The struggle is real! I have discovered yet another snarky perk of the war against COVID 19: chronic mask-wearing acne! It is a beast that is not likely to be tamed any time soon…lol Our skin is under attack from chronic suffocation, bacteria and the extra dry environment under our masks. Who knew we would be fighting a blemish war too! I did not sign up for this. Having said that, would I rather battle a pimple than a life-threatening respiratory infection? Yes ma’am I would. There are things we can do to try to save our skin for now. There is nothing we can do if we die from COVID 19 so, in terms of the big picture, the war on acne is decidedly less important. However, I just don’t need one more thing to frustrate me when I look in the mirror in the morning and neither do you so here are a few tips. Personally, I have stepped up my skin regimen to include three times a day face washing with my Neutrogena Cooling Gel Scrub: once in the morning before I put the mask on, the second I take it off when I get home, and again before bed. I have also added cleocin wipes twice per day for the bacteria that are now allowed to lay on my face all day. To combat the additional dryness, I am adding a little bit of Neutrogena Oil Free Moisturizer. Now, if you are not experiencing dryness, please don’t add the moisturizer. It will only make things worse.

Now that I am done complaining about my skin, let me start out by saying that I believe in almost all of the precautions that we are taking lately to help prevent the spread of COVID. Or, at least let me say that I understand them all, but I still have mixed feelings about some of them. We need to wear the masks when we are around people and patients and have to go to the store. We need to practice social distancing of at least six feet. Yup I get it. I have to admit that I am still not sure about the limiting going between two houses and the not being able to paint or plant part. I understand that if you are going to your cottage you probably also have to go to the gas station and grocery store, but if you want people to distance, what better place to do that than their cabin in the woods? The same kind of goes with painting and planting…..unless people are throwing plant and paint group events. So, the store is open, but the parts of the store that people could use to stay at home and do home projects to keep themselves busy is not. Hmm. I can understand people’s frustration with that one. I think that if you are asking people to do necessary self-quarantine and social distancing, why not facilitate it being easier to do so? But, keep in mind that the government is just trying to keep us safe and that restrictions are necessary. Also keep in mind that some people would take these extra allowances and run with them and forget social distancing all together and put us all at risk. I guess it is a balancing game: potentially over calling restrictions to balance out risk for the people that would abuse the extra allowances and cost thousands of extra lives. It is an incredibly difficult game to play and I do not envy the government officials at all. The responsibility of just caring for my family and my patients is a lot to take on at times. The responsibility for a whole nation must be overwhelming to say the least. I don’t think I could handle it. Could you?

Dr. Katz