Another Petty Report

Are you all wondering whatever happened with the actinic keratosis on my upper lip?  If not you may not have read my earlier post "Let's Get Petty".  So go read that and then read this.

It took about a week or so for the scab from the first round of treatment to come off.  At that point the spot looked pretty normal, however I noticed there was a tiny hard spot under the skin.  I wasn't sure whether it was just scar tissue or whether it was a few cells that were missed by the treatment.  So decided to try a few more treatments.


I was very careful to get the plant sap only on what I thought might be affected cells.  This time the first treatment yielded no sensation, no tickling, pricking or tingling at all.  and after 24 hours it looked like this.

Only a tinge of redness, but the hard spot was distinct.  If you look closely you can see a pale line there and that's what I was going for.  So I did a second treatment.  This time every once in a while I would get just a pin prick of sensation, but the area got flakier.

I did one more treatment, and while it felt a bit more active, the activity was still considerably less than on the first round of treatment.  Here it is 24 hours after the third treatment.

It seemed to me that this was the most I was going to get and so I stopped treatment and waited for the scab to heal once more.  Now the little hard spot is so small that it is barely noticeable, and

It appears to my eye, and according to what I feel internally, to be gone.  If it crops back up I'll let y'all know.

Here comes the disclaimer.  This was a personal experiment.  I am not telling you that if you use petty spurge on your skin cancer that you will be healed.  The sap is reported to be very caustic and can cause serious damage to healthy skin AND all parts of the plant are toxic if taken internally.  I was taking a risk using it so close to my mouth, and if you decide to conduct your own personal experiment do not use petty spurge on or very close to your eyes!  It can do serious damage to eye tissue.

In the meantime, do your skin a favor and protect it from the sun.  Wear big hats in summer, wear long sleeves even when it's nasty hot if you're going to be in the sun, buy UV protective clothing.  The sun's rays seem to be getting stronger and stronger and so we are at continually greater risk of contracting skin cancers and other skin abnormalities like actinic keratosis.

Take care of yourselves and be healthy!