So after I was finally able to clear my persistent adult acne after 14 years, I developed cellulitis on my chin the other day. I thought it was a cystic breakout but kept getting worse and multiplying so I went to the emergency room and they diagnosed me with cellulitis and gave me doxycycline for 14 days. I have been on it since yesterday but have 4 giant swollen boils covering my chin which are very painful when just moving my mouth. I have been lucky to not have gotten that many scars from my acne breakouts since I was a kid but this is not looking good for my chin.
At the moment, I am taking my doxycycline as directed to clear the infection by my doctor. In addition, I am applying aquaphor multiple times a day to keep the area as moist as possible. I am also eating a healthy diet as well as taking a strong multi vitamin. Lastly, I am taking high doses of zinc (100 mg a day), fermented cod liver oil, and vitamin c (8,000 mg a day) and plan on continuing this for another 2 weeks or so. I have stopped using BP on my chin as well as Tazorac.
Does anyone have any additional suggestions in order to promote healing and prevent massive scarring? I realize that I am probably going to scar but really want to do everything that I can to minimise it. Thanks in advance.
More is not better! 100mg of zinc is too high, I'd cut that down a bit if I were you otherwise you risk messing with your immune system. 40-50mg a day is all you really need. Vitamin C intake is also a little crazy but less harmful in big doses, be prepared for bouts of diarrhoea with that high dosage! Is there extra zinc/vitamin C in this multivitamin tablet you're taking?!
You may not scar. You seem to be doing everything I would (minus going bananas on vitamins) to minimise scarring. Are you also cleansing morning and night and wearing sunscreen?
More is not better! 100mg of zinc is too high, I'd cut that down a bit if I were you otherwise you risk messing with your immune system. 40-50mg a day is all you really need. Vitamin C intake is also a little crazy but less harmful in big doses, be prepared for bouts of diarrhoea with that high dosage! Is there extra zinc/vitamin C in this multivitamin tablet you're taking?!
You may not scar. You seem to be doing everything I would (minus going bananas on vitamins) to minimise scarring. Are you also cleansing morning and night and wearing sunscreen?
I cut the Zinc intake down to 70mg a day and the Vitamin C down to 5,000mg total which includes my multivitamin. I use opti-zinc which contains copper to balance out the ratio. I plan on getting that down to 45mg in the coming days.
2 of those boils ended up being abscesses which I had to get laced at the ER. I was actually told by the doctor that I need to keep the area as dry as possible and to not moisturize so me moisturizing the area was actually a bad thing as it was keeping all of the staph bacteria in from the cellulitis.
The infection is going down but since I can't put anything on it, I just have to hope at this point. This is 1 time where I would prefer to actually have acne.
Colloidal silver helps with the Staph infection...You can only take that in intermittantly though...unless it clears yours up? It's amazing stuff.
Anytime I notice a boil developing I put TCA on it which seems to kill it right away...my boils come on the thighs now tho, not face, so I guess it depends on how often you get them? I heard a paleo diet gluten free gets rid of them, and I did go gluten free for a year once and got rid of an outbreak of boils I'd had on my face (Doctors told me it was acne--it wasn't!) so maybe there's something to that.
Good luck.