Heal Thyself

I don't know about you, but I just don't have time to go to the doctor. To be honest, even if I had tons of time on my hands, I still wouldn't want to spend a single minute the doctor's office. With four kids, I see plenty of waiting rooms on their behalf. So when it comes to myself I like to avoid it whenever possible.

Recently, however, I really thought I was going to have to bite the bullet and go. I'd been battling the problem for months. Nothing I tried had worked, and I was now in real pain. What terrible thing could have driven me to such desperation? Promise not to laugh? O.k. -- it was chapped lips. You said you wouldn't laugh!

Honestly, I would laugh at me too if I were you. Only I'm the one whose lips were self destructing and it was NOT at all funny. I had been through tons of Burt's Bees Balm, Vaseline, Chapstick...I'd even sprung for a $10 tube of lip balm at L'Occitane. Nothing helped and I could barely open my mouth to eat. Also, I looked similar to the "Before" pictures in all those ads for herpes medications.

Since it's the weekend, and everyone knows Dermatologists only work Monday through Thursday (at best), I turned to the internet for help. Although I've never actually hugged a tree, I found this site to be extremely helpful. Apparently the people who publish Prevention magazine have compiled a list of symptoms for everything from Aches to Warts and everything in between (including Hearing Voices, which was a personal favorite). I've only tried the remedy for Lip Chapping, but it was 100% effective and I think I'll be able to forego a visit to the dermatologist after all. Incidentally, the saltwater compress worked better than Lip Venom at plumping my pucker, and it certainly felt a lot better than liquid cayenne pepper (the active ingredient in most of those drugstore "trout pout" solutions).

Hope this proves helpful in some small way.