My Lovely Rash

Okay, so apparently you can't be in a foreign country without getting some sort of weird sickness, right? Well, I am praying that this is the worse I get...but about a week and a half ago weird bumps started appearing on my lips. I thought it was cold sores from all the pineapple I was eating, but then the bumps spread to the skin all around my mouth and then my mouth started to swell. Weird and gross. The picture doesn't show it very well, but it was pretty sick. We finally decided that I was allergic to something and that the weird bumps were a rash and not cold sores.

Jul drilled me on what I had eaten the past week. Fruit, rice, fish sauce, coconut milk, and a bunch of other stuff. She still seemed puzzled. "Did you put anything strange on your mouth or peel anything?" Earlier in the week I had put on lip plumper that is rumored to contain snake venom to irritate the lips so they swell. Jul wasn't convinced that the lip stuff (made in America and approved by the FDA) was the cause. "Hmmm, well I peeled a mango with my teeth a few days ago." Jul's eyes widened, "That's it!" Apparently mango peels have some kind of acid in them that can cause skin irritation...on top of that, I didn't wash the mango before I peeled. Oh Madeleine Mahoney: where was my old roommate, who is obsessed with washing fruit and veggies, when I needed her?