Seborrheic Dermatitis

Hi folks,

Since sebderm is an inflammatory condition, I began to wonder if any
of these treatments he suggests have any real benefit? The the three
core ingredients are alpha lipoic acid (supposedly a potent
antioxidant) and ascorbyl palmitate (a fat soluble form of vitamin
C).
I’m always very skeptical of any such claims, so I did a little
research.

In regard to aplha lipoic acid, I found the following:

Basically, it seems to be a fairly potent antioxidant, with topical
activity as well. Some researchers, Dr. Pericone included, beleive
that topically applied antioxidants have anti-inflammatory properties.

Now, with respect to ascorbyl palmitate:

Dr. Perricone claims that this form of Vitamin C is stable and
readily
penetrates the skin when applied topically.

I checked out his formulas and they all contain glycolic acid.
Glycolic acid used on any form of dermatitis would be like putting
gasoline on a fire. So,trying his products is out of the question.
Plus, they’re quite expensive.

I plan to conduct a little experiment. The alpha lipoic acid and the
ascorbyl acid, both in powder form, are fairly cheap. I plan to use
a
plain zinc oxide ointment as the base and I’ll add the the other two
items to make a 5% mixture.

I did find another cream that contains the above items, and it
doesn’t
seem to contain irritating or comedogenic ingredients. But, it
doens’t
state the concentration of the ingredients. To play it safe, I’ll go
ahead and mix up a small batch. First. I’ll test it for few days on
my
inner arm to make sure it doesn’t cause any irritation. If it seems o.
k., I’ll apply the compound to my face nightly for a few weeks.

My sebderm is limited to my face, mostly my forhead and cheeks.
Lately, I’ve gotten it under control despite the very cold winter air
that usually dries my skin.

After about 1 1/2 years of experimenting and trying a variety of
things, I’ve finally worked out a treatment program that’s working
very well for me. Here it is:

* Daily shower with cool water

* Shampoo with Nizoral shampoo 3x weekly, mild shampoo the rest of
the
time. (I don’t have SD on my scalp, but I read somewhere that
reducing
P ovale levels on the scalp is vital to controlling SD of the face)

* Wash face with cool water only

* Apply Nizoral cream lightly to face 2x day,

* Take 1 Claritin 10mg tab daily (About the time my sebderm first
surfaced, 2 years ago, I began to have have allergy flare ups)

* Take Ketotifen 1 mg daily (another antihistamine that also has been
proven useful in atopic dermatitis and allergies)

* 10 fish oil capsules daily

* 1 multivitamin, 3 g vitamin C, 800 IU vitamin E, 1 mg melantonin
1 b50 B vitamin cap,

Things I’ve tried that didn’t work:

ZNP zinc pyrithione soap (it was very drying and irritaing)
Betadine cleanser (irritating)
Cetaphil soap (irritating)
Elidel (very little effect)
Protopic (little effect, but made my skin tingle & burn)
Desonide (slight reduction in inflammation)
Itraconazol orally (slight overall improvement)
Ketoconazol orally (ditto)
Cider Vinegar topically (no luck,just stung,left me smelling like a
pickle barrel, and really ruled out dating..he he he)

Well, sorry for the length of this post, but maybe by sharing our
successes and failures we can help each other conquer SD. I’ll post
an
update to my experiment in a few weeks. Well, I’ve got to run..
another snow storm is on the way.

best wishes,

Michael

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 12th, 2004 at 5:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.