skin sensitivity

[Guest guest]

Just thought I'd throw in a quick comment here. Although a lot of people

know how to do a skin test to check for sensitivity, some people don't. To

test something the best way is to put a little on the inside of your

forearm (somewhere between the palm of your hand and the inside crease of

your arm joint opposite the elbow), the closer to the the crease the better

as the skin is very sensitive there, leave on for 10 to 15 minutes before

washing off and see if there is a reaction. If you're the type of person

who does react to things wait a couple of days and see if a rash appears on

the area you did the test. This will give you an indication of an

immediate contact reaction. Unfortunately, this will not test for

sensitivity that comes with continued use.

What to look out for:

for immediate contact sensitivity - redness, burning (some very rare

individuals will get a blister), a welt, itchiness, or any other skin

abnormality.

for continued use - vague symptoms such as respiratory problems, rashes,

odd feelings such as you get if you're toxic (hard to describe but sort of

like feeling weird physically). There are so many problems that could

occur that I won't list them here.

My aromatherapy lecturer told us of her friend's experience and its

something I'll never forget. She was treating someone for skin and muscle

problems and after much trial and error found one blend that worked for her

client which included a very small amount of Rosemary eo. After about 3

months of treating her client (second weekly massages) she developed a very

itchy rash that soon spread over various parts of her body. She tried to

treat herself and nothing worked, finally went to a dermatologist and found

that she was having an allergic reaction to something. She changed all her

cleaning agents, to no avail, the rash just got worse. She finally

finished treating her client who had gotten better and after a couple of

weeks after finishing the last treatment her rash went away. She finally

realised that is was probably something in the blend she had been using and

tested all the oils on herself. One use of rosemary and the rash

reappeared. Because she had been using the blend for 3 months without any

problems she hadn't realised that it was the Rosemary that was the problem.

Basically what had happened to her was that her liver and kidneys had

tried to deal with the eo and after 3 months could no longer cope with it

(detoxing and excreting it) and tried to excrete it through her skin which

is what the rash is. It worked very well for her client but was very

detrimental to her.

I learnt a great deal from this and now have the awareness that eos, like

any other substance, can build up in the liver and, over time, congest it

if you have a sensitivity to it. A sensitivity internally is where your

liver doesn't have, and can't produce, the right enzyme to break something

down into a less harmful substance. Or else you are ingesting too much of

the substance for your liver to handle (either via your mouth, your lungs

or through your skin). It then goes through your body and congests your

liver. Because your kidneys can't cope with the molecules the only other

way for excretion to happen is through the skin which is what various skin

complaints are.

One word of advise that was given to my class by our nutrition lecturer is

that eveything you consume (all foods, drinks, anything you inhale, put on

your skin etc) is a major toxin to the body and all have their own poisons.

The advice? Spread your poisons around, in other words, use something for

only a short period of time before changing onto something else, especially

food, the greater the variety the better.

Anyway, thats just my 2c worth.

Suzy