Some Improvemnt in my SD
I am writing for the first time to this forum because I finally have
some results to report to you. I’ve been reading all of your
suggestions, trying a few of them, and thinking about what makes
sense for my situation. I have SD only in the winter, usually from
December to March, but it can start sooner and go till April or May.
During the summer my skin is completely normal, so I know my diet
has nothing to do with the SD.
I have had SD for about 5 years. I have it in all the usual places
on my face. I do not have it on my scalp. When I have a flair-up
it can be quite severe. My skin looks almost like a bad burn.
My dermatologist has me taking 20 mgs. of doxycyclene twice a day
(for the inflammation) and I use metrogel 1% cream twice a day. I
wash once a day with Nizarol shampoo. I leave it on the whole time
I’m showering, shaving my legs, etc. The last thing I do is rub the
shampoo all over my face and rinse. You can’t let the Nizarol sit
around your eyes because it will burn them. The Nizarol is drying
so I use Cetaphil lotion after the metrogel. I let the metrogel dry
a little while I do something else then I use the Cetaphil, the
daytime formula during the day and the nighttime formula at night.
In the morning I just rinse my face with cool water and apply the
metrogel and Cetaphil.
This past summer I quit taking the doxycyclene when my skin showed
no signs of the SD but I continued to use the Nizarol, the metrogel
and the Cetaphil.
Enough of the background,I kept trying to figure out why I had this
problem only in the winter. I suspected running the heat in my
house to be the cause of my seasonal SD. I had a slight flair this
past November after we had a couple of days of cold weather and I
ran the heater in the house. We have relatively mild winters here
and I have always kept my central air low, at about 68 Fahrenheit,
and I turn off the heat at night. When I had a flair-up last month
I turned the thermostat down even further to about 66 Fahrenheit. I
also started taking the doxycylene again. I think it’s working! I
think the trick is keeping the heat turned way down. It’s cold in
the house but we just put on more clothing.
I’m excited that I might have found something that works. For 5
years I have looked like a burn victim for the holidays (my birthday
is in December too!). Now this year I’m feeling a little hopeful.
I don’t know that my skin will continue to do okay and I don’t know
if this will work for any of the rest of you. But if you have SD
only in the winter, you might try turning down the heat a little and
see if it helps.
Good luck to you all and happy holidays.