I have folliculitis and the literature indicates it can flare-up due to rubbing. They recommend to wear loose clothes, no scrubbing while washing, lightly shaving, etc. It is not always easy to tell the difference between acne and folliculitis (irritated/infected hair follicles). I sleep on my back and have constant breakout issues in that area.

I think it may be folliculutis mainly because i took antibiotics for 4 months to treat face acne... now i have it on body.

Have you found ways to treat this?

Also, what is considered as loose clothing? Because even loose clothing give me issues it seems...

did you ever take oral antibiotics btw?

whoartthou,

I do take antibiotics. Have been on doxycycline for about 9 months. Was taking 100mg per day, but am trying to taper off it and have been on 50mg per since early Oct.

The thing I have found most effective for the back folliculitis is clindamycin phosphate lotion application once per day. I still have recurring flare-ups of it sometime though. Actually in Sept I had a breakout on back/chest of something that looked different than folliculitis (many small red itchy bumps). Dermatologist did a biopsy and diagnosed it as Grovers disease, which is an inflammatory issue and not bacterial or fungal. A cortico steroid cream cleared up the Grovers issue very quickly. Good luck to you and hang in there. I know what a pain it is to have these on-going skin problems.