I just stumbled across this discussion after trying to figure out what has been making my life a misery lately.

A few years ago, I went out with my husband & friends and I had several glasses of Pinot Noir from Oregon. That very evening I broke out with a huge, puffy rash under my eyes which exacerbated the few wrinkles I have terribly. The next morning it was worse. Plus, oddly enough, there was a small patch on my neck. No doctor could tell me what was wrong, though I knew it was related to the wine. Also, I wear glasses, but had always worn the glasses and had never had any problems. Moisturizers & cosmetics, even if they had never caused a problem before, stung like hell.

The oddest thing was that this rash just wiped me out completely. I was so fatigued. I had just had a miscarriage and I thought perhaps my body was grieving, oddly, on top of things, or rejecting everything. I was stymied. Eventually, the rash went away, though it would make periodic small reappearances even though I stayed as far away from alcohol as I could.
Things were manageable. I got pregnant and had my second son.

Then a month or two ago the skin under the nose pads of my glasses began to hurt. I thought I needed an adjustment, so I got one. It just got worse, starting to fester and get scaly and sting. Plus the sore area, although in the general shape of the nosepads, was larger than the area itself. Even the skin on my eyelids was puffy and itchy. I had the optician change my nosepads to a hypoallergenic pair. No luck. It started to hurt and bother me so much, I started to suspect the nickel in the glasses was either breaking through or was being exacerbated by something I ate--artifical colors in food seemed to make it worse, perhaps even something as benign as oatmeal. It was hard to pinpoint. I started to research metal allergies, started to put two and two together. In the meantime, I ordered a pair of plastic eyeglasses, but even that hurt because the skin on my nose was already gone. I was desperate, needing to see, but dreading to put anything on my nose. I cried about my tale of woe to my mother-in-law and she and her lady friend trimmed down some of the Dr. Scholl Bunion Pads to fit on my nose pads. (That was pretty cute.) So, yes, finally I did the obvious: even though I hate them, I bought a pair of contact lenses. I got out an old pair of glasses to wear when I could no longer stand the contacts, 3 hours was about the max at first.

I applied some Essie (a nail polish brand) Sensitive Skin basecoat to the metal of all my glasses and used a little of my son's DermaSmooth oil (which makes his eczema nearly disappear) on the raw patches of my nose. Within 2-3 days, I was healed.

During this last bout, I was so tired, all the time, falling asleep every afternoon, after putting my toddler down for his nap. I thought I was just old, too old, that maybe I should never have had a baby at such an advanced age (42!). I obviously couldn't keep up, but then too, I thought that maybe it was normal. Don't all parents of toddlers feel like they can't keep up? Still, I was exhausted all the time.

Okay, after all this, what is my point? Just this: today, for the first time since college, I wore contact lenses all day. As usual, I lay down after putting my toddler down for his nap and then realized "But I'm not tired." And I was able to forge through the rest of the day.

Can you imagine? Could it be so simple? Could my rashes, my fatigue & all that misery simply have been caused by a nickle allergy? I'm positive I have my answer. I haven't gone to the doctor with all this--I don't really need the bills when they couldn't help me before.

My own research has been exhaustive, but I can't post any links yet, since i haven't done 10 posts here yet. If anyone else is interested, email me.

I continue to research the nickle content of food and am even wary of my underwire bra. There's so much we don't know.

But I'm starting to feel like a brand new woman.