![]() ![]() The only way I could feel any kind of happiness was through an improvement in my skin. Over the years I became obsessive about the state of my skin.Ī good day became a day when my skin wasn't as angry as usual a bad day became one of those many days when I saw - in mirrors, in cutlery, in any reflective surface I could find - a red-faced, blotchy, scabby man looking back at me. I eked out each prescription for as long as I could, to put off having to go back for a morale-sapping inspection. When I returned to see the doctor, I wanted to give him the good news that he had cured me, but the truth was his ointment couldn't control the 'dermatitis'. The blotches on my face still came and went, and from time to time disappeared on my torso too, though I now believed it to be the cream that was making them go. I went to the chemist with my prescription for Betnovate, a trade name for cortisone, a substance that was to be my constant companion for the next eight years. 'This is nothing to worry about,' he reassured me, 'just a spot of dermatitis.' It was the first of many names I was given for my skin condition. It was two years from the first appearance of my 'shaving rash' before I went to a doctor. I eventually married a woman who had suffered from acne. It kept me from swimming and made me instead take up scuba diving with its concealing suit and mask and skiing.Īnd it drew me towards other people with bad skin out of sheer sympathy with their pain. Some things I did, such as drink red wine and party late into the night, my skin disapproved of, and it would be waiting in the morning to reprove me at its most blotchy. The marks - red patches no bigger than postage stamps - came and went I didn't like them, but I began to accommodate them. I had been brought up to think of my body as something to be bashed and punished into obedience. Treatment was sponging my face in scalding water. Sounded manly and, I hoped, almost enviable, the consequence of my virility and hirsuteness. I declared that they were 'a shaving rash'. On first seeing the red blotches around my mouth and nostrils, I had no idea of the hell I was descending into. When I developed a rash on my face in my mid-20s, I took the family line and simply denied anything was wrong. The Kennaway first aid box was empty but for a bit of paper that said: 'STOP FUSSING AND GET ON WITH IT.' This was the manner of our family even when something was as plain as the nose on your face, it could be denied out of existence. This was because my mum had informed us that Emma's birthmark 'made her more attractive' and gave her face 'character' - apparently a good thing. In my family this was considered a blessing. My sister was born with a birthmark on her right cheek. ![]() Here, Guy describes how he discovered a treatment that really helped - nearly 20 years after he first developed the condition. There is no cure and he, like many sufferers, has resorted to all sorts of remedies. ![]() Personal battle: Guy Kennaway aimed for the sunĪuthor Guy Kennaway, 51, is one of the many thousands of Britons living with psoriasis, an embarrassing and debilitating skin condition. ![]()
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