Hello everyone. I'm currently 19 years old and have had almost flawless skin till i was 17. I have always had dry skin and scalp with dandruff.
Around two years ago tiny bumps started appearing on my forehead out of nowhere and i first ignored them but ever since then their number constantly keeps increasing. And now i have extremely rough, bumpy and weird looking skin on my whole face especially on my forehead. I just don't know what this is, some people say its skin congestion, some say its clogged pores some say it's fungal acne etc.
I can only think of one reason for why this happened and that is because i damaged my skin horribly. Around the same time this problem started to occur i had started a bad habit of bathing for 1-2 hours daily using hot water and i used to wash my face with harsh body soaps for some dumb reason. And after all that i didn't moisturize at all, Which made my dry skin even more extremely dry and sensitive. I realized how dumb i was in doing that and stopped this habit around 1 month ago. Now i use a mild baby face wash to cleanse my face and a cream suggested by one of my relatives, who's a general physician, called Ceratop cream.
The worst part is that my skin still keeps getting worse and worse each and every day, i can notice more and more bumps getting formed and i literally just don't understand why. Can anyone please tell me what i can do to stop this sh*t and bring my skin back to normal. i'm extremely desperate and stressed.
those bumps are mostly likely keratin plugs, caused as you mention by too harsh skin treatment.
Use products that dissolve keratin:
- gel with 2% - 6% salicylic acid
- lotion with at least 10% urea (urea also hydrates your skin)
and / or use tretinoin cream, this pushes the plugs to the surface (warning: this initially makes the problem looks worse)
look up keratosis pilaris for more info (this skin conditionis basically the same problem you have)