Main topic - Oozing Yellow Crusts

We’re all fighting this in our own ways. I’m going my path, you go yours. I think the problem is something inside me- immune system or allergy? I’m addressing it that way because I’ve spent two decades trying antibiotics and every type of cream the doctors prescribed me. I am not ready to try soolantra yet, but it may come to that point next year.

Just out of curiosity, you say you’re ‘enjoying life again.’ Does this mean you aren’t having new lesions?

I think it is likely that we all suffer from the same problem and cause. Because the problem is rare, it feels unlikely that there are multiple different causes. Also note that the demodex theory doesn’t rule out an immune system or allergy involvement: maybe we are simply allergic to demodex or maybe our immune system overreacts to it or the bacteria it carries/hides/protects.

Note that Soolantra isn’t an antibiotic, and note that not all anti-parasitic topical treatments are effective. Before I read/knew about Soolantra, I was trying to target demodex with other creams, without success: maybe I was using them to short in time, but I wasn’t comfortable with using them (permethrin, crotamiton for example) because of their side effects (possible neurotoxicity possibly causing some mild facial muscle scraps) or impracticality (smell, colored face, stickyness).

But even if Soolantra would help you (I think it probably would), it doesn’t explain exactly why/how our skin responds like this on demodex, which keeps things like allergy and immune system problems open for me, because of a possible involvement with it and demodex. So I do find it interesting (from a research perspective) that you are trying other routes, so that things can be excluded. But if you quickly want to get rid of the problem, then I think you shouldn’t wait with Soolantra. If you belief that Soolantra won’t help, but do want to get rid of it quickly, you could also try to use multiple treatments at once (as long as they don’t influence each other negatively), if something is working, than you know that the solution is somewhere within the regimen.

‘enjoying life again’ means that I haven’t experienced any oozing lesions for four months now (while not taking any medicine anymore). I can go out again, I am successful at work again and can look in the mirror without getting depressions.
Before I had a very similar story like you: Doctors prescribed me almost all kinds of antibiotics, I tried many creams and all of them were unsuccessful. Your suffered for a long time but besides that your story is not special and exactly like mine.

I was healed with the full treatment (Soolantra, Stromectol & Metronidazole) recommended by firstman. It’s your health, your decision what to take, but that you don’t give at least Soolantra a try is ridiculous. If it does not work for you, you can still fight it with your homeopathic treatments.

Be aware that you finally found others that have (had) exactly the same condition and we found a cure. There is something in/on you: Demodex! Start fighting them.

Hehe, we replied within the same minute (@misfit108, we are not the same person :wink: )
(Although I’m not sure why you get the reply-at-logo, I thought I also did you the reply-on-post button.)

Would you mind telling what steps you took using Soolantra, Stromectol & Metronidazole? How long did you use the other two before stopping them and staying only with Soolantra?

You find the information in the success stories thread: Success stories

Start simultaneously with Soolantra, Stromectol & Metronidazole.

Soolantra: For 2 months.
Stromectol: 2 times (took the second dose 6 days after the first treatment), weight based dose.
Metronidazole: Start together with Stromectol and take in total for 2 weeks.
How to take Stromectol and Metronidazole was based this article (that finds evidence that Metronidazole
supports ivermectin): http://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(12)01315-X/fulltext

If you only want to try whether ivermectin helps you in principle, you can also only stick to Soolantra the first month and decide afterwards if you want to take the “full” treatment.

Hello friend! I would like to know if you had side effects during the treatment? And if there’s things prohibited like food or alcool during the medication. I would like to know if you will have again to do the treatment or if you are now cured. Then why does the demodex don’t come back ?! kind regards.

I didn’t notice any side effects.
Prohibited is nothing, my doctor only reported that some people that Metronidazole feel fast sick when drinking huge amounts of alcohol. When you take the Stromectol, one should not eat anything a few hours before and after the medicamentation. As you only take it two times in total this does really not affect you. But it is only because heavy food immediatly consumed after taking the medicine can decrease the effect of ivermectin.

Ok thanks for your anwear ?
But can you give me a response about the use of the medication?
Only once is enough ?
And why wouldn’t it come back later then ?
Kind regards!

Medication: Main topic - Oozing Yellow Crusts - #35 by misfit108 Every thing else is on the instruction leaflet.

And why wouldn’t it come back later then?

I haven’t performed any long time experiments nor a year has passed for me since I am not getting the oozing crusts anymore. But I guess its the same reason why we were not affected for a long time in our lifes before we got it: The number of demodex grows exponentially and our body has some protection about them. So, it could take some time to return.

@RecoverE how is your oral metronidazole (finished) + Soolantra treatment going?

With permissions of Misfit108, I have renamed this topic to “Main topic”, because it has become a bit of a main topic. Having a main topic may also make some discussions easier.

Btw last week, I have emailed the author of a demodex study about the possibility of this being a new form of demodicosis, and replied with:

The best way to confirm the suspect diagnosis of demodicosis is to do a skin biopsy or to conduct a reflectance confocal microscopy examination. Soolantra is not only anacaricide but can also suppuress inflammatory reactions.

So the positive effects that most of us have while on a treatment that has Soolantra in it, doesn’t mean that demodex is causing the problems. (Something we already knew.) But the long lasting effects that the two success story users experienced, may indeed suggest that demodex is the cause.
Although in my case, I likely have a lower amount of demodex than what would fall under the category of demodicosis (which is more like >5 mites per square cm) (unless the method that I use isn’t precise enough). But I still have my aim/theory at demodex.

Last Friday, I went to a new dermatologist (my third derm, and 5th doctor). He owns a large skin disease website himself, were he documents all kinds of skin diseases, including demodex. (Which tells me that he has a passion for dermatology.) Although I didn’t had a clear oozing lesions, so he couldn’t tell much, also based on the photos, he couldn’t give a clear diagnosis, although he did say it could be a combination of things.
Different dermatologists have different approaches of solving problems, some like to experiment easily and use a trial and error approach with medication, some take their best guess and follow the standard treatment for that guess, and some like to examine and base their actions on what they clinically observe. My current dermatologist probably falls in the last category.
Because of Soolantra, I didn’t had lesions that I could associate with oozing, (although I did had some frustrating nodular acne pustules that suddenly appeared about two weeks ago, and were slowly subsiding. Still wondering whether this may be somehow related.) But he did took a sample of a white head on my forehead on a glass slide for microscopy.
Like the author about demodicosis, he said that due to the anti-inflammatory actions of Soolantra, it would supress the symptoms. So I have to stop using it, to get a oozing yellow lesions back, and then he can examine samples of it. Fortunately, he said that I can go back to the clinic within a day without making an appointment.
With some luck, maybe Soolantra really killed the cause and there won’t be any new lesions. I’m planning to stop with Soolantra on Tuesday.

Hi, while I agree with you I just want to add that the anti inflammatory effect of soolantra might not be very “high” cause I sometimes have a small red area on my face (due to dryness so should be eczema-like) and it hasn’t really been affected by soolantra. By that, I mean I don’t think it would have suppressed oozing lesion by anti inflammatory effect, just to leave my eczema intact (which should be affected since it’s 100% about immune system).

And since demodex usually live inside the pores, maybe you have missed the biggest part of it?

Anyway let’s continue our researches altogether!

Hi! New girl here. I can’t tell you all how relieved I am to find this site and all of you. I nearly jumped up and down when I saw the pictures. I’ve been suffering from this mysterious affliction for ten years now. Like many of you, I have been to the dermatologist several times and my primary Doctor more times that I count. Prescribed antibiotics, acne medication, topical and internally. Nothing helps. BUT I’m so excited to try the ivermectin medications that a couple of you have seen results with. I’m still waiting for my doc to get back too me…if she does. Also, I have been taking apple cider vinegar twice a day and I started mixing tea tree oil with my facial moisturizer. I have to say I see an improvement! All crusts have dried up and there are no new ones. I usually see a new one just about every other day. So this is BIG for me :slight_smile: Anyways…thanks so much for being here and fighting the good fight along with me

Welcome. I am happy you found us. I, too, for two decades thought I was the only person living through this terrible nightmare. I am happy you are trying the apple cider vinegar treatment. I, too, tried this buy it laid waste to my skin and it was so bad that I would not have been able to continue to go to work and support my family. I would love to have a few weeks or a month to try and see if I could go the distance with ACV. You might find some real useful info on people’s victories and defeats with ACV here: http://www.earthclinic.com/remedies/acvinegar.html and also http://www.acne.org/vinegar-as-a-topical-reviews-30/

For about 9 months, I’ve put a lot of time, effort and money into going the natural route. I’ve seen naturopath/holistic doctor a couple of times and tried different remedies. I’ve also had all my mercury fillings removed from my teeth. I’ve trimmed my diet down to no dairy, no white grains, no red meat and no nightshade vegetables. These are a lot of the protocols used in treating eczema/psoraisis but they don’t seem to help me with the dreaded yellow ooze and my skin is still super dry no matter what I do. I would love for a natural remedy or a diet change to cure me of this curse, but I don’t believe it can happen. I think for most of us, there is something that genetically predisposes us to the yellow ooze. Next Monday, I am meeting with a dermatologist to begin taking Soolantra. Since I have the problem very severely on my eyelids, I may try taking it orally also if she recommends it.

We are all happy to have you on board. No one can understand the nightmare of yellow ooze better than us. Please share your progress and ideas.

I’m also currently doing the oil pulling thing. Really I’m willing to try anything at this point. I’m attempting to get a prescription for the Soolantra and the internal ivermectin med. no luck yet. I called my doctors office acouple days ago with a request to give this route a try. The nurse called me back and pretty much had never heard of demodex or any skin condition possibly caused by it. She said she would pass the message along to the doctor. No call back yet… In the meantime I’m trying all these natural remedies. I should correct my earlier post. I’ve had this for more than 10 years now that I think about it. More like 15

@misfit108 note that Soolantra did remove my eye lids problems (mild blepharitis) even though I wasn’t applying it on the eye lids.

@Dm78 doctors are probably reluctant about demodex treatments when the patient mentions demodex, because 1) they often don’t much/anything about it and 2) it’s pretty easy for a patient to blame demodex for a skin problem.
If your doctor isn’t easy in prescribing meds, than it may be easier to get a prescription when you only ask for Soolantra instead of Soolantra+oral ivermectin. Also note that oral ivermectin may not be very effective compared to oral metronidazole (although the later has more side effects). Also, Soolantra (topical ivermectin) may maybe also be more effective than oral ivermectin, although this is just a rough guess, but an oral med may not necessarily be better than a topical one.

To convince a doctor to prescribe Soolantra, I would try some argumentation like this:

  1. We (you and the doctor) don’t know what it is (if the doctor cannot give a clear diagnosis), there may be multiple suspicions, but…
  2. nothing really worked; I have been given multiple prescriptions without any success
  3. but now I finally found a resource on the Internet that exactly matches the problems that I have, the photos are exactly the same, there stories are the same, which I haven’t seen before on other medical websites. The patients on that resource have seen dermatologists and those that have been given Soolantra/oral-ivermectin/oral-metrinodazole have a high success rate.
  4. I don’t know whether this will work for me, but given the large resemblance of what the other patients have described and shown, and the high success rate that they had, I would at least want to give it a try.

Maybe it’s even better to not mention demodex at all, because it may trigger alarm bells that the patient is simply blaming demodex for it, or that the patient has some mild form of delusional parasitosis.

For more info about the treatment, see The Best treatment

What part of the country do you live in? We might be able to help you find the right doctor.

Where I’m at right now, my primary doctor doesn’t know anything about demodex. But she is backing up the fact that I have done research and that I’ve collaborated with some people online who have the same rare disease and who are seeing results with Soolantra. I have been referred to a dermatologist next week. If the dermatologist is not willing to give me Soolantra, the primary said she will prescribe it to me. In my case, I can present the facts that I’ve tried absolutely everything except Soolantra. You will face doctors who won’t give a prescription because it would mean that you, the patient, know more than they, the highly-educated doctor, know.

Hello! I would like to recall my own experience about tea tree oil mixed with moisturizer !
Like you the first week I was seing an improvement, but later it got worse and worse!
The skin finally got more irritated and more oozing than before!
So just an advice, beware with this :wink:

Did this worsening involve oozing yellow crusts? or only irritated skin?
Did you mix it yourself? Under what concentration?