Viv (Camarillo, Ca, Usa) on 05/06/2010:

To come to the point, one of the latest things I have tried is plain yogurt with a little ground cinnamon. I took a couple of tablespoons of plain white yogurt (not sweetened) and mixed in about a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and put a little bit on my skin and rubbed it in. I started with the lower part of my right leg and rubbed hard. After a few minutes tiny black specks seem to appear that look like very short black hairs. I kept rubbing and after five or ten minutes a large amount of whitish "debris," like flakes or grains, starts falling off of my skin. I don't know whether it's just flakes of dead skin falling off or some kind of mites or parasites that had been inside my skin that have come out and are falling off. I did the same thing on my other leg and my feet and arms and as much of my back I could reach. In some places there was a large amount of white "debris" that came off my skin and in other places I didn't notice any. The whole process can take some time. When I was done I rinsed off my skin and it felt and looked extremely soft and clean. That was last night. I did feel a couple of biting sensations during the night, but that was all. Also, when I got up this morning my legs were no longer swollen. They had been swollen for the past year.

I also had been noticing long indentations or lines that would appear on my arms and legs for the past six months. They would come and go. I still have some of those on my upper legs.

I went to a doctor yesterday and tried to explain my skin problem. She insisted that it's just a skin allergy and prescribed hydrocortisone. She also said when bathing to use a very mild soap such as Dove and not to use hot water, and for laundry, to use hypoallergenic detergent and not to use fabric softener. She didn't even examine my skin. I have many visible tiny bites on my arms and legs, and some larger bites on my body--I don't think those could be caused by an allergy! I told her that if I put a little hand sanitizer on my arm and rub it gently, I start to feel soft granules. She said that just means I'm allergic to the sanitizer. I showed her two small rows of bites on my lower leg, and she said those were scratches.

Another strange thing: During the past year I have thrown away some underwear, clothing, and even blankets that had mysterious "lint" on them, sometimes dark, sometimes pale blue, sometimes reddish, sometimes white. Once I had a hand-knitted white wool sweater. It looked clean, but when I held it up to the light, I saw that it was covered with very pale blue lint, especially clustered along the seams. I threw it away.

A couple of months ago, to keep my couch clean, I had a pale pink blanket on it. I put a clean, white, padded mattress cover on it and put a clean off-white sheet over that, and was sleeping on the couch. I left it that way for perhaps a couple of weeks. I'd been having itching problems. I took the sheet off and was surprised to see that the mattress cover seemed to be disintegrating and was full of small reddish pieces of lint. There had been nothing in that area that was reddish. My couch is moss green. After that I would sometimes find reddish lint in my clothing or underwear that seemed to have some connection to my itching. I know that it doesn't make any sense.

Also, bathing in very hot water twice a day with about two cups of borax and 1/2 to 1 bottle of hydrogen peroxide helped a lot. I did it for a few days. When I skipped one evening, I started to have itching again. I also have tried a deep cleaning salve that I got online, and it helped, but I ran out of it.

I'll mention also that I almost always wear something only once and then wash it. I always use hot water and use borax in addition to laundry detergent. I have tried other additives in the past: ammonia, bleach, vinegar, or disinfectant. I vaccuum frequently; I rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned my carpet. I washed the vinyl flooring. I bought an air purifier and have used that, also, to try to keep the air clean.
I think I have conquered the problem. Mainly, I wanted to share the idea of yogurt with cinnamon--at least it doesn't hurt to try it.