Hydrocortisone 1% - Is it safe to use?

[Adamklang]

Hello all

After I was diagnosed with seb derm, I have researched a lot for different kind of treatments. But one that seems to pop up a lot of times is hydrocortisone 1% lotion/creme, both on this website and other. But hydrocortisone 1% is a steorid, and I have allways been told that steorids was never to be used on Rosacea skin. But well, I have heard that, this is such a low streng, that it wont make it worse. If that is right, I suppose you can compare it to Accutane, which is very harmfull on rosacea in large dosage, but in small actually can help quite a bit(So have I understand).

But still, hydrocortisone does it have some of the same side effects as the more strong steorids?

If you use hydrocortison 1% do you get more SUN SENSITIVE? - MORE SENSITIVE SKIN? - THINNER SKIN? - and so on..

Can anyone help me with that ?

[boyandhisdog]

Adam,
I moved your post to the similar and co-existing conditions grouping.
IMO, I believe that 1% hydorcortisone is perfectly safe and effective. There are any number of discussions and posts about it already and J-mill has written several lengthy posts about it's use and tapering, off etc. so I won't re-hash it here.
I will only say that for me, it's effective and I would never rule it out. You will always find differing opinions so you have to decide what is best for you.
Yours,
Rob

[Adamklang]

Adam,
I moved your post to the similar and co-existing conditions grouping.
IMO, I believe that 1% hydorcortisone is perfectly safe and effective. There are any number of discussions and posts about it already and J-mill has written several lengthy posts about it's use and tapering, off etc. so I won't re-hash it here.
I will only say that for me, it's effective and I would never rule it out. You will always find differing opinions so you have to decide what is best for you.
Yours,
Rob

Okay thank you Rob.

I will try to search around for his posts . But just one thing, that I dont know if J-mill has wrote about is just; Will it make your skin thinner?

Becuase I think I have heard some place, that hydrocortison 1% actually would not. I hope thats true, but do you know if it is?

[phlika29]

It is the long term use of higher dose steroid creams that are the 'bad ones'. However I wouldn't feel comfortable telling anyone that it was safe to use 1% hydrocortisone over the long term.

As Rob said J-Mill has posted some excellent info on this subject and I would also suggest that you search out his posts.

[Yvette]

Hey -

I would only consider hydrocortisone as a very short temporary treatment. I asked my Derm. once and he replied you could use it for about a month..... I think this is a long time though and though he's credible, I err on "less is best". I used hydrocortisone after IPL gave me a flare, for a maximum of a week and at night only.

Good luck.

Yvette

[man_from_mars]

Good thing here is at least you are aware of the possible dangers
before starting out with it

Remember to not get carried away with using it:
-use the thinnest possible sliver of it
-and apply it only to the needed area

It's when people start using it like a moisturizer
that causes the real long term trouble

I can attest to the thinner skin -
though not almost transparent like some reports but easily bleeding
but that was after 35 years of using it

[boyandhisdog]

Al-
So you only utilized 1%- nothing ever stronger?
Albeit 35 years of anything doesn't sound like it would be good for you!
Yours,
Rob

[man_from_mars]

I did occasionally use another stronger steroid (fluocinonide)
but that was about after 25? years of using only hydrocortizone

Still not sure what caused my roscacea
-being a lifelong easy flusher
-the lifelong use of hydrocortizone to treat seb derm between eyebrows and forehead
-the last few years of the occasional use of a more powerful steroid

The weird thing is the telengiectasias appear on the cheeks and temples
where I never applied any meds
but this is common with steroid rosacea

Guess I was destined to get rosacea
either by fate of being a blusher
or my own ignorance in overusing the meds.
I'm one of those people that realized it made a great mositurizer too!

[man_from_mars]

Wanted to add that I've since quit using hydrocortizone 1%
and switched to ketoconzole 2% prescription cream which is non-steroidal
and has worked a lot better as far as how often I need to apply it.
(But of course everyone responds differently)

But then again ketoconazole has it's own liver damage possibilities.

So whichever you use as everyone said - just don't abuse

[J-Mill]

In brief what I can contribute to this discussion is that there are studies where they followed atopics who used hydrocortisone daily for 10+ years. After this time they performed a skin punch biopsy and found no significant skin thinning or decrease in collagen synthesis. They also followed 6 mo - 1 year old babies who used it daily for 6 months and noted no adverse effects although I don't believe a biopsy was performed. Baby skin is considerably thinner than adult skin.

I have used it quite a bit over the last 2 year with no skin thinning, sun sensitivity or worsening. I would talk to your derm and be guided by their advice. I certainly advocate using alternatives to topical steroids if possible, however, if you are like me and nothing else works, what are you going to do? For me I tried many. many alternatives but the hydrocortisone is all that keeps the itch and scaling away...the scaling I could live wihth, but the itch was keeping me up at night.