Welp, this sucks, but it looks like I have to switch up my program 
" . My skin issues have been getting worse instead of better. No more fake Brava for me. I might still sleep pump in the future, but not for more than 4-5 hours at a time, and only while using real Brava domes. Brava domes come in narrow and wide sizes, and the ones I bought are wide. Narrow domes are very hard to find, so I took a risk and bought wide domes because some people with small ribcages have apparently been able to wear them. I can only fit one dome at a time onto my chest, so I’ll probably pump one breast for half the night and then switch to the other for the rest of the night. Unfortunately I can’t start pumping again until my skin recovers.
I’m going to try to explain the skin issues I’ve been having, but it’ll be difficult. When I pump my pores immediately swell up and look like goose bumps. That also used to happen many years ago when I first tried pumping, before I gave up on NBE for a long time. When I was younger, the goosebumps would go away an hour or two after pumping and I wasn’t really concerned about them. Now that I’m in my thirties, they’ve been taking longer and longer to go away and I think the bumpy skin near where there rims sit might even be permanent. I’ve never heard of anyone else ever having this issue, so it might be very rare. These are not pimples or the dreaded “red dots” (burst capillaries) that many people get from pumping. It’s looks a bit like my pores are forming scar tissue in response to the pressure, which is very unusual. On top of that, I’ve been scratching the hell out of my breasts in the morning, even though I know I shouldn’t, because the sudden drop in pressure when I remove the cups makes my skin extremely itchy for a minute or two. Normally nothing bad happens when I scratch, but a few times I’ve managed to give myself a few painless, narrow scrapes that look like cat scratches. Tiny scratches like those will usually shed they’re scabs in a day or two and disappear without a trace, but I think the vacuum pressure is keeping them from healing correctly. They seem to to be healing 2-3 times as wide as they were when I caused them, and it looks likes they might be scarring as well. Besides the “permanent goose bumps” and the scratches, my breast skin just looks more textured all over. I can’t quite put it into words, but even in the areas that don’t have weird bumps, my breasts just don’t look as smooth as they did before I started pumping again. I never had any of these problems when I was younger and my skin was more resilient, aside from some slightly rough skin near my armpit where the cups dug in. I should probably point out that there are a LOT of people on the Noogleberry pumping forum who are much older than me and pump a lot harder than I do, who have not had any of the problems I’m describing, so don’t let this scare you too much. I’m going to continue my breast skin care regimen during my pumping break, in the hopes that my skin will be better able to handle the pressure when I restart.
Luckily, I already bought what I need to start a hormonal NBE program. I was planning to start in 6-8 weeks to give me enough time to figure out how much growth I could expect from pumping alone. Now that I’m on a pumping break, I’ll start my hormonal program right away.