Most people in my family are Intellicare card holders, and we frequent Aventus Makati because of that.
Do you often go to Aventus in Filomena Building too? I scanned a copy of Aventus Makati Doctors’ schedule for our convenience:
Click the image above to enlarge. You may even print it! Hope that helps.
Last year around December, I began having chronic chapping of my upper lip. I thought maybe it was simply because of the cold season. It’s still cooler than usual in the Philippines in January and February, and I still had chapping, peeling and stinging feeling on my upper lip. I just tried to ignore it, applying lip balm as often as I could, hoping that it would heal and be gone with the dry season.
It’s summer and I still got red, irritated, peeling upper lip. It was as if I applied lip liner on my upper lip, without coating it with lipstick, plus there was visible peeling. How unsightly. What’s worse was that the chapping was becoming painful, even worse compared to what I had in dry season. It was painful to open my mouth to eat, or to even smile! 🙁 My upper lip crack when it’s stretched.
I asked an office friend if she knows of any remedy for it, and she lent me her lip balm – Nivea Med Protection.
I was embarrassed to use it at first, like, “is it okay for me to use yours?” I mean, a lip balm is a little bit too personal to share sometimes, right? xD But since I was already getting frustrated with the look and pain on my lip, and my kind friend seemed really okay with it since she saw how miserable the state of my lip was… I used the lip balm.
It was like a magic lip balm!
It glided on smoothly on my lips — the texture was buttery smooth, while the scent was very subtle but smelled so nice!
My upper lip was in a bad state that morning. Like I said, it looked like I lined my upper lip with red lip liner, and the peeling was visible. Nivea Med Protection did not conceal the redness, but it did make the peeling much less visible.
It hurt my irritated, cracking lips when I smile… but right after applying Nivea Med Protection, it felt better. Not completely healed right away after applying, but really better! 😀
I applied the lip balm on my lips several times that day since morning. Around 5PM I felt that it’s really starting to heal. I passed by a Watson’s section in SM before going home and I bought my own Nivea Med Protection lip balm.
One Nivea Med Protection lip balm costs 95 pesos.
In the evening, around 8 PM, I felt as if my upper lip never got irritated during the day! I could finally smile without feeling my lip cracking. 😀 It still seemed a little bit red, and hurt a bit when I apply pressure, but felt perfectly fine otherwise.
I used Nivea Med Protection lip balm everyday since then and the chronic chapping of my upper lip has not come back yet. Yay for me! Well, it still does peel a little bit everyday… which I think has been what’s “normal” for me for years. But that painful cracking lip condition is the one that hasn’t come back yet.
By the way, I also bought Nivea Cream (moisturizer), the one in the blue tin container. I use it to moisturize my face, legs and feet because I have dry skin too in those areas. I also use it on my lips when I feel like subbing it for the lip balm… and it works well too! I’m starting to trust Nivea as a brand. At least for moisturizing the skin. 😉
So yes, if you have badly chapped lips, please do try Nivea Med Protection! It will help you. It’s like a miracle lip balm to me. 😆
Another piece of advice: avoid using really old lip balm, because they may cause bacterial infection. I just read this somewhere on the web. ^_^
// UPDATE, 2016-04-13: Again, I’ve been getting mildly irritated upper lip from time to time, with redness lining it. But as long as I keep applying Nivea Med Protection on my lips, it keeps the irritation from getting worse. I’m so glad I discovered such product!
This is a The Food Club review. It’s gonna be a quick one because I will only feel worse if I take long in writing this.
Me and my friends are not coming back to The Food Club again because of bad experiences.
We had buffet at The Food Club on a Monday, and 5 out of 6 people in our group had diarrhea. Our symptoms began 1 to 2 days after eating at The Food Club.
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My skin is oily in the facial area and in my back and chest. But from my legs to feet, I always thought they’re a bit dry.
Since a few years ago, I would occasionally get small patches of skin in my legs or thighs. Those patches are bumpy (think goosebumps), slightly thickened, slightly discolored, and itchy. I think they went away on their own.
And now, I have these patches on my two shins that have been here for months… or years! I usually ignore this type of skin condition cos they used to always just go away on their own, but the affected area is getting larger in time. I still don’t know why these don’t go away like the other itchy patches did.
Both of my legs have itchy spots. I can count about 3 in each leg, with the most noticeable by visual and by itch located at the shins. They’re spots that look like goosebumps and feel like goosebumps — but itchy. These spots are discolored, some light brown and some reddish light brown.
I initially applied “katialis” to the affected areas. Katialis contains sulfur, zinc oxide, resorcinol, and salicylic acid. It did not make the itchy spots go away and only made the skin peel. In the last couple of weeks, after a break from katialis, I tried “mopiko” whose active ingredients are menthol, methyl salicylat and camphor. The methol soothes the itch, but the spots did not go away either and they also peeled lightly.
I tried to find an answer by Google-ing. Eczema was one of the results that popped up, but I read that eczema is caused by dry skin. My brain said, “but your skin is very oily. So it can’t be eczema.” Probably because in my entire life, I always focused on how to control the excess oil on my pimply face.
A few days ago, I decided to finally visit a dermatologist. I would share what she recommended to me in this blog post, but please be advised that you should not use halciderm cream (halcinonide cream) without your doctor’s advice. I read that halcinonide cream can be very harmful to the skin (1) if used in the wrong areas, and (2) if used for more than 5 days. I repeat – do not use halcinonide cream without your doctor’s advice!
Read more about halcinonide cream here: Halcinonide Topical
First of all, the dermatologist said that my problem is that I have very dry skin in the legs. She told me to bathe only once a day to avoid further drying of the skin. Use very mild soap that would keep your skin moisturized, such as Dove for sensitive skin. I told her I began using Dr. Kaufmann’s Sulfur Soap recently, but she told me to stop using it because it dries out the skin further. Whoops!
Before I left her office, she gave me a list of foods to avoid:
Take note that I’m not promoting the brands of products mentioned here. They were the ones I got from the doctor, and the only variants I know of right now. 🙂
I couldn’t understand the name of the prescribed cream as written by the dermatologist, but here’s a photo of the handwriting, which I think says “halciderm cream”:
The moisturizing lotion is Dermaveen moisturising lotion and according to the bottle photo, it contains “natural colloidal oatmeal”, “Avena sativa seed powder 2% w/w”.
One and a half day since I began following this regimen, and I’ve noticed slight improvement in the itchy, discolored patches of skin in my legs. I really hope this is not just psychological effect – you know what mindset, when you think it’s happening just because you were given something that’s supposed to make it happen? 🙂
When the dry itchy sensitive skin spots of my legs that look like goosebumps heal, I will do my best to moisturize my legs regularly. I will try to grind oatmeal into powder form too, and make the usual paste out of it to apply from time to time to my legs.
(Fast forward to about 7 years and I developed chronic idiopathic urticaria, where the delayed/immediate pressure urticaria is driving me crazy.)
(Fast forward 11 years after the original post — when I thought that pressure urticaria was the worst skin issue I would get at my age, I got diagnosed with “atopic dermatitis” as almost my entire body is covered in itchy bumps and plaques as I type this. Treatment’s expected to take several months for my skin to stabilize again, and this involves various lifestyle changes to maintain a healthy skin barrier — moisturizer, steroids on inflamed areas, avoiding harsh chemicals, reducing stress, etc. Dermatologist told me it’s a lifelong skin issue that I’ll have to manage. Sigh. Shrug.)
As a person with myopia (nearsightedness) who never feels comfortable with eyeglasses, I resort to contact lenses. I’m really glad contact lenses were invented. Without contact lenses, I would always have headaches from eyeglasses even if the lenses’ grades are updated.
Last Saturday, my mother and I went to Paterno St., Quiapo. Goals were to get me a new pair of contact lenses, buy huge bottles of multipurpose contact lens solution with free contact lens case, and buy travel size multipurpose solutions for an upcoming flight with colleagues to Rootcon 8 in Cebu.
Our feet took us to Vista Prima Optical. See the map:
If you know that you should look for a colorful interior with greens and yellows, you won’t miss this optical shop. This was where I bought my 2013 to 2014 pair of contacts. Their contact lens price and quality were not bad, the shop is not far from my house, waiting time is short, and the staffs are accomodating and are all Pinays… so I had no reason not to come back, right? xD Chinatown/Binondo is another not-so-far place from my house and there are optical shops there, but I’d rather go to Quiapo because the Chinese doctors in Binondo area make me feel uneasy. Think language barrier.
Clear contact lens for extended wear (approximately 1 year of use) cost 1200 pesos. The brand they sell is New Look. The doctor first checked my eye grades with that apparatus where the patient leans forward and see a hot air balloon photo. xD I think it’s called an autorefractor. Then she proceeded with the other eye exam where she made me wear that heavy eyeglasses where she added and took away lenses from. Through these two test, the doctor would determine the best power that your contact lenses (even eyeglasses) need.
The waiting time for the contact lens was only 30 minutes. Mom and I went to buy stuff from Isetann first to kill time. Vista Prima Optical is open until 6PM anyway. We ate at Phat Panda Fast Food at Bustos St. The “small” size servings of dishes were good for two people and cost only 100 pesos. We ordered mixed seafood with vegetables which was nice because it had oysters, fishes and squids. I like those. The other dish was sizzling beef. It’s like Chinese-style beef with buttery sauce and vegetables. It was so-so to me. We also ordered fried rice, and it was bad. The rice was so soggy and it was almost like eating paste. Service was bad. There were only three staffs walking around to serve – two ladies and one guard. And when I said service was bad, it’s about one of the waitresses. I asked her for service water when she took our order. I waited. But when every food was already served to us, the water was still not brought to us. So I asked the same waitress again for water, and she said “Sige wait lang po.” And so we waited again. But she never served us water. She just kept serving other tables and seemed to have no intention of getting back to us. Another table asked for hot tea, and she, the same waitress who wouldn’t bring us water, immediately served them hot tea. We asked the other waitress for water, and she gave us a pitcher right away. Geez! Was the waitress doing it on purpose? She shouldn’t, because there’s no reason for her to do so, since we were politely requesting stuff from her.
After the irritating lunch at Phat Panda, we went back to Vista Prima Optical to claim my contact lenses.
The New Look contact lenses came with a 60 ml bottle of Bescon Cliwell multipurpose solution and a free contact lens case. That small bottle gave me hope of finding a similar bottle that I could bring to a flight.
They don’t have huge bottles of contact lens multipurpose solutions there that had free contact lens case, so I told my mom I’d check out other optical shops.
I saw bottles of “All Comfort Formula” multi-purpose contact lens solution being displayed at “I Sight Optical Centre” so I walked in to buy some. We realized that it’s the same optical shop where my mom purchased eyeglasses last year. Each 500 ml bottle costs 220 pesos with free contact lens case. It’s a bit more expensive per ml compared to my usual multipurpose solution called Lens Care (95 pesos for about 350 ml bottle), but Lens Care has a supply problem lately.
The reason why I wanted to look for multipurpose contact lens solution in Quiapo is because of Lens Care’s supply problem in Mercury Drug stores. Lens Care could be found in any Mercury Drug branch, until recently. I went to a branch in Sta. Cruz, in EDSA, in Binondo, and in Makati, and there was either the expensive Opti-Free brand or nothing.
I Sight Optical Centre did not sell travel size bottles of contact lens solution. I saw that they had small Lens Care bottles but they were not for sale. They are for bundling with purchased contact lenses. They do sell contact lens cases for 25 pesos each though. I shall take note. 🙂
In the next few weeks, I’ll be on a flight bound for Cebu with office mates. We will be attending Rootcon 8. 🙂 We are not checking in any luggage, and that gives me a problem with my contact lens solution. 3.4 oz or 100 ml is the maximum volume of liquid per container for carried bags in planes, while my solutions are 350 ml and above. My original plan was to drop by a Mercury Drug store upon landing, and buy contact lens solution there. But I felt that there would also be a supply problem of Lens Care in Cebu. 2 years ago, I was able to buy Lens Care in Cebu, but that was a time when supply was not a problem. So I thought, I would either buy that expensive Opti-Free solution (300+ pesos, IIRC) in Cebu or wear glasses for 4 days while walking around in unfamiliar places. It will be a very tough stay in Cebu if I only wear glasses. There would be constant head and eye pain, and difficulty in moving around.
My mom didn’t want to check another optical shop. Getting tired, I think. But I told her I really need to find a small bottle of multipurpose solution similar to that freebie from Vista Prima.
Another optical shop with an array of contact lens solution being displayed caught our attention. It was called “New SOS Optical Supply Co.” And they had the very same 60 ml bottle of Bescon Cliwell! 😀 Each bottle costs 65 pesos… or was it 60? xD Each bottle comes with free contact lens case too.
For days these thoughts had bothered me – not having enough multipurpose contact lens solution in stock due to the supply problem of Lens Care in Mercury Drug stores, and the possibility of enduring discomfort from eyeglasses for days. But thanks to the numerous optical shops in Paterno St. that are doing business even on Saturdays, I don’t have to worry about those anymore! 🙂
Yesterday, I went to Wensha Spa with my family and friends. You know, just to wind down. I’ve been to massage spas like Mont Albo Massage Hut and Nuat Thai, but never to a spa like Wensha where there’s jacuzzi and sauna. I also wanted to have buffet meals, so I was really excited to go.
I am a pessimistic person, and yesterday was just one of the times when I regret being a little too positive and excited about things. Wensha Spa Timog was not that enjoyable at all, for the price of 780 pesos, which is not cheap for me.
Too bad the Pasay branch is under renovation. That’s our original destination.
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Here’s a Nuat Thai massage rates / price list that I took from Nuat Thai Masangkay branch, retrieved in July 2015:
In the past few weeks, me and my mom, accompanied by my BF, go to a hospital near Masangkay Street, Manila every Saturday. We were surprised to find that there’s a Nuat Thai branch in there because it’s currently not in the list of branches in the Nuat Thai website.
You will find this Nuat Thai branch at 1211, Ground floor of Diamond Tower, Masangkay St., Sta. Cruz, Manila. If you are coming from Plaza Lorenzo Ruiz or Binondo Church, Nuat Thai Masangkay branch is located past Masangkay Street’s intersection with Recto Avenue. There is a Jollibee branch a bit after Nuat Thai Masangkay, almost facing it.
You may be able ro reach them by calling 230-9971.
Today, my BF wanted a massage for his aching back (says it’s caused by playing an arcade game, maimai) and so we went to Nuat Thai in Masangkay, a branch not so far from home. 🙂
We find that the Masangkay branch is better than Nuat Thai Ermita. The place has a relaxing smell of peppermint and the beds and room dividers are better. In terms of satisfaction in the massage itself, I liked the massage of the therapist in Nuat Thai Masangkay (Emma) as much as I liked the massage at Nuat Thai Ermita (Jenny).
Like in Ermita branch, we were only charged 300 instead of 350 for Swedish body massage.
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