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[desertdwllr]

I've had demodex. I'm actually just now recovering from the damage it did. This is my experience. I'm 41, and a little over a year ago I started breaking out. I was using Retin-A. I'm 41, and keeping the crypt keeper away is a priority. I've been using Retin-A since the 1982. Almost 30 years. I had teen acne, and Retin-A worked. I never stopped using it, and I've always been fortunate enough to have good health insurance, so obtaining it wasn't difficult or expensive. I was concerned when my skin started breaking out worse than a teenagers. Pizza face would have been a compliment. That bad. If you go to pop a zit, and it doesn't pop, and immediately 'blisters' up, and fills with a water-like substance, that's called edema, and chances are you have demodex. There's not much information out there on this, either, unless you're a dog, and then it's called mange. I went to my primary care physician, who sent me to a derm, and then I would go through three more derms in a matter of 8 months. I ended up going to a Chinese medical practitioner/herbalist. I will tell you what they prescribed me in a moment. I had demodex in, and around my ears. In fact, my ears were so 'bloated', after treatment my earlobes were a third of their previous size. I cannot believe a derm couldn't see the edema in my face. I can't believe that I didn't notice they had bloated up, to begin with! I had 'blackheads' that just wouldn't come out. They didn't look like typical blackheads. They were just black specks with skin over them. Slightly different than a blackhead. Whiteheads were non-existant. I had cysts, but they weren't really cysts, because they didn't drain, and they never seemed to heal. They were mite burrows. Demodex is a mite. Just like scabies. And just like scabies, it burrows into your skin. Supposedly we co-exist just fine with these mites, except when you have a compromised immune system. I was convinced I had a terminal illness, because demodex is common in very sick people. Think AIDS, and cancer. Children with leukemia often get demodex. My face always itched. I have an arsenal of products. All prescription. All useless. I have antibiotics (this is a big no-no!), antifungal, you name it, I have it. Pill and topical. Like I said, my face itched like nothing I can explain. The itch comes from the inside out, and not the outside. You almost cant get any relief from scratching it. I started using a product called Timeless. It's a sulfur, tea tree, zinc ointment. I had burrows all over my face, and I started using this ointment, with little change. Then I started getting burrows on my neck. What I thought was insane cystic acne. My doctor said it was menopause. My derm said it was peri-menopause. Another derm said it was rosecea. Another said it was seborrheic dermatitis, and everyone said it was something it wasn't. Through all of those tests, and the mis-diagnoses, the cysts (BURROWS) moved to my upper arms, shoulders, the back of my neck, and to my upper back. It always felt like something was moving around in my eyebrows, but it felt like something was making the peach fuzz on my back stand up straight. It felt like something was crawling around on my skin. My doctor said I was being bit by a spider, insect, or possibly bed bugs (LOL!), but my husband wasn't getting bit. I would get sharp pains on my skin, OFTEN. It felt like someone was driving a needle into my face, arm, back, or wherever. I had my face eaten raw by these mites. I was told that I was over-exfoliating. It was always me. It was always my fault. I either picked, or scratched, or whatever. Never the doctor's fault. My breaking point was when I couldn't stop scratching my upper arms. Every shirt I owned had blood stains on them. Either the back or on the sleeves. I was getting zero sleep, and I was ready to snap. You can't sleep when you are freaking itchy! I went to the Chinese doctor in Los Angeles, and he immediately diagnosed me with demodex. He gave me a 60 mg tube of permethrin 5% cream, and told me to use it every night for 8-12 hours for 7 days. He also told me to use a sulfur soap (I used Grisi sulfur soap) for the next month, all over my body. Guess what? It worked. Basically, it's the same treatment as scabies. Demodex seems to be harder to kill, though. They're not as fragile as scabies mites. It takes more treatment to kill them. I don't believe demodex is contagious. My husband, and kids, didn't get it. I did change my sheets, and pillow cases daily, because they were always bloody! Permethrin 5% cream is the bomb! Literally. It's a pesticide. I noticed a 100% improvement after one night. I was still itching for about 10 days, though. I noticed a major difference after three nights on treatment. After 10 days, my skin was clear. After a month the burrows on my arms had finally healed. Some of my observation about demodex. They are more active at night. They become active in extreme heat (hot showers). Sulfur doesn't cure demodex, and neither does tea tree oil. They will just move down your skin to an area where you didn't apply those products. Supposedly full strength tea tree oil will kill them but it didn't work for me, because I tried it, and tea tree oil is toxic, too. I'm not sure how, or why, I got demodex. I suspect it started out when I got strep, and had to do several rounds of antibiotics. And then I ended up taking antibiotics on and off over the course of a year, for other ailments. I believe the antibiotics compromised my immune system. Antibiotics are not always a good thing. Once you have demodex, they say you are susceptible to getting it, again and again, so now I keep a back up tube of permethrin. Even though these mites only travel millimetres, they come out of your pore to mate, so they can, and will, find new place to live on your body. I didn't go the natural route. I read about demodex solutions, and I didn't bother with their products because I wanted this nightmare over. Permethrin worked fast. This is just my experience, and I hope I can help someone avoid my nightmare.

[jjn]

Do you have any pictures of your skin when you were dealing with demodex mites? It might help some of us if we could actually see what cysts caused by mites looked like vs regular acne cysts.

Edited by jjn, 24 July 2011 - 09:24 PM.