A tough 3 weeks + herpes outbreak on neck

After my last update, my skin really wasn't so great for a few weeks.

The worst of it happened on mine & Christopher's anniversary weekend.  We went to Manhattan for a couple days and I ended up having a terrible reaction the first evening there.  We had gone out to see a play and I was feeling a bit itchy/sensitive afterwards (though it wasn't anything terrible at that point), so I decided to take a DSS bath when we got back to the house (it was a friend's house which is immaculately clean & beautiful). I believe that I reacted to a.) the chlorine in the water (because I became very itchy in the water), b.) drying off with a towel that smelled heavily of laundry detergent/fabric softner, c.) sleeping in a bed that was likely washed in the same detergent.  It was BAD.  Really bad.  I ended up scratching the whole top surface of my face off and wasn't able to sleep (or hold still) for hours.  The next morning, I woke up and the skin on my face was super tight and broke easily with the smallest scratch.  We ended up coming home early instead of spending another evening there.

From that point, the skin on my entire face continued to peel off every evening for, at least, the next week.  It would feel super tight (hard to smile without ripping the skin on my cheeks) every morning/afternoon.  By the evening, the whole surface would crack apart and peel off.  It's been about 10 days now and it's finally starting to get back to a more consistent state (though it's still peeling quite a bit, it's not nearly as bad as the whole surface peeling off at once).  I would love to avoid that ever happening to me again.  It's so incredibly painful.  And it's also super embarrassing to go out into public.  I didn't take any pictures of it while it was happening--I was just so down about it.

Last Monday, I also had an outbreak of herpes.  It was confined solely to my neck (I didn't get any sores on my lips, which seemed weird to me), so I think I was a little slow to realize what it was at first.  It took a few days for me to pick up on what it was.  Here's a picture of what that looked like:

It was difficult to move my neck in any direction for a few days until it cleared up.  I decided to take an antiviral medication (Valacyclovir) to clear it up quickly--I didn't want to take a chance that it got any worse.  Once the medication ran out, I continued using more natural "antivirals" (L-lysine among other things).  The herpes is no longer active but there's still a little healing that needs to happen for all evidence to fade away from my neck.

Oooph.  This stuff is so relentless.  If it's not one thing, it's always another.

Hoping for a good streak again!  Please!