My skin is currently very good, zero lesions, not even small ones, and almost no acne.
I try to reason about it, but it’s a unclear what caused this improvement. It may even be temporary or just by chance, so I can’t make good conclusions yet.
At the moment, I attribute it to: Soolantra followed by a oral antibiotic amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and povidone-iodine soap, and possibly combined with not using a moisturizer at all. When using these treatment individually, I was unable to get the same results, only when combined or used in a short sequence. (I started with amoxicillin/clavulanic acid shortly after stopping with Soolantra, and about halfway started using povidone-iodine soap.)
For those who are looking for a face wash and want to experiment, you may want to give povidone-iodine soap a try. Mine has a concentration of 75mg/ml, but I’m not sure how to translate that mg/ml concentration to the percentage value concentrations that most US products use. I think it would be about 7.5%, whereas most povidone-iodine products are at 10%.
Hi Tso. This is Col from the Rosacea Forum. Firstly, thanks so much for creating this great site and all the effort you have put into trying to find a treatment for this condition. I am still using 50% TTO with a base of coconut oil. Things have been pretty good with no oozing, crusting for many months. I still get the occasional lesion but these are few, smaller and do not ooze. Then, this week, I got a larger lesion that did ooze a little. It’s the first one in a long time. I’ve also been getting more pustules, I’ve had a bit of flu recently and I’m wondering whether that had any impact. I also deviated very slightly from my routine of washing thoroughly with Dr. Bronner’s Tea Tree Pure-Castile Liquid Soap twice daily followed by application of the TTO solution. I’ve been following that since June. How are things going with the Soolantra? I am thinking about trying this. The cost has been putting me off as I think it costs about $200 in Canada. TTO is much cheaper. It sounds like you have made great progress and the success stories are encouraging.
When people try TTO, I usually see either posts with positive results, like yours, or people that get a breakout and quit (like me). (A breakout may be a temporary die-off effect, but continuing with the posibility in mind that it only gets worse, is hard.)
I also have Dr. Bronner’s Tea Tree Pure-Castile Liquid Soap (among with other TTO products), but cannot really comment on whether it was good/bad for me, I used it too short. Although there may be two version of that product under the exact same title, because the ingredients list of mine seem to be longer than some others that I see in online images. (I think mine doesn’t have much TTO in it.)
I’m not using Soolantra anymore since 17 December (I think), because my new dermatologist wants to take samples from an active lesion. Soolantra has cleared my face up a lot, to the point that it allowed me to go outside (work, street, friends etc) without the worries that I had before. But suprisingly it didn’t fully clear me, which does make me wonder whether it was the anti inflamatory property of Soolantra that cleared my face, or it’s anti demodex property.
But I noticed a very bad throat infection the next day (I think it was infectious mononucleosis). (Just coincidence, because it was probably already there before I stopped using Sooolantra.) Then I got antibiotics for it, because the GP thought it was bacterial, althought he couldn’t give a good argument. This antibiotic (amoxicillin/clavulanic acid) gave me a complete clear face during the use of it, and also removed acne and mild scalp folliculitis. After the treatment, I got about two middle sized oozing lesions again, probably about 5 to 7 days after the antibiotic treatment. But, those lesions were the last I have seen so far. I’m currently clean (not even small lesions), since maybe 8 January. It’s still to early to consider myself (temporary) cured, but something (or a combination of things) did something, it seems. I’m currently only using povidone-iodine soap as a face wash and a shampoo.
At the moment I think the positive effect was caused by the combination or sequence of Soolantra, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and povidone-iodine soap. Maybe also combined with the oral use of high quality manuka honey; not using a moisturizer; maybe a also omega 3 supplementation; I’m also drinking a bit more tea now. The problem is that when I used those products individually, they didn’t fix it, so I don’t know my skin is good at the moment.
One thing to add to my post about my treatments: it sounds strange, but I recently changed my PC mouse. Looking back in my email purchase history, I think I bought the mouse at June 2011. I become aware of the skin problem at I think around March 2012, but it wasn’t often and just small (and thought it was acne and ignored it), so I likely had it before I noticed it. Because I liked the mouse (it’s a silent noise mouse), I later replaced it by two others of the same type (because the buttons weren’t working as good as they used to be). Recently, I found out that a lot of my PC system crashes were due to this mouse. The mouse was also giving me electric shocks recently, probably also due to the lower humidity and a bad electric design of the mouse. I have replaced it with a different mouse product at (I think) 5 December 2015, and haven’t seen those system crashes since then. Probably has nothing to do with my skin, but because it may effect my body (by maybe putting my constantly under electric charge while using the mouse, without noticing it), I wanted to add this here.
Soolantra contains ivermectine as active ingredient, and Soolantra is used topically. Before the release of Soolantra, it was only used orally for humans, but for animals (like horses), it was also used topically to treat against parasites.
Some users at the Rosacea Group Forum have also used this animal version topically, with success. So it may be an alternative to Soolantra. See Main topic - Oozing Yellow Crusts (about the Horse Dewormer Paste).
I have not been using Soolantra unfortunately. I had to resort to my own formulation of Ivomec and Cetaphil. I have used this for six days. I put it on before I go to bed at night. I woke up today and my skin is absolutely clear. I’m going to use it every couple days now because I do feel that it is pretty harsh on my skin.
Small update. My skin is still doing very well, and I still don’t know why exactly.
Although I did got a one small-mid sized oozing lesions suddenly in the first week of February followed by a small not-really oozing one near the nose, but other than that, my skin is still very clean without even small lesions since the beginning of January.
I think that sudden new lesion may not immediately mean a relapse, but maybe it’s simply some trapped parts of the lesion causing factor in the skin that suddenly becomes exposed due to skin growth/renewal, and then causes the immune system to attack it, with a lesions as result.
I’m still only using povidone-iodine soap without any moisturizer.
Hi All, just an update on my condition. I am still applying 50% TTO 50% organic, unrefined, cold-pressed, virgin coconut oil. I started getting more lesions which oozed and crusted then I realized I had been waiting to apply the mixture some 10-15 minutes after showering at which time my skin had dried out and cooled down. In the beginning I was applying directly after showering. I read somewhere that heat makes demodex active so I was wondering whether they were surfacing when I was showering only to bury themselves deep in the pores when the skin cooled and dried out. I started applying the oil mixture directly after getting out of the shower whilst my skin is still warm and hasn’t dried out yet. Within a day my skin had improved. I made this change about 10 days ago and I have not had a problem lesion since then. I’ve had some tiny pustules but they have disappeared within a day and my skin is pretty much clear now. I am more than ever convinced that demodex is my issue and thinking seriously about trying ivermectin. I’m a little nervous about the horse ivermectin dewormer or ivomec as I don’t want to damage my skin. I was wondering how Dm78 is getting on and also Tso. Any updates?
I’ve taken the leap and started on Rosiver cream on March 15th. Rosiver is the brand name for Soolantra here in Canada. It cost $200. I apply just before bed after showing. In the morning I am applying the TTO mixture after washing again. For the first few days there was no noticeable change and my skin was great. I only had 4 or 5 tiny bumps. My skin has deteriorated yesterday and today (day 8 and 9) with more pustules. I count about 18 pustules. I have 6 larger pustules. The rest aren’t significant. The nature of the pustules has changed. They itch more and are a little larger but don’t really ooze. I’m sticking with it because something is changing and I think it is die off. I’ll keep you updated on progress. Still hopeful that this treatment will work for me.
In my situation, my skin got better when I scrapped the TTO altogether. I wanted to know if the Soolantra was what healed me and not a combination of the two. I’m no doc, but I’d recommend stopping the TTO as it might be counteracting or defeating what the Soolantra is trying to do. That was what I did and things worked fine. From the first day I did that, I never got another ooze monster. Just some raised, red bumps.
Update: I did got two new lesions a day of 1 or 2 after my previous post at Feb 25. Similar results in March.
So I’m still not fully/completely healed, and I’m not sure if it can on the long run, but the frequency/occurence is just very low, instead of daily new lesions it’s more like 3 per month. Which is, in terms quality of live, a big difference.
@col, good to hear that you have Soolantra. Hope it will work for you.
@adent3742 thanks for sharing the photos and info. I’ll link them from the photos thread.
Interesting that Ciprofloxacin temporary cleared your face while other antibiotics didn’t. In my case the antibiotic amoxicillin/clavulanic acid also seemed to clear my face temporary (or reduce the problem). When googling, your are mine antibiotic are often compared together, so they often seem to be used for the same purpose.
About the nickel allergy, if the problem is caused by nickel, than I wonder why you didn’t have the problem before two years ago.
You should give Soolantra a try. It seems to help for most of us. If, for whatever reason, your doc doesn’t want to give Soolantra, but wants to try another antibiotic, then I would suggest to give amoxicillin/clavulanic acid a try. In my situation, it’s a unclear how much the positive effect of it exactly was, because I was using multiple things, but it may be large, but Soolantra is probably the first thing you should try.
So my skin has definitely calmed down since i started posted about using soolantra etc. compared to when I hadnt been using it. I used soolantra every day at first, then it calmed down I only used it on lesions that would appear.
Today, I recently ran out of soolantra (I gradually really slowed down the use to about once a week) and my skin problem is still there but in no way as severe as it was before. But, when I do get a lesion, I have started experimenting with other topical solutions.
This one might not be for some, but ive been using coconut oil infused with cannabis as a topical solution for my face. I got the idea while watching a video clip about a man named Rick Simpson who used cannabis oil to cure his skin cancer lesions, so I decided to research on cannabis topical lotions. I made some infused coconut oil and very lightly applied it to my face, and any lesions. I noticed the lesions would not get as inflamed as they would, and it would actually decrease the inflammation. The healing time definitely was increased, a large lesion I had the other day was pretty much unnoticeable the next day. I generally feel it keeps my skin tame from these lesions and not inflamed.
Please be aware though that topically applying cannabis infused coconut oil MAY have some psychoactive effects and WILL if ingested (although its 100% harmless and actually beneficial to the body) so please do a LOT of research on this, theres plenty online.
But yeah, I am going to keep trying this and see if the effect is consistent.
Peace all
PS. I also wanted to ask - do any of you live with dogs or any other pets?
Update:
The last time I used Soolantra was in December, and a couple of times afterwards on a few lesions. Followed by a 1 week amoxicillin/clavulanic acid antibiotic treatment for an oral throat infection that I got, and then the use of povidone-iodine soap as a face wash. My skin was a lot better than before the use of Soolantra, but I still got a few lesions (small-medium sized), maybe once two or three times a month.
Recently I changed from using povidone-iodine from twice a day (morning and evening) as a facewash to once a day. Twice a day was drying out my face in the first hour after use, but since my skin was stable and I didn’t got the lesions very often, I kept using it. Now that I reduced it to once a day in the morning, and doing nothing with my face in the evening, my skin has further improved. Although switching from povidone-iodine to a very mild Cerave facewash or doing nothing with the skin, seem to give less good results.
So skin hydration is may also be important, or natural hydration by not washing it too much. Maybe some ingredients in fashwashes or moisturizers may also cause problems.
I’m not sure if this causes any improvements in my skin, but since February, I started doing fitness with heavy weights, which may have some effect on the skin.
@RecoverE About dogs, I was in regular contact with a dog about a bit more than 1 year before I first noticed that I had the strange skin problem. But possible had it earlier than that. So I can’t rule out whether it was caused by the dog.
This woman also has a dog: TV show “The Dr’s” discuss women with chronic, untreated skin condition
I have a dog, but have lived in different places with many years without being anywhere near a dog. Personally, I can rule out the dog factor for myself. It’s possible that’s where we picked up the demodex, but I don’t think the dogs themselves give us the reaction.
I haven’t had a single outbreak since early January. It’s simple. I wash my face with cerave or whatever soap. Use Soolantra at night. Use extra virgin coconut oil as moisturizer and nothing else.
TSO, I’ve lived in east coast humidity and I now live in the desert. So I know both climates well. For me, if I don’t put moisturizer on within a minute or two of getting out of the shower, my skin starts to turn into a dry wasteland. It happens that quickly and its the same in the humid climates and the dry ones. Especially worse in winter.
From what I understand, an underlying predisposition to diabetes can cause excessive dry skin like this. Or maybe we’re just born with bad genes. Don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone else with skin as dry as what I get.
Hello all!
I’m updating about my situationl. Still not using soolantra yet and had once again a really long time without outbreaks; like 1.5 months. Now it’s coming back slowly. I’ve noticed that it has come back when I ran out of my normal moisturizer. I had to use another one, really more thick and richer. And it came back with that at the same time. It looks like moisturizer cream is feeding the demodex… The best result on my skin is when I use the least possible moisturizer (for normal skin) ; after I wash the face with cold water on the morning. It looks like the skin is the best when you let it accomodate itself. Meaning not washing too much and putting the least products on it. You should give this moisturizer a try, it’s killer !! It’s called eucerin ultra sensitive. I think I’ll still use it once on soolantra, if it dries too much my skink. Good luck guys
Hi all, just an update. I followed advice and stopped the TTO and just continued with the rosiver cream. This really seemed to help matters. I’m 7 weeks into treatment and not had anything oozing in over a month. My lesions are much much fewer, skin is smoother and less dry, there’s no more itching and stinging, the redness is much less and I’m a heck of a lot happier. Sometimes days go by without any bumps which hasn’t happened in 5 years. When I do get a pustules they usually disappear in a day and they are small. It’s expensive stuff but rosiver is definitely working. I would recommend anyone suffering from this to give it a try because it really has made a huge difference for me.
