my theory
Hey guys,
I believe it must be an invasion of some sort, not neccessarily on the skin
itself. I am guessing its something internal. Reason being, I have never
had Seb derm, until i was 24. I am now 26. I remember when the seb derm
flare ups first began coming out of the shower and sometimes during the day,
I went to an allergist, the allergist did not know what it was either at
first but she did percribe me some anti-biotics. The seb derm was
completely gone for two weeks, I thought that the problem was solved but
after 2 weeks it came back again. Dermatologists now wont perscribe
antibiotics for seb derm only giving us steroid or fungul creams. Because
the seb derb went away for two weeks while on antibiotics, I MEAN COMPLETELY
CLEAR, I could have cried those 2 weeks, I am guessing that something around
24 had invaded my body. You could go crazy reading studies of fungul
bacteria living inside your water pipes as you drink them, or even breathe
them when they become airborne in the shower. I am still researching.
Currently i take MSM internally, it helps keep the flare down, but i am
still doing some research. I just started to eat yogurt that contains live
cultures. I had read that eating yogurt balances out the good bacteria from
the bad bacteria. I have also read that some skin disorders are caused by
your body not being able to absorb the proper nutrients from your foods
meaning your colon needs to be cleasned. But the idea of having some pipes
up your ass sucking your crap out just isnt to pleasing to me. But people
what we are doing her is good. Each of us has his/her own way. I am
confident we will find the cure
yours truly
tony
November 19th, 2003 at 10:23 am
Interesting.
For me SD hit at the kinda post teen years i.e. 16.
I certainly have very oily skin, but I don’t get afflicted as bad as some. For
me the problems focus around my eyes, and they are just sore a lot of the time.
Also I can always "feel" the skin on my face i.e. it always feels sore, or dry
or itchy. It just gets a bit debillitating.
November 19th, 2003 at 5:51 pm
Then why an iflux of fungus feeding on my body now that i am 24, and not
while i was younger. And if this is a hormonal influx, then why has it
never effected other members of my family, nor anyone in my heritage past?
and why did the antibiotics cure it for 2 weeks?
tony
November 20th, 2003 at 4:00 am
Head and Shoulders may work for some people, but does not work for others
November 20th, 2003 at 4:50 pm
Yep, it does not work for me.
November 21st, 2003 at 12:18 am
does not work for me either
November 21st, 2003 at 1:08 pm
Again interesting stuff.
I wonder if a variety of fungi are at the root of this, hence the difficulty in
killing it.
It seems a lot of people here try a medication, which works for 2 weeks or do,
and then the problem returns. I wonder why this is? It seems strange that an
answer to this has not been provided. Perhaps we need something that is more
"wide spectrum" to counter this.
Hi,
I have pasted the research text.
November 22nd, 2003 at 2:33 am
Tony,
The antibiotics may have cleared you because their function is twofold–kill
bacteria and also act as an anti-inflammatory. In the long run, long term
use of anitbiotics will not help becasue your body will eventually adapt to
them, similar to oral corticosteroids. It is pretty clear through most of
the studies that we read that seb derm is more of a result of normal facial
fungus than being caused by any kind of bacteria. The antibiotics may have
helped clear you as well becasue you could have had a secondary bacteria
infection in your seb derm lesions.
I beleive that the cause of seb derm is that we have unusually sensitive
skin that reacts to the lipid waste material left behind from fungus feeding
on our sebum. The conversion of testerone to DHT does not help this because
DHT casuses more oil production which gives the fungus more food which
results in more waste material which leasd to further inflammation. It is a
chain reaction of all of these events.
Knowing these things gives us many options to control sebderm: we can try to
change the reaction process through anti-inflammatories such as Desowen,
Cutanix, and other topicals and by supplementing with borage oil, the best
source of GLA which is a natural anti-inflammatory that our bodies do not
seem to make enough of but is absolutley needed to control skin
inflammation. Also, an anti-inflammatory diet, such as The Zone, will help
also because the insulin spikes will cause further infllamation.
We can also try to kill as much fungus as possible on our bodies–nizoral
cream for the face and nizoral shampoo on the scalp, even if you do not have
seb derm on scalp you should still use it because some of the fungus can
travel from your scalp to your face. From what I understand, Nizoral
(ketocanozole) is the most wide spectrum antifungal product on the market.
We can also try to limit the production of sebum–only Accutane has been
proven to do this though some fel B5 can help as well. However, another
possiblility is to prevent testosterone from converting into DHT–this is
where Propecia (Proscar) comes in–I have been taking 1.25mgs of Proscar for
3 months and my skin is a lot less oily and as a result I have alot less seb
derm breakouts. The herb Saw Palmetto is also supposed to stop the
production of DHT so some of you may want to try this herb before taking
Proscar.
With all this being said, you must attack seb derm from all of these
angles–it took me over two years to get to this routine, but now that I
incorporate all of the above on a daily basis, I have been virtually clear
for almost three months.
One last word of advice is to keep your skin as dry as possible–water and
sweat are known skin irritants.
RJ
November 22nd, 2003 at 4:54 pm
i also get red patches of seb derm on the chest, is this due to my hair on
my chest or do you ladies out there with seb derm get it aswell on the
chest.
tony
November 23rd, 2003 at 1:12 pm
But ralph,
why would my skin react more to DHL at 24 years old? why not in the past?
why now?
tony
November 24th, 2003 at 5:17 am
Well, your skin is not actually reacting to the DHT itself, its that DHT
causes increases in sebum production and the sebum is giving the fungus more
opportunity to thrive. Testosterone does not really start converting into
DHT until your early twenties, and it is at a different rate for each
individual and can vary throughout your lifetime.
Also, by the time you hit your early twenties, your production of GLA can
also have stopped or slowed down meaning your skin also is now more senstive
because you do not have the natural anti-inflammotory process working
properly–combine the increase in skin sensitivity with the increase in
sebum production and there you have it.
November 25th, 2003 at 5:48 am
Hey ralph,
what is an anti-inflammatory diet? and is cutanix a steroid? what about
Desowen? is that a steroid to? and what do you wash your face with? is it
always Nizoral? and personally do you think there would ever be a cure?
tony
P.s your replies and Mads have been the most logical and helpful, how long
have you two had this disorder and how old are you both?
November 25th, 2003 at 11:44 am
Tony,
The best thing you can do for diet is go a buy a book called The Zone by Dr.
Barry Sears–it will explain it in depth but basically, you want to
eliminate all forms of sugar from your diet–meaning no dairy products
except cheese, no fruit, no juics, not regular sodas, no bbq sauces, tomato
products, desserts, etc etc. You also want to cut down on your carb intake
to about 30% of the recommended RDA–this is tough becasue it means basicaly
very little bread, pasta, rice, potatoes. However, it can be done and over
time you will feel the benefits. All of these foods cause your insulin
levels to spike which in turn leads to inflammation all over your body.
Cutanix is not a steroid at all, its main ingredient, Quadrinone, is derived
from a certain nut. I would have no reservations about using this lotion
long term–I use the senstive skin version.
Desowen is a steroid but it is a lower class one–my derm told me he uses it
as an afterhsave a few times a week to help with razor burn–two years of
use and I have not had any side effects from it and it still works very well
also.
I never wash my face with anything–water is a super irritant to me so I try
to keep it as dry as possible. I use nizoral shampoo on my scalp and
nizoral cream on my face–you leave the cream on it is not a wash.
I think a cure will come from some drug being develpoed for Psoriasis–there
is a lot more money to be made treating psoraisis than seb derm so but the
inflammatory process of the two diseases is very similar though they have
different causes.
How long did you try the boarge oil for? You need to take at least 1000mgs
daily , preferably 2000mgs daily for a month before you may even notice a
difference, but once you get the GLA levels back up in your body, you
hopefully will see a difference–I certainly did.
\
I am 35 and first starting getting seb derm at about 22–it only became a
chronic every day thing about 2.5 years ago.
Good luck with it all–i know this thing sucks but I beleive you really have
to micromanage everything in your life practically to control this thing
November 26th, 2003 at 12:15 pm
Its funny you mentioned Psoriasis, because as a child i had mild case of
psoriasis on scalp, elbows, knees and ankles which have disappeared ever
since seb derm came into place. I mean completely disappeared. Wish i had
the psoriasis back though, lest embarrassing.
tony
November 26th, 2003 at 6:11 pm
Let me make a correction to this–DHT is present in your body even as an
infant, what I meant to say is that it does not start to attach to your hair
follicles until your early twenties, give or take a few years
Once it starts to attach to your follicles, then your over production of
sebum starts
November 29th, 2003 at 5:34 pm
I have now been taking B5, or Pantothenic Acid, for almost a week and
my oily skin has got a lot better. But then again, it could also be
the cooler weather, this summer was horrible. I can also relate to
how you can "feel" your skin, it bites. I remember when I was younger
and this wasn’t an issue and you didn’t have to think about how the
hell you look all the time, it’s really a pain to always have to
check how you look..