Can rosacea fade a lot from sulfur? This seemed to be happening to me.

[birdsing]

I started out with severely red patches on my skin on my front cheeks and temples. Then I started getting random indentations on my face and lines and pain like a stabbing pricking feeling along with tons and tons of tiny bumps mainly visible in good lighting and more noticeable with make-up on. My skin texture changed to looking porous and just cottage cheese like mainly in my t zone areas.

That all faded from dramatic red to pink to lighter pink to where I'm at now. It faded on it's own from dramatic red to pink but I am not sure if it was from something I tried....the only thing I was trying at the time was ketoconazole shampoo on my face. When I look close in the mirror I see tons of tiny red dots on my skin or pink/red skin color. I don't know if it's damaged blood vessels or what. My skin has been permanently pink/red in these particular areas. It looks worse when I flush of course but then when my flushing goes down, the pink stains of skin remain. My skin also became very oily. It never really was oily not that I know of or noticed, but I don't believe it was oily much before my problems began. Dermatologist took a skin scraping because I thought I had a fungal problem but found demodex mites and said he found no evidence of fungus. I've had intense crawling sensations on my face and scalp and body. I didn't think you could FEEL demodex.....can you?? Eyebrow hairs fall out. That's why I thought it must be something else perhaps a systemic problem or allergies to who knows what....but I've had some blood tests done and I've tried to figure out what I could be allergic to and nothing makes sense.

I've moved on to feeling itchy on my legs, crawling sensations on my body, having strange red bumps sometimes show up on my body and itch and then disappear rather quickly, hive like pale bumps show up in the same spots usually on my body sometimes, and recently I have been itching on my foot and developed tiny pink patches in two spots where I scratched and some tiny bumps formed in the area. The derm said it looks like nummular eczema, but I don't think it is but I dont know.....

Anyway, two things seemed to help the redness on my face. Permethrin helped a little. Demodex Solutions Xin Fumangling helps a bit I think and the nightly Zhoungzhoung cream helped with the texture of my skin but I am not sure I'm seeing any improvement with redness and not as quickly as with Sodium sulfecetamide and sulfur wash.

Things that made it worse:
Finacea
Metrogel

And then sodium sulfecetamide and sulfur 5% wash seemed to almost immediately help my skin and remove redness. It was a little surprising. I wasn't sure if it was just me. But when I continued using it for a few days, bumps and pinkness decreased a lot. I had to stop though because it was overdrying my skin and making it immensely tight and extremely oily perhaps because I was making my skin more dry so my skin was trying to make even more oil because of it.

But what I'd like to know is, if I have rosacea, can my rosacea really have started to just clear up from using the sulfur wash in a matter of days? It's not perfect yet or cleared up, but it's interesting that it seems to be helping for the redness and bumps and even the skin texture a bit when I use it.

Do I sound crazy or is it possible to feel demodex?

[flying_er]

I started out with severely red patches on my skin on my front cheeks and temples. Then I started getting random indentations on my face and lines and pain like a stabbing pricking feeling along with tons and tons of tiny bumps mainly visible in good lighting and more noticeable with make-up on. My skin texture changed to looking porous and just cottage cheese like mainly in my t zone areas.

That all faded from dramatic red to pink to lighter pink to where I'm at now. It faded on it's own from dramatic red to pink but I am not sure if it was from something I tried....the only thing I was trying at the time was ketoconazole shampoo on my face. When I look close in the mirror I see tons of tiny red dots on my skin or pink/red skin color. I don't know if it's damaged blood vessels or what. My skin has been permanently pink/red in these particular areas. It looks worse when I flush of course but then when my flushing goes down, the pink stains of skin remain. My skin also became very oily. It never really was oily not that I know of or noticed, but I don't believe it was oily much before my problems began. Dermatologist took a skin scraping because I thought I had a fungal problem but found demodex mites and said he found no evidence of fungus. I've had intense crawling sensations on my face and scalp and body. I didn't think you could FEEL demodex.....can you?? Eyebrow hairs fall out. That's why I thought it must be something else perhaps a systemic problem or allergies to who knows what....but I've had some blood tests done and I've tried to figure out what I could be allergic to and nothing makes sense.

I've moved on to feeling itchy on my legs, crawling sensations on my body, having strange red bumps sometimes show up on my body and itch and then disappear rather quickly, hive like pale bumps show up in the same spots usually on my body sometimes, and recently I have been itching on my foot and developed tiny pink patches in two spots where I scratched and some tiny bumps formed in the area. The derm said it looks like nummular eczema, but I don't think it is but I dont know.....

Anyway, two things seemed to help the redness on my face. Permethrin helped a little. Demodex Solutions Xin Fumangling helps a bit I think and the nightly Zhoungzhoung cream helped with the texture of my skin but I am not sure I'm seeing any improvement with redness and not as quickly as with Sodium sulfecetamide and sulfur wash.

Things that made it worse:
Finacea
Metrogel

And then sodium sulfecetamide and sulfur 5% wash seemed to almost immediately help my skin and remove redness. It was a little surprising. I wasn't sure if it was just me. But when I continued using it for a few days, bumps and pinkness decreased a lot. I had to stop though because it was overdrying my skin and making it immensely tight and extremely oily perhaps because I was making my skin more dry so my skin was trying to make even more oil because of it.

But what I'd like to know is, if I have rosacea, can my rosacea really have started to just clear up from using the sulfur wash in a matter of days? It's not perfect yet or cleared up, but it's interesting that it seems to be helping for the redness and bumps and even the skin texture a bit when I use it.

Do I sound crazy or is it possible to feel demodex?

No, I don't think it's crazy to get good results from sulfacetamide/sulfur, it often helps rosacea as well as demodex. For me, the stay on lotion is much better than the wash. I also found the wash to be a bit irritating and left my skin oily. Now I use the sulfacetamide/sulfur lotion at night and leave it on all night, it's helped a lot. After washing I put on a bit of cerave moisturizer while my skin is still damp. I let that sit for several minutes and then put on the sulfacetamide/sulfur lotion.

Don't know if you can actually feel demodex, I'd guess no.

-Dave-

[birdsing]

No, I don't think it's crazy to get good results from sulfacetamide/sulfur, it often helps rosacea as well as demodex. For me, the stay on lotion is much better than the wash. I also found the wash to be a bit irritating and left my skin oily. Now I use the sulfacetamide/sulfur lotion at night and leave it on all night, it's helped a lot. After washing I put on a bit of cerave moisturizer while my skin is still damp. I let that sit for several minutes and then put on the sulfacetamide/sulfur lotion.

Don't know if you can actually feel demodex, I'd guess no.

-Dave-

Thanks for responding Dave!

Hm, I wonder what this feeling of crawling I have on my skin could be from then. I feel crawling on my face and scalp and now on my body. It feels like bugs crawling almost through my hairs and especially in my eyebrows. Sometimes I feel pangs of slight pricking like the poking of a needle. My skin appearance seemed to improve almost immediately following use of the sulfacetamide sulfur wash or maybe I'm just imagining things at this point.

The wash also made my skin more oily. I think it's because it really dries the skin out. Anyway, I'm picking up the cream version of this.

The lotion you use what is it called? My doctor gave me a prescrip for Avar cream which is basically a cream version of the wash, I think.

Since you are using a lotion version of this, I want to ask you, I have noted that it says online that sodium sulfacetamide is an antibiotic. I am nervous about using antibiotics on my skin for fear of skin or even the mites getting used to it and then skin becoming worse eventually or even dependent on the cream....is this a possibility you think? Do you know what sodium sulfacetamide is? And how long have you been using the lotion version? Has it drastically improved your rosacea or how well has it improved your rosacea as far as bumps, skin texture, enlarged pores and erythema would you say?

[flying_er]

The product I use is Perrigo Sodium Sulfacetamide 10% / Sulfur 5% lotion. It comes in a tube and feels more like an ointment or cream than a lotion. I find it less drying than the wash I used previously. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say it has improved my skin 50% in terms of texture and P&Ps. I still have large pores but always have so I'm not too worried about that. I've been using it for around 9 months. For me, it's a much better product than Finacea or Metrogel.

As for the crawling feeling you have, I don't know what that is, I don't have that feeling on my skin. If it is demodex that you feel, sulfur should help kill them. When you start using this product you should plan on sticking with it for a couple months before deciding if it's good for you or not. It can take a while for your skin to get comfortable with a new product. The product may make you too dry at first but that may change over time.

I hope it works for you,
Dave

[drummond]

I started out with severely red patches on my skin on my front cheeks and temples. Then I started getting random indentations on my face and lines and pain like a stabbing pricking feeling along with tons and tons of tiny bumps mainly visible in good lighting and more noticeable with make-up on. My skin texture changed to looking porous and just cottage cheese like mainly in my t zone areas.

That all faded from dramatic red to pink to lighter pink to where I'm at now. It faded on it's own from dramatic red to pink but I am not sure if it was from something I tried....the only thing I was trying at the time was ketoconazole shampoo on my face. When I look close in the mirror I see tons of tiny red dots on my skin or pink/red skin color. I don't know if it's damaged blood vessels or what. My skin has been permanently pink/red in these particular areas. It looks worse when I flush of course but then when my flushing goes down, the pink stains of skin remain. My skin also became very oily. It never really was oily not that I know of or noticed, but I don't believe it was oily much before my problems began. Dermatologist took a skin scraping because I thought I had a fungal problem but found demodex mites and said he found no evidence of fungus. I've had intense crawling sensations on my face and scalp and body. I didn't think you could FEEL demodex.....can you?? Eyebrow hairs fall out. That's why I thought it must be something else perhaps a systemic problem or allergies to who knows what....but I've had some blood tests done and I've tried to figure out what I could be allergic to and nothing makes sense.

I've moved on to feeling itchy on my legs, crawling sensations on my body, having strange red bumps sometimes show up on my body and itch and then disappear rather quickly, hive like pale bumps show up in the same spots usually on my body sometimes, and recently I have been itching on my foot and developed tiny pink patches in two spots where I scratched and some tiny bumps formed in the area. The derm said it looks like nummular eczema, but I don't think it is but I dont know.....

Anyway, two things seemed to help the redness on my face. Permethrin helped a little. Demodex Solutions Xin Fumangling helps a bit I think and the nightly Zhoungzhoung cream helped with the texture of my skin but I am not sure I'm seeing any improvement with redness and not as quickly as with Sodium sulfecetamide and sulfur wash.

Things that made it worse:
Finacea
Metrogel

And then sodium sulfecetamide and sulfur 5% wash seemed to almost immediately help my skin and remove redness. It was a little surprising. I wasn't sure if it was just me. But when I continued using it for a few days, bumps and pinkness decreased a lot. I had to stop though because it was overdrying my skin and making it immensely tight and extremely oily perhaps because I was making my skin more dry so my skin was trying to make even more oil because of it.

But what I'd like to know is, if I have rosacea, can my rosacea really have started to just clear up from using the sulfur wash in a matter of days? It's not perfect yet or cleared up, but it's interesting that it seems to be helping for the redness and bumps and even the skin texture a bit when I use it.

Do I sound crazy or is it possible to feel demodex?

Those crawling sensations you are experiencing is not mites it is lipid signalling which is actually failing to complete its end effect. The end effect should result in low level sweating but in your case its not happening.
What you are actually experiencing is a sensation that people who do not have rosacea never experience.
Its only when a person looses the ability to sweat normally feels that sensation.

Some derms use mites to justify the cause of rosacea and frighten people, which is nonsense.
As for the sulphur it probably initially irritates the skin and in turn initiates the healing mechanism
I have actually put some chilli on my skin in the past until it was throbbing then after a week the part I treated was white
but it’s not a permanent or practical solution.

[jrlhamcat2]

Personally if I experienced what you described, I would suspect an infectious or parasitic role. I don't know enough to say whether it's possible to see a rapid improvement in rosacea similar to what you described.

The sensations you described sound similar to the ones reported with this condition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons

As far as I know, no one has proven the cause of these sensations. I'm very reluctant to accept that everyone who reports these sensations has a form of delusional parasitosis.

[birdsing]

Those crawling sensations you are experiencing is not mites it is lipid signalling which is actually failing to complete its end effect. The end effect should result in low level sweating but in your case its not happening.
What you are actually experiencing is a sensation that people who do not have rosacea never experience.
Its only when a person looses the ability to sweat normally feels that sensation.

Some derms use mites to justify the cause of rosacea and frighten people, which is nonsense.
As for the sulphur it probably initially irritates the skin and in turn initiates the healing mechanism
I have actually put some chilli on my skin in the past until it was throbbing then after a week the part I treated was white
but it’s not a permanent or practical solution.

I feel this crawling in my eyebrows and scalp and body....under my eyes in the undereye area.....my lips I have felt there too, my feet, legs arms, hands, etc....I sweat when I work out and sweat a lot. I don't think it's a sweat problem. I feel these feeling so intensely some days and when I'm laying down trying to sleep. I can't seem to use many moisturizers, they only make my skin's texture worse off and create lines and dents and porous skin.

Sometimes the crawling feeling is so light that it just feels like something lightly scurry through a hair on my face. I am losing eyebrow hairs at a very fast rate particularly one of my eyebrows where I feel more crawling.

I am posting photos here taken today.

I often notice my skin is shedding. I can pick out from my skin tiny white balls or particles of skin. The texture is like cottage cheese as you can see or like an orange peel. I don't know what in the world those little red dots are that you can see when looking closely in the pics all over the sides of my face. The black dots near my nose are blackheads but those all over my face I am unsure of. They are not black but red prick size dots.

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0938.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0919.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0917.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0916.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0914.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0912.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0909.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0908.jpg

Here are three photos I posted on this forum many months ago last year.
The skin was bumpier, appeared raised a lot more in many areas....

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0101.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0122.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0121.jpg

[birdsing]

Personally if I experienced what you described, I would suspect an infectious or parasitic role. I don't know enough to say whether it's possible to see a rapid improvement in rosacea similar to what you described.

The sensations you described sound similar to the ones reported with this condition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons

As far as I know, no one has proven the cause of these sensations. I'm very reluctant to accept that everyone who reports these sensations has a form of delusional parasitosis.

Hi!

Thanks for your response. I am well aware of Morgellons but as of yet, I don't have some of the serious symptoms described with Morgellons. Even if I have Morgellons, I am screwed anyway cause no one cares and there is no help for this disease.

When I noted improvement in my skin, was when I started using tea tree oil many times a day. It seems to be exfoliating my skin or something because my skin was getting very dry but shedding also. So, when I went to the derm and told him that tea tree oil was helping and if he could take a scraping to look under a microscope, he found demodex. He said he didn't find anything fungal. If this was sebbhoreic dermatitis, wouldn't he have found fungal evidence?

When I think about it, from the sensations I have felt, I really do think I CAN feel parasites moving on my skin. There is no other explanation for the sensations I feel.

When you say you would suspect an infectious role, what do you mean? Could you give me some examples?

I am planning next, to have more blood work done and if you can suggest any things I should check for and get tested for, that would be much appreciated. I plan to check Vitamin D levels, B levels, fungal and yeast in the body, parasite through stool and perhaps through blood test, if there could be a liver, kidney or organ problem, going to go to gastroenterologist to have stomach scoped out to see if I have an ulcer and too much acidity in the stomach (I have had acid reflux many times in the past five years and taken acid reflux meds), ask about the possibility of celiac disease, and try going to an allergist and also a neurologist to get tested for anything else. My insurance is going to LOVE me. I have been tested for lupus, lyme, and routine blood work.

Here are photos of my face:
I often notice my skin is shedding. I can pick out from my skin tiny white balls or particles of skin. The texture is like cottage cheese as you can see or like an orange peel. I don't know what in the world those little red dots are that you can see when looking closely in the pics all over the sides of my face. The black dots near my nose are blackheads but those all over my face I am unsure of. They are not black but red prick size dots.

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0938.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0919.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0917.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0916.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0914.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0912.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0909.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0908.jpg

Here are three photos I posted on this forum many months ago last year.
The skin was bumpier, appeared raised a lot more in many areas....

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0101.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0122.jpg
http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...g/IMG_0121.jpg

[birdsing]

Those crawling sensations you are experiencing is not mites it is lipid signalling which is actually failing to complete its end effect. The end effect should result in low level sweating but in your case its not happening.
What you are actually experiencing is a sensation that people who do not have rosacea never experience.
Its only when a person looses the ability to sweat normally feels that sensation.

Some derms use mites to justify the cause of rosacea and frighten people, which is nonsense.
As for the sulphur it probably initially irritates the skin and in turn initiates the healing mechanism
I have actually put some chilli on my skin in the past until it was throbbing then after a week the part I treated was white
but it’s not a permanent or practical solution.

Also, you used chili on your rosacea and it made the skin lighter? For a long time or just a few hours?

[jrlhamcat2]

Hi!
When you say you would suspect an infectious role, what do you mean? Could you give me some examples?

Hi, I just meant that I would suspect some pathogen in your face, whether it's mites, bacteria, fungus, etc. Sorry, but I don't know enough to give examples. I guess that isn't very helpful! Seeing an allergist also sounds worthwhile. Do you have any blood test results indicative of an allergic response like high eosinophil counts? Maybe some skin patch testing could be helpful.