I currently just finished week 12 of this journey of ridding myself of redness, P&Ps on my cheeks and my right temple. 2 years ago I had really lovely skin, no redness, very little if any acne, it was so nice that it aches thinking about it really, I took it for granted. It started as small red patch on my right cheek, I noticed it straightaway and was concerned about it, however no one else took me seriously. Very slowly, so slow that I didnt realise what was happening till months later, my cheeks got more and more bumps and redness. I researched endlessly on it to what it could possibly be: was it rosacea....keratosis pilaris...dermatitis? Ive cried so much over my face in pure frustration when nothing seemed to help it, particularly when my diet is super clean compared to most (no gluten, no dairy, lots of vegetables etc.) Over pure chance, I wasnt even looking for it, I came across this article on xojane: http://www.xojane.com/beauty/demodex-skin-mites . Her story matched mine more than anything else I had read for the past year, it couldve been me writing that article. Surely it had to be demodex mites, I had no other ideas left. These 12 weeks have been very long, Ive had many, many days where I wanted to give up and I still dont think the battle is over yet.

I started off with 100% tea tree oil on my face at night, and after a minute I put coconut oil on top. In the morning I put 50% tto 50% coconut oil, however I ceased doing this after a few weeks as I was worried it was unnecessarily irritating my skin. From around week 10 onwards, I reduced the 100% tto to 50% to see if the tto was keeping my face red (no noticeable reduction yet).

1-4 weeks: My experience with the treatment is similar to others, in the first 3 weeks my face definitely got worse before it got better. The driest, reddest and bumpiest it had ever been. It wasnt pretty, but I expected it. It calmed down in the week following and about every 2-3 weeks, a new batch of bumps will slowly appear just when the old ones were almost fully healed (seriously annoying). However they became less and less. When new bumps appeared I grew frustrated again and believed the treatment wasnt working, wanting to stop, but thankfully I read the experiences of others doing this treatment to keep me going.

5-8: Around this time, signs of the treatment working began to appear. My bumps dramatically reduced towards week 7. I was so happy, I thought my skin would be completely blemish free by week 12 at that rate! (unfortunately not).

9-11 weeks: My skin was doing fairly well, no more than one bump every week or so. However, in a moment of idiocy and forgetfulness, I put on some foundation I had not used since before the treatment (I forgot that I shouldnt do that) I could feel the mites crawling on my skin at that very moment. I cursed a lot and tried putting on tto immediately, but knew the damage had already been done. In the following week, I had the worst outbreak I had had in a month. A setback for sure, Im wondering if Im still getting the repercussions of that (lesson learned: DONT use old makeup, especially if youve had your fingers in it.)

12- onwards: Right now, at week 12, I have one old red bump and a few tiny red bumps on both cheeks (unfortunately I had a few tiny ones form today after a few good days of no new blemishes). I can still see the residue from my last outbreak, however compared to before I started, this is a serious improvement, my family has noted how much better my skin is. But it is still not close to where I want it to be, I want my old skin back desperately. The texture of my skin still feels dry and slightly rough, this is improved when I slather on shea butter however. And man, I do hate how red the lower half of my face is, for some reason that hasnt improved much at all since starting the treatment (sometimes I wonder if its gotten worse). There are no noticeable capillaries, just blotchy redness. Annoyingly, also in the past month the treatment has given me acne breakouts around my mouth, chin and jawline, when I have had no problems with that kind of blemish for 2 years. They are also currently healing at the moment too.

Im desperate that my skin continues to improve from here on. Im feeling a bit discouraged at the moment since other people have reported being completely cured by this point, whereas I feel I still have a lot of healing left to do. Im also keeping in mind that maybe my makeup mistake set me back a couple of weeks, who knows. Ill continue treatment for a minimum of 6 months, however if by 4 months my face isnt noticeably improved from what it is like now, I might be back to researching some more about other options, though Im really out of ideas. Im soon going to be put on high strength probiotics in the next few weeks, Im hoping they will make a difference.

If anyone has completely gone through this process and it took them longer than 12 weeks, and yet they are now completely redness and bump free, I could really hear it right now (a time frame of when it was gone completely would be amazing.)There have been many, many bad days and it would be great to hear if there is a light at the end of this long, long tunnel.

I still have several theories as to what triggered it. It seems a bit coincidental that the rash appeared around the time, if in the immediate days after (if my memory serves me well) I tried this natural exfoliator that did not go well with my face at all, my face felt irritated during and after the product. I was also using several natural products at the time, knowing me, I may have been completely overdoing it. I also went strictly paleo that year after being gluten and dairy free for a while(still have a paleo-based diet, but a lot more flexible with grains and legumes now) so maybe the restrictions got my body out of whack. Lastly, since I moved to a much less sunny city, I was getting a lot less vitamin d, that too has me wondering if it compromised my immune system. I also have seborrheic dermatitis on my scalp, that has worsened a bit in the past 2 years, so it seems like my immune system may not be having a good time. I am not able to back up these theories at all, all I can do is guess.