using it for two to three weeks at a time, with a week off. It still took 6 months for my skin to clear up.
Fast forward to September. My skin started breaking out again. I thought it was triggered from stress (major stress from car nonsense). But there was a couple of days where I didn’t feel my best. Sort of like a cold. I thought “great, I guess this is what’s going to happen when I get stressed/sick” as that can happen, and does to other sufferers at times. When the psoriasis started again, I immediately called my primary and asked for a strep test just to see. I also scheduled an appointment with my dermatologist. Strep test came back POSITIVE! I had zero symptoms of strep throat, other than just feeling kind of “blah” and tired. Great, apparently when you get strep as an adult, it can make you more susceptible to get it again. Yay.
I started using the steroid cream at the very onset of this outbreak. I still had some at home from the earlier outbreak. I thought that maybe I could get a handle on it before it got out of control. That was not the case. This outbreak was worse than the first time 😩
I started looking into alternate therapies more. What else could I do?!?! I didn’t want to take an oral medication that I could possibly be on for life. Steroid creams were not doing it, and my skin got ANGRY when I stopped using it. So incredibly inflamed and hot to the touch 🙄. I asked my dermatologist about light therapy. After consulting with St Louis University Dermatology Department, we decided it was a good idea for me. I have to consider my melanoma. It took a month to get into SLU. During that month I got a little desperate… Let me tell you about how the psoriasis sets in.
It starts as small bumps sort of. Kinda like fever blister sort of bumps. Those spread and spread and more pop up and they get bigger. It is not painful. It does not itch in this phase. Then, it starts to flake. This is honestly the worst part of it, aside from the appearance. I felt like a human snow globe. My entire body looked like I had the worst case of dandruff you’ve ever seen. I had to keep a small broom, dustpan and handheld vacuum in the bathroom because every time I used the bathroom and pulled my pants down, a snow flurry of skin occurred. Look, I know that’s gross to envision…imagine that being your day – every day – that you went to the bathroom. It takes a huge toll on you emotionally. My self confidence took a massive hit because you just feel so disgusting. It is hard to say how long you stay in this flaking stage. During this stage I began mixing up different things to try and help my skin. I tried making a shea butter cream. It felt nice, but nothing was improving. I tried mixing shea butter with different things like coconut oil, jojoba oil, olive oil, etc. until finally I decided to give tallow a try.
Tallow is rendered from beef fat. It sounds gross. But it has been used on skin for thousands of years. And it is still used today in many applications. I cook our turkey burgers in tallow! Ha! Anywho – I wanted to try mixing it with something to help the smell. It smells like fat, and reminded me a little of bacon grease. It’s not overwhelming, but it doesn’t have a very pleasant scent profile. I decided to try adding some essential oils that could also help with skin conditions and psoriasis specifically. I landed on frankincense and tea tree. I was shocked at what happened next.
In October my skin was angry and red and pealing like crazy. I take a lot of photos to keep track and will share some of them in this post for you to see. I cannot remember the exact date I mixed up the tallow balm, but it was towards the end of the month. By the first week in November my skin looked almost completely different on my arms, and I was also noticing differences on my chest, stomach and back…but the most remarkable was certainly my arms. Oh, I think I forgot to mention – this outbreak covered my entire body again. Head to toe, including my neck, scalp, ears and some on my nose this time. It is very difficult to take photos of your own body parts, haha! I tried my best, but didn’t always want to ask my husband to come take photos of my skin. He never made me feel bad about my skin in any way, he was very sympathetic, but it was still humiliating to me to ask him and I never felt good about myself after, no matter what he said or did. So there are lots of bathroom mirror selfies or weird angles in these photos.
I met a new dermatologist on November 6th at SLU Center for Advanced Care, Dermatology Department. She thought phototherapy would be a great first start for me. She was also very impressed with how my arms were looking. I told her what I was using and she said that I should keep using it, especially with how much it was helping.
On November 13th I started phototherapy. Phototherapy is interesting. With the type of skin I have, I had to start very, very low and slow on the exposure. A phototherapy booth looks sort of like a tanning bed, but it’s standing up instead of laying in a bed. I think my first therapy was for 33 seconds or some insanely short period of time. I had to coat my entire body with vaseline to make my skin more reflective so the light could penetrate the psoriasis. After a few appointments, I asked my photo therapist if I could use my tallow balm instead of the vaseline because I’m not a huge fan of petroleum based products and she agreed that my balm would do the trick. She loved my balm so much, that I mixed up a container for her. She would have to help me apply the balm or vaseline to my back in the places you can’t reach yourself. The light therapy definitely helped speed up the process of my skin clearing, but it still didn’t clear me 100%. I was going to therapy on average 3x a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I did this for two months. It was taking up so much of my time as I had a 30 minute drive to get there, plus completely undressing and applying balm, then redressing and driving home. It took the entire morning on those days. I opted to stop phototherapy last week due to the time commitment. However, I know my skin improved because of it, along with the balm. My psoriasis is mostly cleared from my body. Now all I am waiting on is the spots on my legs to fade. It almost looks like scaring, but it is just a pigment sort of thing…just darker pink spots, but no more flaking or itching. Your legs always take the longest to clear from the condition due to circulation.
Because I had such amazing results using tallow balm on myself, I decided to see if it would help anyone else. I mixed up some samples, asked some friends with skin issues to try it and give me their feedback as well as before and after photos. I will update this post with more photos as they become available. So far, it is helping!! My friend asked if she could use it on her allergy prone dog and sure enough, she could. The ingredients are dog safe and her overnight results were incredible. I can’t wait to see what it looks like in a few more days or weeks of use.
Tallow balm is now available on my website for purchase. I have 3 sizes available currently. The 0.5oz is very small, but great for on the go in your purse. The 2oz container would be perfect for someone who has a few spots they would like to treat. The 4oz is excellent for someone who has several areas that need attention. Tallow will melt. I will not be able to ship this in the hot months of summer. I may revisit packaging and shipping over summer months, but it would very likely change the texture of the finished product and may require you to whip it with your own mixer upon arrival. I will meet that challenge when it presents itself.
To order, here is a link to purchase. Please share this post and product with someone you love who is suffering with skin issues. This could be the answer they need.
***I am not diagnosing or treating anyone. I am not a doctor nor am I offering medical advice. Everything shared here is personal testimony and not meant to treat or diagnose anyone. I am using this with my dermatologists approval.
Meagan, my goodness! I had no idea you were going through this and I’m so sorry you did, but amazingly impressed by your determination, creativity, and ability to be such an educated advocate for yourself! I hope you continue to improve and can use your story to help others!