You might be wondering why I chose my nose as the flaw of the week for Friday's post. The answer is simple really; I've been staring at the thing all week thanks to the lovely zit that erupted on its tip last weekend. A week later I continue to look like this:
Only not so green. The zit has been making me nuts, so much so that I have actually considered blowing $20 to $40 to order yet another ProActiv kit.
Do you want to know who I blame for that? I blame the celebrities. Every time I turn on the TV, another new celebrity like Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, or that woman that plays Annie on All My Children is endorsing the products in an infomercial, claiming that those three little steps are the reason their skin is now perfect. On an intellectual level, I say, "Yeah, right." Maybe the ProActiv is helping some, but I doubt it is the only reason their once blemished skin is now perfect. I guarantee you that they're all seeing some Los Angeles Dermatologist who is doing a lot more for their pimples than telling them to call a 1-800 number or QVC.
On an emotional level, however, I want to believe their claims. I want to believe the before and after shots. I want to believe that my skin will look like theirs if I use ProActiv religiously and at the same time forget that I have tried it at least ten times in the past without success. It is the emotional response that I have to keep in check, or I'll end up picking up the phone and wasting money on something I know doesn't work for me.
Believe it or not, my skin was clear in high school. It didn't start breaking out until college. I started seeing a dermatologist then and spent college and most of law school on tetracycline and Differin. Those products worked for awhile and then stopped. When I started the job from hell, I made an appointment with a new dermatologist who I never got to see. Instead, all I got to see was a physician's assistant who couldn't even bother to raise his head and look at my skin. He just looked at the form I filled out, said there was nothing else he could do for me other than prescribe Accutane, and handed me the checkout sheet when I turned the Accutane down. I was so angry at and frustrated by his treatment, I haven't been back to a dermatologist since.
I remember that the physician's assistant told me that there had not been any new discoveries in Advanced Dermatology since the invention of Differin, as far as acne was concerned. I thought he was full of poo then and still do. For instance, some doctors' offices like Celibre in California use lasers for more than just Laser Tattoo Removal and body hair removal; they also use the lasers to kill acne-causing bacteria and shrink the pores. Did the physician's assistant ever even suggest laser therapy? No. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to ignore see 20 more patients that hour.
Anyway, I guess that's my roundabout way of saying that I have tried to do something to my skin, but I can only do so much when the doctors around here are more concerned with seeing a certain number of patients per hour than actually treating those patients. Who does that sound like? Right, my vet. Just add it to the list of reasons I need to move.
It's also my way of saying that, despite all the staring and the willing it to do so, the zit still hasn't gone away. It continues to mock me from the bathroom mirror and to cause me to think of very little else than, "Zit, nose, zit, nose, zit, nose." Just consider yourselves lucky that I didn't come up with the top 10 reasons to love my zits.
Reason #1: Even when I'm out of Charmin, I still have something to squeeze.
See. Mocking my own big honker wasn't such a bad topic after all.
This post is brought to you by your friends at Celibre.com.
