Day 7, losing hope ):

I really expected this thing to be shriveled up and hanging by a thread. But it looks like I'll be one of those people that takes 2-3 weeks to come off... All those extra rubber bands (4 in total) and string (2).

I'm on my 7th day... And although it's black, hard and lost feeling, the base may be cutting, but it still seems mighty as can be! (Very well attached by the flesh rather than dried anything). My keloid looks like it's being elongated, modified by these stacks of rubber bands, not shriveling one bit. I really did expect it to fall off by now ): feeling discouraged and low self esteem due to how ugly it is and how sore it can be when bumped. I'm gonna keep going, I know it'll work out in due time.. I'll be feeling terrible until it falls off.  

The worst thing that could happen is if I'm pulling the string tighter, and the keloid heals over it, so that the string is half way through the base itself )': and by the time it's tightened all the way through, it had "regenerated" already with no effect )': I need to pull it together and just forget it. Clean it, tighten it, forget it.

During my research process, I've heard of keloid rubber band forums where heaps of motivation and support is for people going through this. I had no idea I would need the support, so my curiosity lead me that way. Good people. http://www.realself.com/forum/keloid-removal-string

(Funny how the dates to this blog doesn't match the actual dates here. Must be running on American time, cos I have two posts on the 30th. Bear with me please, my Day#s are correct lol)

Day 6, show and tell :D

Screw cleaning every other day, cleaning every morning and night for me. Lol

Getting super impatient because this keloid seems to be taking its time. While I'm waiting for things to move along lol, today I will be showing you everything(?) / most of the things I used along my journey with this keloid.

This is what I used to disinfect my ear using a q-tip. The so called "ice" I used. It's a cooler stick you freeze and put in your drink bottle to make it cold, like ice does, only it doesn't dilute whatever it is. I thought it was appropriate because I didn't want it to drip everywhere. No, I don't use it in my drink bottle lol and if I do, there are spares in the freezer for that (: Next we have the elastic bands I used. I have.. four in total right now and a piece of thread. I used regular thread, please don't bash me for it lol, feel free to use dental floss or the thread surgeons use for stitching wounds LOL.

I'm always tightening it whenever I can (: it's a trying journey ):

• I tied yet another piece of thread around my keloid (the old one is blocked by the new band I put over it) 
• I tied it once to fasten it (like the first tie of a shoe lace)
• Then I wounded one side round and round the keloid, staying as close to the base as possible
• Finish it by tying it once again (the same as you started)
• Simply snip the excess thread (safety precaution, don't want to pull on it by accident)
• Now you can tighten by pulling carefully at the two strands

This is how I can tighten and tighten it without new thread, however I'm sure there are better ways to knot this.

(btw, this was written on the 29th? Idk why the dates are being bogus)

Day 5, could this be the cutting of the base O:

This morning, strands of hair were attached to the keloid. It was easily removed, simply by separating them, literally. However, what was interesting, was a whole lot of dried residue were on the strands (it's what made them stick to it). So I cleaned it once again, this time being sure to get around all areas.

I've noticed that the base is starting to cut from the back. I was thinking of adding another elastic band, but I just don't want to be in pain for church, so I'll wait til afterward (: here's a pic of it when I had finished the cleaning process today. It is obvious the base is getting smaller, the elastic bands are getting looser (they're thick in appearance, it's not tight) and more visible due to the base's shrinking/cutting. I'm beginning to think that the bands are sitting there comfortably and not contracting or straining. So just to keep the tightness fresh, I'll add another band to keep the process working and not paused due to slack bands.

I wrapped a pink thread to the keloid (3rd pic above) as tight as I could until discomfort occurred. I didn't feel satisfied so I eventually added another elastic band. The annoying tightness is back, but I prefer this to no pain. It makes me think it's actively working lol. I attempted to pull the keloid off ever so gently and saw it wasn't ready. (I really thought I would be those lucky people whose keloids drop off in less than a week lol) MAJOR pain when it's bumped. I once forgot about it and accidentally leaned on it.

Get this keloid dead and gone. Excited.

Day 4, clean clean clean clean CLEAN!

I'm noticing the base getting tighter and tighter. Cleaning is very crucial, simply because you don't want it to get infected and cause it to form an army of keloids afterward, yikes. Also.. you don't want any residue from the keloid, dried fluid, to act as glue to prevent it from falling off. These are the views after showering (soak, rinse under warm water).

Went to a 21st birthday today and had to hide my ear again (mind you, I usually band aid it real tight so I ignore it altogether and wear my hair up like I had nothing to hide lol). The pain is nothing more than an annoyance. It's hardly ever there. Big boo boo when it gets bumped ): can't wait for it to be cleaning time lols.

(Update) Now its bed time, and cleaning has been done. This is how I wore my hair to the birthday. I still wanted it up, I'm not too fond of down-dos (my hair is super long). So this picture was taken after clean up. There was hardly any, if any residue around and on the keloid, but a clean is still great. Not gonna lie, this is the first time I've cleaned the keloid with anything other than a rinse in the shower. I feel so much more better. I'd say I would clean it every other day. Only because I don't want to kill bacteria everyday that'll cause it to kill good bacteria as well and have fungus grow on me as a result (my mindset when the doctors told me to not use protex, the soap, on a daily basis for the same reason).

Although no large chunks of residue was present, the q-tip did get a tint of yellow. I don't see any visible residue, and I can now see all 3 elastic bands I used.

Pain has gone down, not feeling a thing. It doesn't sting when I applied disinfectant on it.

Day 3, the stinging is back!

At first, there was nothing to be felt. I thought it would be painless like this for the rest of the journey but it's not. There's an ever so slight pain in my ear, as if I had first put the bands on (the kind where I know it's actively working because I can feel something is fighting it lols). It used to come and go very quickly, but now... there is a slight discomfort, there's no denying it.

Due to how 3D it is now (I used to plaster it down so tight, so it would be flatter), I couldn't wear my plaster like how I used to. Firstly, it was sticky (no padding of any sort) and it's not ideal in this case (remember how it tore a layer of skin along with the plaster?). Secondly, plasters with the padding cannot wrap around it comfortably! So I was better off hiding it with my hair. Luckily the keloid is super dry, kind of tough (tougher than yesterday) so my hair wont be an issue to it.

This is what I look like when I cover it at work (hair has to be tied up neatly). What the side view looks like... and what's going on underneath. I'm so insecure about it! I can not wait for this experience to be over lol (just when I forgot about the pain, it's back lol. Just an annoying discomfort rather than anything close to unbearable) -- still in the morning.

(update) It's noon and I'm home from work. I'm worried that the elastic bands have lost its elasticity and is not just sitting comfortably around the keloid. Just to be safe, I carefully added a new elastic band to keep the tightness fresh. This time it's blue. Now the discomfort is most certainly there lol. It's not so bad.. I don't feel the urge to run for the ice at the moment like I did on day 1.

At first, the blue band was visible, so I'm guessing, because its elasticity is fresh, it has cut deeper underneath the other two bands. I notice the base getting smaller since the new band. I also notice that parts of the keloid are in fact black. I'm assuming the keloid has officially died in these parts and will spread to cover the whole keloid until the real wait begins.

This pain is very distracting. Not bad, but distracting. I just want the healing process to begin already.. This journey is serious, what a commitment.

Day 2, ripping the band aid off :O

Alright! If I were to do this again, I would not have put the band aid on lol. Consequence? As I peeled back the plaster, the thinnest layer of skin from the keloid also peeled back along with it. I notice liquid start to drip at this tear.

Of course I didn't take pictures of it, I didn't wanna gross out my audience. I thought it would be fine if I sealed the plaster back over and slept it off (from Day 1, it's now the early hours of Day 2). However! Thoughts of the keloid leaking, then drying up and the careful removal of crust with a q-tip in the morn didn't seem pleasant.

So I stripped the band aid very carefully, to reveal a very purple keloid (about 12-13 hours since the elastic bands were put on). Picture 1 is a holistic view of that, picture 2 is a close up shot of 1. You can see the two different shades of purple where the skin had peeled off to reveal an almost raw keloid. I then soaked / rinsed it while having a shower, cleaned it carefully, patted it down with tissue and now it's dry and matte (picture 3).

By the way! I used sticky plaster tape without the padded tissue. Only because this was how I always hid my keloid before I started this keloid killing journey. I wouldn't avoid plasters all together but for now I will let the keloid breathe, however.. when I'm working, proper plasters will be used. Letting the keloid breathe as much as possible would be a good idea, to air it out and to not let it sit in its own mess (if it were to leak due to my mistake of having placed a sticky plaster over it).

(update) Now it's the morning, I've slept and woke up and now it looks like this:

It looks quite the same, however the band at the base seems to be more compressed than it was before I slept. The colour is also more vibrant with the red undertone (the part where the first layer of skin had peeled, the near raw keloid). Because of this, the keloid has a tendency to get wet, so through the night I slept with the back of my hairs slicked down with gel. I wasn't going to take chances with my stray hairs to dry and stick to the keloid. Though it turned out fine. It is now much more rounder rather than the oval shape it used to have.

When I said the pain had stopped in my previous post? I suspect the keloid had died at that moment. This is moving faster than I thought. Now just waiting for it cut into the base, turn black and fall off.

Different views of it tonight, not too much of a change, it doesn't leak, very dry but still fragile. ): can it hurry up and fall. Pain level is hardly anything. However, there is a slight tingle in the ear where the keloid is now. Hopefully it's the cutting at the base slowly happening.

I secretly don't want to wear a plaster and go to work while it's like this. But I need the money! So I'll have to suck it up.

Day 1, applying the bands

I have a keloid from a helix piercing that occurred about two or so years ago. It got so bad I became very shy and embarrassed about it, so I would plaster it ALWAYS! As unattractive as it was, it was better than an exposed keloid lol. If you weren't familiar with it, it'll look like a band aid over a piercing, since I work in the food industry.

The rubber band method was introduced to me via the internet. The video above shows you basically what it can do to your keloid. I've thought about suffocating the keloid with string once upon a time but dismissed the idea. Now that I've seen this I thought, why not? Let's do this :P Here we go:

So this is my naked ear and these are the elastic bands I used. I wrapped a band around the keloid twice. I did this with two bands for extra security. Just in case you didn't know, that's what the third pic shows if you hadn't noticed the yellow and purple bands I used lol. Then I finally plastered it. Just to hide my project lol. No keloid killing reasoning behind it hha.

First impression! It feels.. active lol. Just the fact that you can feel the tightness of the elastic bands actually working is quite comforting. If this keeps up, I hope it turns numb on its own :p

A couple of hours later, the discomfort turns annoying!! So annoying you just cannot ignore it! Something has to be done... not too keen on pain killers.. so I'll settle for.. Ice ;)

Ice was a good temporary solution. But it's not practical, I decided to sleep the pain away while it was numb :p woke up to a not so surprising stinging sensation!! It felt like the keloid had come alive with a throbbing heartbeat to it! Glowing at every beat like cartoons do when they stub their toe lol. Looked in the mirror to see what was going on under there!!! Nothing was going on -.-

A short while later, in bou 30 mins, there is no pain whatsoever! Not what I expected, but I'm not complaining lol. Tyj. After poking it a lil to make sure it was still "working", I can safely say it's still active. Any concerns in regard to this method I'm doing, is the fact that these bands can lose its elasticity. So I'm thinking I would add another band every few days. 

Last minute update, I began to peel the plaster off to see any changes. Bad idea, the keloid had turned dark purple and the skin has become very fragile. So no-go on peeling it all back.