APPLE CIDER VINEGAR

I'm taking the Apple Cider Vinegar challenge. A few weeks ago I was having horrible and I mean horrible heartburn. Everything I was eating was burning and upsetting my stomach. Even not eating and drinking only water created a deep painful pit on my gut. I chalk it all up to the three different types of steroids I was on for an extremely bad case of Poison Ivy/Oak/Sumac and Virginia Creeper. You see, I'm extremely allergic to these vines and every few years I tend to forget this and think I'm invincible instead. This leads me to tackling whatever jungle is growing in the backyard or I just happen to be at the right place at the right time when some else has decided to tackle their jungle and my body decides, just for a split second that it hates me. And that's all it takes. This time instead of spreading incessantly to all parts of my body (and yes this has happened before, just imagine legs, arms, torso, covered in tiny itchy bumps), this time, it stayed primarily on my arms, where the blisters swelled to nickel sized painful welts. When I finally went to the doctor a week later, she told me I had the most impressive blisters she's ever seen. You don't have to believe me, I have the scars to prove it, even though they now look very much like ring worm. Some scars aren't the best battle wounds. 

Anyhow, this isn't about the poison ivy. It's about the steroids I was put on to get rid of the poison ivy that gave me severe heartburn. I was on three different types ya’ll: topical, injection, and oral. Things were bad and my stomach felt like someone had punched a burning ulcer in it.

I had about given up on trying to get rid of my pain when I decided to try an old trick to get rid of heartburn. I found it on Pinterest and it said to put a few drops of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water and drink it. So I psyched myself up and added at least a tablespoon to a pint of water and chugged down half the glass. I thought it’d be pretty nasty and vinegary tasting. All I could think of was the smell of white vinegar poured over collards at Thanksgiving or a bowl of cucumber slices soaking in white vinegar, of course as a kid I was always fooled. I always thought the cuckes were in water to stay crisp. My heartburn almost immediately went away. I also helped that I stopped taking the roids a few days later. I haven’t had indigestion since!

The trick is to use apple cider vinegar not that clear nasty stuff. As for the taste, I kinda ended up liking it. And it has brought me here to where I am taking the challenge raw apple cider vinegar toner challenge. For the most part I have clear skin, this was not always the case. During my teen years I had little pimple rash like zits all over my forehead and sides of my face. The big painful welty volcanic zits have no rhyme or reason, other than complete humiliation. One time I had a zit so large on my chin, I placed a band aid over it and told everyone I got bit by a spider. This thing was volcanic I tell you and to this day sometimes I still think that maybe I was bit by a spider with the looks of that pimple.

Now that I have entered my late 20s  I’ll have a random volcano every now and then, but primarily my breakouts consists of small inflamed white head zits. I also have bad blackheads on my nose and chin. I haven’t been much of a face washer, but for the past 5 years I have been using Clinique’s Soap Bar for Dry to Combination Skin 1x per day in the shower, usually in the morning. I’ll rinse my face in the evening before bed occasionally and I try to especially do this if I have been running or sweating. Now I’m going to add to my routine the Raw Cinder Toner starting with 1x a day at night before bed. 

I'll keep you updated so check back in to see if I have found the miracle toner.