Lesson Learned

As fall approaches, I always contemplate going to a darker shade hair color for a change (my natural brown is fairly dark).  So, when I couldn't get in with hairdresser to update my highlights for another 3 weeks, I decided to seize the day.  Think of the time and money I could save!  I hauled the boys to Target, grabbed two boxes of  hair color, and colored it Thursday evening after the boys went to bed.

Before

After

If only my post could end there.  If anyone has ever colored their own hair, even if it was back in high school, you may vaguely recall that you are supposed to perform a 48 hour allergy test before putting the product all over your hair.  Now I am no hair color novice- I have been having my hair colored since I was 22 and had never had a problem.

Until now.
The culprit:

 It turns out that the darker the hair color, the higher the concentration of a chemical called PPD.  Apparently a ton of people are allergic to PPD, and a lot of European countries have banned the chemical for upwards of ten years.  But not the U.S.  And apparently, I am one of the thousands of people allergic to PPD.

So Friday morning I woke up to rash all over my left, inner arm.  At first I thought it was poison ivy (which I get just by thinking of it), but my mid-day it was also on my neck.

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And by Saturday morning, it was all over my shoulders.

By Sunday, it was also on my chest, ears, right lower arm, and spreading higher on my neck.  I spent Sunday in a Benadryl stupor to no avail.

By this morning it is on my face and about a 1/4 inch from my left eye.  I have given up on the Benadryl and went to see my doctor.  With the exception of a large dose of steroids (which I had a bad experience with in the past), there wasn't much they could recommend.  So we'll wait it out another few days and see if it continues to spread, or finally subsides.  From what I could find online, this kind of reaction typically takes weeks to cycle out. 

Yippee.

The two rays of sunshine in this mess are that it is not nearly as itchy as poison ivy, and the bumps are so fine that it is barely visible to someone else. That means I am not quite a carnival show yet.
Oh, and Tom is thrilled at the prospect that I may never be able to color my hair dark again. 

Stay tuned for more news of the strange and grotesque.
And you are welcome for the extra large image of my rash.

Update Tuesday Morning:  I woke up with both functioning eyes and no more spreading.  I am not convinced that the worse is over yet, but just maybe...