Dorm life can make good skin go bad

By: Emily Wilkins Posted: 11/11/09 9:18pm Comments: 4

We compare casualties in the community bathroom. Once good skin is now subject to frequent breakouts. Night after night I watch girls slather their faces with masks and creams, using five different products and battery-operated exfoliators trying to undo the damage.

I’d been blaming most of my acne on stress, but several girls have been adamant that it’s the water.

And lately, I’ve been second-guessing the water as well. My face, while not perfect, has been fairly acne-free for my last 18 years. But after moving into the Brojects, it’s become something that stands out every time I look in the mirror.

And then, it happened. I awoke one morning to a large patch of my skin peeling and forming scabs. And then the next day I woke to another. And another.

My personal philosophy in all health related matters is to wait it out and see if it gets worse. And so I did, until people began asking what had happened. The “I fell off my bike” excuse worked for a little while, but when I final began to admit I had no idea, people began getting really concerned. And that made me worry.

So I went to Olin where some guy who I’m not even sure was a doctor pulled out a textbook full of disgusting skin diseases (I know they were disgusting because there were pictures on every page, a lot more than there should have been showing genitalia) and went through until he found impetigo, a skin infection caused by bacteria.

Or, in more common terms, flesh-eating bacteria.

Now, acne is one thing, but I have to seriously question the condition of the dorms when someone with proper hygiene gets something like flesh-eating bacteria. I wash my face twice a day, I clean my towels and pillowcases.

And when I’m asked how it happened, the first thing that comes to mind is: “Well, I live in the dorms.”