Back in Feburary I began an experiment to treat the venous lake on my lip by rubbing castor oil into it for five minutes twice a day.

45 days in and it seemed to be going pretty well, so I kept at it, but I couldn’t really tell how the process was going. Some days the spot seemed to be disappearing, others it was as big as ever. You’d be surprised at how tedious it is to massage oil into your lip for 5 minutes twice a day. So I dropped down to once a day and then gave up altogether after about 8-9 weeks.

Then a couple of days ago the lovely C asked for a progress update in the comments. I was kind of chagrinned because I hadn’t really persisted with it – if I’m really honest 5 minutes is nothing. I could read or listen to an improving podcast or dance about to a couple of songs in that time. And hey, science!

Anyway this is what it looks like today (it is really hard to photograph):

bad photo by me

better photo by Don

I’ve said this before but it is really confronting to see your old lady skin all in focus and up close and personal – wear sunscreen, kids!

Honestly, I’m still not sure if there has been any change. And I suspect that it might change size and darkness depending on the weather conditions – but I am not sure.

Really, I think I should give it another crack, but I’ll attempt to be a little more scientific about the whole endeavour. For a start, I need better progress photos to keep me going because I feel like this might be a really long term project (like 6+ months) and maybe actually measure it with calipers to ascertain if it is shrinking.

So here goes:

Measurements:
height = 5mm
width = 3.5mm