Using a humidifier cleared me up

General
1

Since December I have been using a humidifier every night while I sleep. I noticed a difference within a week and within a month was 99% clear. from then to now I have pretty much been clear apart from maybe one or two small bumps a month, which if they do appear are much smaller and go away much quicker.

I have had this issue since late 2015 and my symptoms match those of other users on this site.

I noticed from reading this forum people mentioning that dry skin made their situation worse and that moisturisation is key. I suffer from acne, and use Benzoyl Peroxide twice a day, which leaves my skin extremely dry. I wondered if my dry skin from using BP was making this situation worse.

At the beginning of 2017, I initially tried using less BP in the hope that this would reduce how dry my skin was. This worked really well, but I started to get acne again so had to bump up my BP amount back to previous levels. I then started using more moisturiser and also applying it during the middle of the day as well as in the morning and at night. This made a difference and reduced the number of bumps, but still not close to 100% clear (maybe more like 50%). I then increased the amount of moisturiser I used even further, and while this resulted in further improvement, I started getting these weird bumps that would take forever to heal and were huge in diameter. It seemed like my skin was majorly infected with something as the initial bump just seemed to eat away at the surrounding skin and from an initial small size, would rapidly turn huge. Each one took weeks to fully clear. I put this down to using too much moisturiser and so reduced back to what I previously was using and this seemed to put an end to these extremely large ones. Maybe the increased moisturiser was making for a more welcome environment for bacteria?

The above experiments went on for months, and by the time I experienced the big bumps described above, it was around October 2017. I then thought of ways to increase moisturisation without using any more moisturiser, and I had seen humidifiers mentioned when searching on the internet. So I bought one from Amazon and then started using it every night. As I mentioned before, I started noticing a difference quickly and eventually this daily use pretty much cleared me up.

It makes sense to me that moisturisation is so key, as skin that is dehydrated is surely weaker and more susceptible to infection, and healing capabilities are less.

I will still continue to search for other methods that might work as using a humidifier is a pain due to having to regularly clean it to avoid bacterial growth/mold etc. But even if I don’t find another solution, I know that at least I will have the humidifier to fall back on.

I really hope this helps someone. No harm in giving it a try if you have this disease and suffer from dry skin too.

2

That’s really good input. Have you tried taking the humidifier away to see if the problem comes back?

3

Amazing discovery. Thanks for sharing. Please keep us informed of your progress.

4

I also belief that hydratation is important. Here’s a post of me about it: Skin hydration & Moisturizers

In my case, using a moisturiser by itself or a humidifier, couldn’t clear my skin. A moisturizer did improve my skin like maybe 10 to 20% (if I had to give a very rough estimate, whereas Soolantra would be like 90% to 95%), and I still use a moisturizer twice a day as some kind of maintenance regimen (now that my skin is clean). In my case, a humidifier was probably much less effective than a moisturizer.

The effectiveness of a humidifier in increasing the humidity highly depend on the size of the room, how much it’s ventilated and the humidification capacity of the humidifier. In bad conditions, the effect of a humidifer can be near zero in increasing the humidity. In good conditions, it can increase like 20% or maybe 30%. But this difference can also be achieved by moving from winter to summer (depending on where you live).

Choosing a good humidifier is very difficult because it’s difficult to translate humidifier specs to room specs. Also, there are a number of different humidifier categories, and each category has its own drawbacks, like white dust (effecting your breath and room cleaning), high energy usage, usability and noise. I’m using an ultrasonic humidifier combined with a device to purify the water, so that I don’t have white dust (and it’s low on energy usage and pretty quiet).

That’s also something I wonder about. Cleaning the face with a facewasher flushes of some bacteria, cleans the face from dirt, but also makes the skin drier and a bit more prone. It maybe results in less bacteria, but it also makes it easier for bad bacteria to penetrate the skin barrier. Moisturization increases the skin barrier protection, but also makes it easier for bacteria to colonize the skin. (As long as those are good bacteria, it maybe is no problem.)
Also bacteria can colonize the moisturizer product. So I prefer small tubes over large tubes, so that I can replace them more often with a clean moisturizer tube. And I avoid jar like products, because that would be the easiest type for bacteria to colonize. The best package would be a pump product, sealing off the moisturizer from the environment, but the moisturizer that works for me, isn’t available in that form.

Which moisturizer are you using?
Btw, have you tried Soolantra? It’s the primary solution on this forum.

5

Apologies for the late reply; I became very busy over the last few weeks. Not really to be honest. I have had a period where for a week I did not use it everyday, and I did notice a worsening of symptoms, although not really possible to draw any conclusions from this. Would need to stop using it for a longer time period.

Yes, I have the white dust issue too. I started using bottled water instead of tap water, and I would estimate this has eliminated the white dust by about 70% as a rough guess. I read that distilled water is what would eliminate the white dust completely, but it is not as readily available here as bottled water and is far more expensive. What device do you use to purify the water?

I am Eucerin Dry Skin Relief Face Cream. It is expensive and small, but is the best I have used so far. Never tried Soolantra as it is a prescription medication, and I have long since stopped going to the Doctors for help with my skin problems. I would like to try it, but have no confidence that I would be prescribed it anyway.

6

Bottled water usually contains minerals (also needed for health), which causes the white dust, but maybe in a different concentrations than tap water. Distilled or demineralized water indeed eliminates the problem. You can buy it in stores, maybe in large supermarkets or maybe via Internet. But depending on how much water you need, it can be impractical to continuously having to buy, transport and store large amounts of water.

Ultrasonic humidifiers often contain a filter to eleminate white dust, but those small and simple filters are usually (by far) not sufficient enough to filter enough minerals to eliminate the problem.

A reverse osmosis system like this: Amazon.com can remove almost all minerals, enough to eliminate the problem. I have a similar one like this. But it does require some space, water connection to use it, and it produces fresh water slowely (and also produces dirt water via a separate output).

Another solution would be to buy a different type of humidifier, but it can be very difficult to compare humidifiers. Every type has its own drawbacks, like noise, power consumption, white dust, humidification capacity to humidfy the room etc.

Most people here have no problem getting Soolantra prescribed. It should be easier to get than something like topical antibiotics. But in case it’s difficult, than there is also an animal version containing the same active ingredient: ivermectin. See Does yours spread? for more info about this.

7

So over the last couple of months the bumps and oozing have come back. 3 things changed around this time:

  1. I moved to a new office at work, which has the air con on significantly more than in the old office.
  2. My diet went from strict low carb to eating whatever I want, including plenty of junk food and sugary snacks
  3. I moved from a small bedroom to a larger bedroom, and my old humidifier was not able to keep the humidity levels as high in the new room. I had to buy a stronger/bigger one that was able to match the humidity levels I was achieving before.

I can’t say for sure what effect, if any, the above had. Maybe it was a combination of all 3. Maybe the humidifier had no positive effect after all? I doubt that considering how quickly my skin cleared up the first time I started using it. The only sure thing is my skin has got worse and was as bad as it has ever been a few weeks ago. I went back to ultra low carb diet and this has helped, maybe 50%.

I am still not happy though, and so I ordered Soolantra from an online pharmacy (I had to have it approved by their online doctor) on Friday, and tonight was my first application.

I have really high hopes having read the success stories on here and am feeling really positive at the moment. I will document my progress here and keep you guys updated :slight_smile:

8

Maybe the weather season also has some influence on humidity?
In my area, summers increase the humidity a lot, beyond the maximum effect of my humidifier. (At least in my living room. I haven’t measured it in my bedroom.)

I’m also on a low carb, high fat diet, combined with intermittent fasting since 3 months. It did loose some weight, so I’m currently at optimum body weight, but my primary goal is general health and to try it out and experiment with it.
Although I don’t have oozing lessions, I do get some irriting bumps on my face that could be related with the oozing lesions. I think it’s less than before my diet changes.
Although my skin is still sensitive, I can get bumps by using an electric beard trimmer (maybe going to much against the hair grain), or when getting irritatives on the skin. Not fully sure if I’m right, but I got a few drops of diet coke on my face when I opened a cola can. The next day, I had an irritating spot on my face, probably on the area on which the drop came on my face.

But external environment definitely has influence on my skin. My last large breakout was right after I helped a friend with his house (a bit more than 1 year ago, if I’m correct), in a dusty environment, while wearing a facial mask. The pressure of the mask, the house dust, the wood dust, possibly even anti wasp toxics and anti wood-worm toxics, triggered a large breakout.

9

How’s it going @slim? Any change?

10

In the 3 years I have suffered from this disease, the summer months have generally resulted in a clearing up of the oozing spots or at least a significant improvement from the months before. I put this down to humidity being better at this time of the year. So with that in mind, I am baffled as to why things have got so worse for me in the last few months

I think I am on day 12, so nearly two weeks. The first week was really positive. The existing oozing spots I had quickly cleared up. However, I could also see some bumps that had laid “dormant” for many weeks/months start to show signs of activity. They got brought to the surface of the skin more but did not ooze. I had a wedding last Sunday, and I could not believe my luck that the Soolantra had cleared my face to, I would say, 85% clear - in just 6 days! I could deal with the one or two small ones that remained and I enjoyed the day immensely, with a major reason that I did not have to worry about how I looked.

Then, around day 7, things started to get really bad. The oozing spots that I thought the Soolantra had cleared up were still there, and had gone slightly red. I picked at them and they errupted. Over the next few days, things got worse and worse (the “dormant” ones started oozing too), to the point that on Wednesday I was looking as bad as I can remember in the last few years. I have no idea how I showed up to work. I looked horrific. Two days later to today and I still look bad, but the oozers are clearing. I am hoping that what I have described above is just a bad initial reaction because of die off.

I am still positive, with the main reasons being that if I do get a new spot, it clears up far quicker than it used to, and also because others on this forum have reported an initial worsening before then becoming clear.

The Soolantra is definitely having an effect. I just hope I am over the worst of the recent breakout. Let’s see how the next few days go!

11

I think things will improve in the next week or so. Hang in there, don’t give up. Most people are so focused on what is going on for them they barely notice others and I’ll bet it doesn’t look nearly as bad as you think. I face planted last Saturday and landed on my nose. I had a massive scab on the bridge of my nose and had such anxiety but forced myself to go to work and deal with it. On the whole people are sound and those who aren’t are not worth being worried about.

12

I agree with Col. This condition made me anxious for so long, but you outgrow that feeling because you realize people see it, and then five seconds later forget about it. When I’ve broken down and confessed my disease to trusted friends and/or family, they claim they never noticed it on me. That being said, the Soolantra experience you are having reminds me of when I first started using it. Bumps would spring up like they were about to start a fight, but then kind of lost their fight and either oozed just a little or eventually disappeared altogether. Definitely you need to break the habit of picking at them and adding bacteria to the mix. I think you will get better; you just need time with Soolantra.

13

Did you used distilled water in the humidifier?

Thanks :slight_smile:

14

I haven’t used one yet this winter. But if I do, then I wouldn’t use it without distilled water with my ultrasonic humidifier. If you would use an ultrasonic humidifier without distilled water, it would disperse white mineral dust all over the room. Which is not only difficult to clean, it may also be bad for your health.