Living With Alopecia - Tattoo Session Number 2

Yesterday's tattoo session was a lot more intense than getting my eyebrows tattooed a month ago. It was time for my one-month touch-up on my brows, and I had decided I also wanted super-thin eyeliner - top and bottom. It takes a certain amount of trust to allow anyone that close to your eyes with a powered needle, but I trust Heidi. 

Heidi's studio is a small, clean room in a larger
beauty facility. The room is well lit and I almost
fall asleep while she's working on me. Yes, there's
the occasional twinge, but it's pretty minimal. 

The brows were finished in an hour last month, so I figured 1-1/2 hours to get the touch-up and the eyeliner. It took two-and-a-half hours instead, mostly spent on the eyeliner. My eyes were super irritated and swollen by the end of the session. Add the additional fill-in on the eyebrows and I was sporting lovely blotches of red color on my upper face, my eyes were tearing, and I generally looked like a mess. As I write this, the swelling has gone down A LOT and I'm really liking the result, but I'm still going to wait for a few days before attempting any selfies. 

Heidi Semrau is a total wizard at the techniques
she uses. She has had her own eyes and brows
done, so speaks from experience, and she's done
1000's of procedures, so has the experience. She's
great and I highly recommend her. 

Alopecia is a really strange condition. A lot of people have it in lesser degrees, but not a lot of people have full-on alopecia, the way that I do. With full alopecia, all body hair goes away. That doesn't just include the fluffy hair on your legs and arms, or the longer hair on your head, but also your eyelashes and your nose hairs. Eyelashes help to define the eyes, but they also work as a defense against attack. They keep things from entering and scratching the eyes. I don't have that defense any more. Nose hairs are also a defense mechanism which I'm now lacking. It's a brave new world I'm living in. 

I discovered Muro 128 when I got my Lasik in the early
2000's. It's been my go-to eye drop ever since. I have a
bottle next to my keyboard at home, and another one near
the cash register at the shop. It's a great eye drop. 

So I'm embracing the bald, I got my eyebrows tattooed and they're fabulous and fantastic and make me happy every time I see them, and now I got the eyeliner tattoo. I know that after the swelling goes down, I'll be really happy I got it done. I will still be keeping the eye drop manufacturers in business, because since more crap gets into my eyes, I need to keep that stuff from scratching my eyes or worse. I'll learn to live with it. I can absolutely do this! 

I'm banned from the gym until Monday while I heal from this latest tattoo, so I actually allowed myself an extra 45 minutes of sleep this morning. Pretty nice! Tonight is Project Runway night, and if all goes according to plan, I'll have a PR post for all of you tomorrow. Meanwhile - enjoy your Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow!