12 hours ago, deutschegrammophon said:I'm sorry this happened to you and others. I went through a similar ordeal. I woke up one day and was very conscious of my skin, particularly open pores and a general tired appearance. If anything caused them it was probably exfoliation but at the time I wasn't really bothered as much as I was by acne, which I believed would scar me horribly and had already caused my face to collapse. I thought my mouth had folded in on itself and that my cheeks had lost all definition. I realised that that had not happened, but my obsession with my skin kept me inspecting it and feeling sick at every defect that I discovered. I think much of what I saw was cumulative, and did not appear spontaneously. I believed in my heart that I would never be the same, and that conviction seems to have rewired my brain such that I treated my skin as belonging to somebody else and incapable of returning to form, whatever that was. I really sympathise with your commitment to fixing your skin and not acquiescing to to mediocrity. I think you are brave in a way, but also foolish. You likely have researched enough to know that you are experiencing something for which medicine is not prepared, yet you insist on declaring your misery on this website as if something will happen. I assume you look in the mirror all the time, which I understand, but I would do you disservice not to tell you that you are wasting your life and reinforcing an unhealthy thought pattern. It almost seems redolent of my own psychotic episode. I don't know how much this interferes with education or work but clearly this has obliterated your social life. In any event you need to wait, either for medicine to catch up to your ailment or for your problem to correct itself. I think you are right that your life revolves around your skin - I don't doubt that. You must change your behaviour so that your brain learns a different way of being happy. I recommend that you stop looking in the mirror, look after your skin as minimalistically as possible, and channel your energy into something that isn't so fickle and which yields reward in a fair way. You don't have to worry about your skin, or be guilty that you ruined your own life. Please try and get over this , because the more you think about it the more real the problem becomes. I don't deny that something bizarre did physically happen to you, but since you are young you have time to live life differently. In the meantime your problem will resolve, I promise, either by becoming insignificant to you or by actually being fixable. You have to become capable of waiting and then wait, and obsessing over this, looking in the mirror, researching online, and the withdrawing is going to make that really hard. I know you hate this but its all I got.
Hey...I want to thank you, first, for your sympathy(?) and compliments(?) and I am VERY sorry for your own troubles....but at the same time, I can't really get a grasp on whether you are telling me to get over it -or rather- that any of us here have a right to feel the way we feel.
You kind of went back and forth and basically encompassed your thoughts in eloquent vocabulary...yet what you seem to really be getting at is quite the opposite..??I'm a little confused.(I have a bad taste in my mouth after reading your comment is what I am trying to say.)What you describe for yourself, was it a true issue or was what you are describing strictly psychological?Because if the latter is the case, then your feelings towards the issue and how I should handle it really don't apply.The mental distress is but a symptom of the physical issue here, not the other way around.So Did you ever heal physically... if it was a truly tangible problem?Did you not even have any real problem but rather this was actually a genuine case of something like BDD?Or did you, in fact, have a real issue going on but someone (maybe yourself) convinced you that you were crazy or that you had BDD? And now you have gotten by this whole time by ignoring the reality and expect others to do the same?(I'm honestly curious because you didn't exactly make it clear, by the end).I actually don't look in the mirror much...I mainly do avoid it, but that's not going to make it go away. Ignorance cannot be bliss in this situation.And everything I see exists, I'm not seeing things. I know my face, and it's obvious that my reaction to this cream has caused a drastic change in the skin and that-I am guessing-the dehydration and prolonged inflammation have caused other changes to my physical features, that cause me not to be able to recognize myself. I won't even post the worst of the photos on here because it is too debilitating to even look at on my own. The pics I posted are bad enough, but the full face ones I have now show a completely different person than what I looked like before this happened. In the worst way possible.One of the PA's I went to early on whom I showed a 'before picture' to even asked, "that's you???"And another asked me if I was seriously ill, as in I looked physically sick and under the weather to her.There's nothing fickle about my feelings OR this ordeal either....I have been absolutely steadfast in my stance and I will absolutely never get over it.Unless it physically removes itself from my face.That isn't even up for discussion any longer as far as I'm concerned.I've made it abundantly clear.If others can adapt to this nightmarish change....that's their prerogative, not mine.I've already lost one of my most precious aspects of my physical appearance, and I'm not going to adapt and alter my personality to match this loss.I refuse.And there's nothing wrong with that.Nothing foolish either.The only truly foolish thing that I have done is use this cream in the first place.Declaring my misery?Damn right I am declaring my misery.What else is there for me to do right now?And I believe it's important to state EXACTLY how I'm feeling, and not sugar coat it, so that others who are having similar feelings, will realize that they are not alone, that it is normal, that they don't have to snuff out their own lament just because others dismiss and trivialize their concerns.My friend, whom I mentioned above, actually thanked me for making this thread...that was her last post....she believed it was necessary and important for others to see the risks and as I read the tail end of your post, I feel a push to go contact her...for an understanding ear....but she is not here any longer.And her feelings were not fickle, and she was certainly no fool.Nor am I.Perhaps we are just different people than You.I know in my last post, I said that I hope people find something that resonates with them here, no matter their issue, but I didn't mean that as an invitation to project your opinions and feelings onto my own situation, which, seems to differ quite greatly from yours.I think your comment started off well-meaning, and even drew similarities to my own situation, but then you kind of flip flopped a bit and by the end of it, I was thoroughly offended.(Sorry if I am misunderstanding....)If this issue never resolves, and swallows me up past the point of no return, then I will have the inevitable decision to make.And I can tell you, it won't be the one you suggest.I actually do care about myself and who I am and I will not allow myself to go through life this miserable, and without the skin I knew and loved.And actually worked damn hard to sustain and protect.I think it would shock people, the problems I would trade for this one.But that's just me, that's just who I am,And I'm not going to change.I'm not wasting my life by hiding away, I'm protecting myself, and besides...I have no authentic, confident life to live unless my skin goes back to normal, otherwise I will have to become a Robot, a Zombie, an inhuman being who just "exists" but does not "live".I am already unrecognizable on the outside, I do not wish the same to be said for the inside. I would rather put myself "on hold" than grow a new identity to cope with this Hell. So that's what I am doing right now.My life doesn't revolve solely around my skin, it's just that it is too big a piece of the puzzle that is me, to go on living without. Nothing can replace it. Not now, not ever.Plenty of people have things they love in life, many things (some of which mean nothing to others), and life does not revolve around them, but rather they are significant cogs in the wheels of the machine that keeps us moving, and we don't notice their importance until they are gone, or until they are damaged, and our whole range of motion ceases without their fully functioning parts.So only when THIS happens, do I have to focus all my attention on the damaged 'cog', otherwise I would be pushing along a broken vehicle, until more and more parts fell off and stopped working.So I've got to stop. Got to pause.This is not strictly a "psychotic episode" as you suggested you experienced...this is a physical dilemma that simply frustrates the human mind until it breaks down.Which is pretty understandable, from my point of view.So I've got a broken down vehicle right now..it can't move until the damaged part is fixed.Simple as that.No other way around it....also you said...the more I think about this the more "real" it becomes?????!!!It is REAL.Wth.That's like suggesting to the human race to ignore the Sun,"don't think about the sun guys, that will only make it feel more real! That light that's emanating from the sky? That's just your imagination silly~~~!!"I mean....Seriously?And 'Since I am young I have time to live life differently???'No I don't!Since I am young, I am losing precious time, I have no time, I am constantly trying to get this fixed so that I don't lose anymore of my youth!I wish this would have happened in my much later years, so that I could look back and at least know I lived my life, looking like myself, and being myself in return.This problem will NEVER become insignificant to me,It's my FACE.So no amount of time will change that.And if time does actually heal my skin, physically, then withdrawing and researching and all that is all I can do.It seems you don't understand.Going out and ACTING like nothing is wrong and trying to ignore this issue is HARDER than "obsessing" over it. That would cause me way more undue stress than I could handle and if there is a chance at physical healing, I don't want to jeopardize that by pushing my mental limits and ending up having a panic attack or a more extreme mental breakdown that lands me in a position where, the physical resolution to my problem becomes even more out of reach.I'm keeping myself as safe as I can right now, I know myself, and I know how I have to go about things.
This might legitimately be the worst comment to be preserved on the internet. Our faces are on fire, and scarring yet you're saying to get over it.
@harleez84 messaged you
@mazo hello! I am here experiencing the same symptoms as you and OP for the past 2.5 years. Just wanted to discuss it. ESP if the ivermectin helped you.
@mazo Yes, after doing research all over it seems this reaction has SOMETHING to do with Rosacea and I have Rosacea. I think Retinol & Rosacae skin is a no no. But of course, instead of doctors and scientists researching anything of value they spend their time researching silly mess. So we are all sitting around here on forums basically unable to connect the dots, but I do see some similarities.
yes I easily scar. I got a cystic acne pimple from using tret less than even 10 times over the course of like a month. That 1 cycstic acne pimple is now the site of my scarring, on my nose. It was 2.5 years ago and it keeps getting worse. I didnt know much about rosacea before but now I know I have it, my nose flairs pretty badly. After all this time, I have no clue whats the trigger and nothing consistently helps. The scars do continue to scar more and spread. I refer to them at this point as collapsed pores, and yes they do make lines that join together. Since its on my nose, its a tricky part of the skin and cant be handled like regular skin. Like for example, if it was a cheek it could be filled with filler for a solution. But instead its just some weird rolling scars that just get worse. 2.5 years later its much worse than even the initial aftermath of the cystic acne! Sometimes the pores get clogged and I think washing it makes it worse, trying to use products to clear the pores make the scars worse- tbh It seems that the pore clogs are the only thing holding the pores up at this point, because if the clog is removed; the whole pore sinks in and boom another scar. Its spread, its grown, they are just big open scarred pores. Im back on here because I dont even know what I did - like I said anything will make it worse and its just looks extra henious now. With these collapsed pores, Id hate to run into an ex or even ex friend.
@bluebubbles Sorry to hear you're in this nightmare. I wish I could tell you I'm cured but I'm not :/. Sucks we have to go on obscure internet forums to find anyone else talking about this.
Rosacea is such a weird thing because derms seem to use that diagnosis to explain any inflammation on the face. I didn't get diagnosed with it but I did have a seb derm diagnosis which could explain some things.
I've been able to reduce the overall redness of my face, but the pore issue is still there. And yes, if the pimple is big enough, there seems to be a rolling look to it if you look at it from the right angle. This side effect is literally just reserved for my forehead/temples which were the only places I used retinoids. My forehead has a raised/scaly/fungal acne look to it (if you look at it close enough), and I'm wondering that if I can get that to go away, will the texture fix itself?
I've been on a strict anti-inflammatory ketovore diet for about 3 weeks now (I've been trying for months to kick my sugar addiction, and I've finally done it). I also do intermittent fasting daily (16:8), and occassionally a 24-72 hr (sometimes more) fast.
I do 20 mins of red light every other day. And I use urea cream + Cosrx snail essence + sulfur cream (once a week) + mct oil (an hr before every shower). I also take lukewarm - cold showers.
I have a bunch of supplements that I've stopped using but I still use a quality fish oil, Injuv, Vitamin C, and Magnesium.
Now that its getting cold, I'm going to start using my humidifier nightly again.
My scars have become softer. My overall texture has gotten better (as long as you don't look up close and see all the fine lines). And face less red, and puffy. My skin has become thicker I think (in a good way). Also my acne heals a hell of a lot faster than it did a year ago.
My nose does become very red though in the cold. And I think my face is sensitive to the sun as well.
As for the ivermectin - I dropped it. Didn't use it long.