Rachel W
21-09-12, 18:54
Hi,
I suffer from health anxiety and posted here frequently, however I also have OCD but know that the ICD forum is not visited as much and also they tend not to answer such questions. However this issue is causing me A LOT of anxiety (and palpatations).
As someone with OCD I tend to take longer showers and wash my hands more frequently (although it probably averages once per hour or even longer so not that badly and only one soaping then rinse rather than 15 times or anything like that).
The issue is, over the past 7 months we were having issues with the shower going down in pressure and my showers were sometimes over 30 minutes as i had to wait for the pressure to go up. This is when I first noticed what I am going to describe below. However even when taking shorter showers now it is still happening:
After only a short time my skin feels like it has a powdery feel and you can see a white coating, mostly on my hands. When I wet my hands without soap they are waterproof (i.e. the water runs off) although when i add soap it still lathers and covers completely. However as soon as I rinse the soap off it goes back the way it was and it causes friction when trying to finish rinsing.
I think it is soap scum on my skin as our water is very hard but now I fear that I have dirt trapped on my skin and then when I get my hands dirty the dirt is grinding into the scum, or when washing the dirt is getting trapped within the scum, leaving my hands contaminated even after washing. I flew the other day and the contamination of airports, planes and such is very scary to me and the idea that I am washing my hands after touching my case and such, or taking a shower after touching these things may not be removing the dirt. I feel so contaminated right now but have no out because I live in an apartment and can't add a whole filtration system.
I plan on trying a shower filter but this will be a week away and there is still an issue of the sink. I use dove soap (as I hate liquid soap as it always seems to leave suds however much I rinse). I use shampoo on my hands at the beginning of my shower which I hope is getting rid of the older scum, but I cannot go on like this.
Please help. Do you think the dirt is being washed off even when my skin and the scum seems so impenetrable. Could the forming scum be trapping the dirt?
Thank you so much for helping me.
Rachel
I suffer from health anxiety and posted here frequently, however I also have OCD but know that the ICD forum is not visited as much and also they tend not to answer such questions. However this issue is causing me A LOT of anxiety (and palpatations).
As someone with OCD I tend to take longer showers and wash my hands more frequently (although it probably averages once per hour or even longer so not that badly and only one soaping then rinse rather than 15 times or anything like that).
The issue is, over the past 7 months we were having issues with the shower going down in pressure and my showers were sometimes over 30 minutes as i had to wait for the pressure to go up. This is when I first noticed what I am going to describe below. However even when taking shorter showers now it is still happening:
After only a short time my skin feels like it has a powdery feel and you can see a white coating, mostly on my hands. When I wet my hands without soap they are waterproof (i.e. the water runs off) although when i add soap it still lathers and covers completely. However as soon as I rinse the soap off it goes back the way it was and it causes friction when trying to finish rinsing.
I think it is soap scum on my skin as our water is very hard but now I fear that I have dirt trapped on my skin and then when I get my hands dirty the dirt is grinding into the scum, or when washing the dirt is getting trapped within the scum, leaving my hands contaminated even after washing. I flew the other day and the contamination of airports, planes and such is very scary to me and the idea that I am washing my hands after touching my case and such, or taking a shower after touching these things may not be removing the dirt. I feel so contaminated right now but have no out because I live in an apartment and can't add a whole filtration system.
I plan on trying a shower filter but this will be a week away and there is still an issue of the sink. I use dove soap (as I hate liquid soap as it always seems to leave suds however much I rinse). I use shampoo on my hands at the beginning of my shower which I hope is getting rid of the older scum, but I cannot go on like this.
Please help. Do you think the dirt is being washed off even when my skin and the scum seems so impenetrable. Could the forming scum be trapping the dirt?
Thank you so much for helping me.
Rachel