After dealing with HIV for 15 years, I am only too well acquainted with aches and pains. You learn to live with them, but sometimes you just want to echo that lady in the Calgon bath beads commercial: “Take me away!” So I’ve found something that can do just that: a long, luxurious soak in warm water with a chaser of the Aveeno oatmeal powder called Daily Moisturizing Bath. It helps so much with the neuropathy, sore muscles, aching bones and painfully dry skin that have troubled me for years. During a bad brush with shingles, I held my nose and submerged myself completely in the tubful of Aveeno, and I came through it without any scars. Nothing else seems to work for me—no lotions or moisturizing oils. There’s some magic in oatmeal that eases itching and soreness. Mom told me to eat my oatmeal every day, but I open a packet (a box of eight costs about $8 at my local chain drugstore) and cook myself in it instead. —Will Sweet, Flint, Michigan
