In my effort to lose weight, I have been doing a lot of walking. I try to walk at work, outdoors, on the treadmill - wherever and whenever I can. Now that the weather has gotten so much warmer, I especially enjoy heading outdoors to walk a few laps around my building at work or out and around my neighborhood. I think most of you would agree that heat + exercise = sweat. Well, let's just say that while it didn't show on my face, I was sweating A LOT under my clothes - unbeknownst to me. Yep, even at work. Ewww, right? I guess you're thinking body odor right? Nope. Rash. In the belly roll. Never in my entire life as a fat lady have I ever had this happen! I was instantly horrified, disgusted and embarrassed all at once.
This... this thing has a name - "intertrigo" - basically it means a rash between skin folds. If you look up images on the internet, you may be pretty grossed out at what you find. And if you do decide to check out images, don't have kids around because many of the images involve the genitals.
So, you probably aren't wondering how any of this felt, or what specifically I went through, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. You can always skip this particular post, right?
Well, it was pretty simple really - I went to scratch an itch there between the ol' belly fat and it hurt - OUCH!!. So, I grabbed a mirror and checked it out. OMG!! I have never been so like "Ewwww, GROSS!" about anything on my body ever before. There was this 3-inch area of very red, oozing, shiny skin - I've never seen anything like it. And what's worse was it smelled horrid. I once had an infected ingrown toenail - I'd say the smell is similar. I knew something was very wrong. I jumped online and searched until I narrowed it down. It seems this is a fairly common problem, not just in fat folks either. Whew! It's curable. (And it may not involve a doctor visit.) The first thing was to get a shower!!!! Then get that area as dry as possible - I used my hair dryer on the "cool" setting.
Next, I got in my car and drove to Walgreens. I perused the female yeast infection products, the jock itch products and the athlete's foot products (anti-fungal). They all seemed to have common ingredients and I knew from my internet search what to look for, but I didn't know which would work the fastest and most importantly - work for me. I honestly didn't want to buy the female yeast infection stuff because they involve these tubes that are meant to be uh, inserted... and I didn't really want to buy a jock itch product because, well... I'm not a dude. So finally (seriously, it took like 30 minutes), I asked the pharmacist. She was very helpful as I embarrassingly explained my situation. She pointed out a few products discreetly and I bought one. It's called "Lamisil."
So, me and my Lamisil headed home. I dried the area with the hair dryer again and cautiously applied the cream. I expected it to burn, sting, light my ass on fire - but no - it was very anti-climatic. Can a medicine actually work if it doesn't burn like hell? I was skeptical. However, when I got up in the morning, the red area wasn't so inflamed and it didn't hurt near like it did the night before. Wash. Rinse. DRY. Reapply. That's the mantra, twice a day. After it heals, keep the area as dry as possible from now until I no longer have a belly roll.
Oddly enough, I saw a commercial on tv today with Shaq advertising this new Gold Bond Spray Powder. I'm thinking - ahHAA! Thanks Shaq!! And thank you so very much to the Well-Rounded Mama blog for ALL the excellent info on this Intertrigo business! I hope I never have to visit you for this reason EVER again.
I sincerely hope that I haven't just embarrassed myself for all time. And I hope you'll forgive me for that TMI - I'll try not to let it happen again.
Have a great and wonderful weekend! And if you live anywhere near the Colorado wildfires, please stay safe and know that there are people praying for you.
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