Hi Guys. Im new to this site and should have joined years ago. I need your help and advise and as the topic says, i am getting married in 15 days and i am desperate!!

I will give you my skin history and all the medication i have been on that i can remember at least.

When i was in my early twentys ( i am 32 now) i started getting a bit of dry skin in the corners of my nose. Nothing major but after awhile i went to my gp who presecribed me a hydrocortisone cream and cleared up the dryness whenever it showed etc.

Up untill my late twentys my skin was pretty good but i had always a few flareups on my cheeks of mainly redness and a bit dry. When i went to my GP he gave daktacort and told me to use this whenever in needed.This seeemed to work and kept everything under control maybe using this once or twice a week. I did notice however that the areas i was now applying was spreading around my face i.e mostache, chin, sideburns, cheeks and eyebrow centers.

At this time by chance i was speaking to my sister who also suffers very minor dryness in her eyebrows. She had been given a bit of oinment from a friend and when she used this it cleared up and didnt come back for ages. I cant remember what is was called (it was similar looking to protopic) but i went to my gp who happily prescribed me with a tube and obviously worked wonders and everything cleared up with me using it maybe once a week again.

Movng forward to about a two years ago. I suddenly had a massive flareup, Red patches all over my t zone and patchy red cheeks. I knew at that time that the GP had told me i had SD but this was on a whole new level. I had to something other than go to the doctors, i needed to see a derm. I had already seen a derm years before but when i waited 4 months to get the refered appointment my skin had cleared up and he thought i must have been wasting his time. This time i took it upon myself and found a prvate hospital in harpenden that specialised in skin and got an emergency appointment there. When i saw a women who could barely speak english. She said i had rosecea not SD!! As i do a customer facing sales job everyday i explained that having these red patches all over my face was killing my confidence and needed help. All she did was try and put camorflage makeup on my face which made things worse and brought me to tears!!

I was at my wits end!! I needed help and i thought i found the answer, a private beauty place called beausynergy in Hertfordshire. They belived that natural cleansing of the skin at least once a month using a various skin enzymes and face masks would bring the skin mantle back to life. I have to say that this worked for me and over the next year my skin was in good condition and felt great. It was costing me a bit though buying into the products and treatments but i felt it was worth it and i wasnt using any steroid creams which can only be a good thing.

This is when it went wrong last january. The women who i was having the treatments with decided she wanted to go a bit deeper with the treatments as i was doing well. This obviously did not agree with my skin at all!!! It seem to have a reaction and my whole face came up red and scabby and like i had been burned!! I was in a panic and the women was horrified and obviously upset at what she thought would be fine and the normal next step. In a panic to sort my red face my mum found a derm based in harley street and manged to get me an amergency appointment. When he saw my face he could se i had an infected bad explosion of SD. It was really bad even under my chin and on my neck etc.

This is when he gave me Pro Topic and said to put it on all over and it is a non steroid cream and will help. The ointment was a miracle and withing 3-5 days my skin had almost cleared up. Over the next six months i used it maybe once a week at night in varous places that flared up and by the morning it would have gone. I would normally tell when the flare ups would happen as i would get an itching in the early evening. I had been to see my derm and he was happy with the pro topic results and said to keep using it. In july i noticed that i was getting a few small hard spots under the skin on the top of my forehead. I never have had any real trouble on there but had changed my mosturiser from cetraphil ans was using cetreben. It was getting worse and i had been putting pro topic on it which seemed to take the redness down but the small spots were spreading.

I went backto my derm who by the way is 200 a time plus medication and fares to London and he has given me antibiotics called efracea which i dont think has helped at all. At this moment in time i feel helpless and reliant on pro topic which my face seems to need everyother day on some part of my face, I have been resorting to wearing bareminerals makeup as when i have a shower in the morning before work my face is bright red!!

As the topic says i am getting married in a couple of weeks and dont want photos of me with a shiny red patchy face!! I have been reading up that an unhealthy gut and bad immune system can make SD flare up. I have started taking pro botics for that and vitamin D3 for my forehead acne and will try and eat as healthy as possible. Was being all positive too because as you know this is a self asteem killer only to have a flare up out the blue as i type this letter.

Sorry its so long winded and prob not everything i have been prescribed over the years. I just wanted and need to hear from other people with that same issues as normal skined people dont understand what we go through everyday of our lives.

Would be good to hear your thoughts on pro-topic and long term use and my skin becoming reliant on it. Also how to kill the mites that live on your face and cause SD and what multivits are the best.

Want to look forward to my wedding day and not dreading a big flare up!!

Regards

Rob