So, I’m going to talk about something besides running. I know, it probably seems like there’s very little else in my life. But I have a full life, with lots of joy, laughter, trials, and pain.

Trials. About four years ago, I developed a condition on my scalp called sephorrheic dermatitis. It kind of sucks. I’m not exactly the prime candidate for this condition. Along these lines, the traditional shampoos that are supposed to help really haven’t done much for me. I’ve controlled it for most of this time with an over-the-counter soap that I use on both my face and to wash my hair, and it’s been controlled, but never gone away. Well, the soap has gotten nearly impossible to find. So I’ve been rationing myself a little; instead of washing my entire scalp with it, I’ve only been washing my face with it. I’ve gone back to the shampoos that don’t work on my scalp. My scalp has gotten increasingly worse over the last few months.

Well, in further proof that the shampoos just don’t work for me, the condition has, for the first time, showed up on my face. It’s on one of my eyelids. It’s not very pretty, but at least it’s kind of hidden while my eyes are open. And I’m trying to remember that no one but me and Chris know it’s there, and they’re likely not going to notice.

As the modern medicine treatments have done very little for me, I decided to look at other options – of which there are lots, because apparently the modern medical treatments don’t help a lot of people.

This is the most promising I’ve seen - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11485891 That’s right, an actually medical study looking at the effects of applying honey to sephorrheic dermatitis as treatment. And it seems to work!

So over the next few months, I’m going to try to chronicle the honey treatment. If it’s working, if it’s not, what’s hard about it, what’s good…I hope to include it all.

Day 1: I mixed a heaping tablespoon of raw honey with about half a tablespoon of warm water. It basically just thins the honey a little. I started on my eyelid. I found that I actually dipped my finger in the honey and reapplied it three or four times while rubbing it in for about 2 minutes. And it dripped down my nose and felt like I was crying. My eye feels stuck open a little. After just rubbing it in, my eye looks sparkly, but the seb. derm spot looks…better! Already!

I also then tried the most affected (most itchy, most annoying, most painful) spot on my scalp. I didn’t want to do my whole scalp at this time, because I want to see how hard it is to wash it after leaving the honey/water mixture on my hair for 2 – 3 hours. While applying, it actually seems to be easier than I thought it would. I started with a very small area, but when getting more on my fingers, I found myself applying to a bigger area.

So…here goes. And let’s hope the honey helps.

(Full disclosure – I’m also going to change a medication which I just figured out I started at the same time the seb. derm developed. It’s not supposedly a side effect of the medication, but I’m concerned about the correlation between them.)