Tracy21 0 Share Posted September 8, 2007 I have been researching for acne cures for so long. Finally I came across this board and followed the BP regimen, it worked but gave me bad discoloration. So I stopped doing that and went to a derm who put me on antibiotics and topical acne meds. Helped for a while until I could no longer afford. Well the things on my face came back twice as bad!! URGGHH!!Finally I went through most of the posts on this site until I came across the one that explained how pityrosporum folliculitis is usually misdiagnosed as acne because it looks sooo much like acne vulgaris. I thought about it, I have quite a few facial hairs on my face that I have to pluck of depilirate sometimes. Bingo!! I thought maybe what I have on my face might not be acne after all!! the bumps on my face were right on the hair follicle........I have tried most OTC products that worked a little bit but not completely. Anyway so I purchased some shampoo from good ol walgreens made with selenium sulfide. well I put it on my face and left it on for a few minutes and washed it off. The next morning the bumps on my were all gone except I had a lot of flaking (I know, the shampoo was a little harsh on my face) I read how some people use head and shoulders, znp bar soap, all those soaps that can kill fungi! I purchased the znp bar soap online and tried it on my face...WOW !! I SWEAR I have never been this clear in my life! My skin is looking normal. I can't believe I had to go through so much to figure out that I never had acne!! I am so thankful to whoever started that board about the pityrosporum folliculitis being misdiagnosed as acne!! thats why all the OTC never really worked for me. I hardly breakout out now!!Just wanted to let some people know that it might not be acne but something else just do your research!! In the mean time I still have to work on these spots left from all that trauma!!! good luck!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
willow569 7 Share Posted September 8, 2007 I have been researching for acne cures for so long. Finally I came across this board and followed the BP regimen, it worked but gave me bad discoloration. So I stopped doing that and went to a derm who put me on antibiotics and topical acne meds. Helped for a while until I could no longer afford. Well the things on my face came back twice as bad!! URGGHH!!Finally I went through most of the posts on this site until I came across the one that explained how pityrosporum folliculitis is usually misdiagnosed as acne because it looks sooo much like acne vulgaris. I thought about it, I have quite a few facial hairs on my face that I have to pluck of depilirate sometimes. Bingo!! I thought maybe what I have on my face might not be acne after all!! the bumps on my face were right on the hair follicle........I have tried most OTC products that worked a little bit but not completely. Anyway so I purchased some shampoo from good ol walgreens made with selenium sulfide. well I put it on my face and left it on for a few minutes and washed it off. The next morning the bumps on my were all gone except I had a lot of flaking (I know, the shampoo was a little harsh on my face) I read how some people use head and shoulders, znp bar soap, all those soaps that can kill fungi! I purchased the znp bar soap online and tried it on my face...WOW !! I SWEAR I have never been this clear in my life! My skin is looking normal. I can't believe I had to go through so much to figure out that I never had acne!! I am so thankful to whoever started that board about the pityrosporum folliculitis being misdiagnosed as acne!! thats why all the OTC never really worked for me. I hardly breakout out now!!Just wanted to let some people know that it might not be acne but something else just do your research!! In the mean time I still have to work on these spots left from all that trauma!!! good luck!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
superMachi 2 Share Posted September 8, 2007 now you can battle life's real problems. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kaylaann 0 Share Posted September 8, 2007 okay so after reading this thread I started thinking about my situation. My skin has never EVER been like this before I moved into a new apartment building. I didn't even move every far I moved maybe 8 miles away from my old place. all of a sudden I started breaking out like crazy-and not just in the usual spots (chin and forehead). Before moving I had one pimple at a time-I didn't break out much at all-I had no problem with going out not wearing makeup. Now I have maybe 7-10 pimples at a time. I changed my diet, I stopped picking, I changed up the products I use, I went on BC. no improvement. I am starting to think this isn't acne at all. Maybe the water here has fungus in it-and every time I shower, or wash i am making it worse. It would be easy to test for pityrosporum folliculitis-all I would need to do is get a dandruff shampoo and try it out for a day or two right? I just cant see how in a matter of a couple weeks my skin went from 99% clear to red inflamed spots everywhere. I just don't get it. I even drink the tap water here. god what if it is the water? help please! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
willow569 7 Share Posted September 8, 2007 okay so after reading this thread I started thinking about my situation. My skin has never EVER been like this before I moved into a new apartment building. I didn't even move every far I moved maybe 8 miles away from my old place. all of a sudden I started breaking out like crazy-and not just in the usual spots (chin and forehead). Before moving I had one pimple at a time-I didn't break out much at all-I had no problem with going out not wearing makeup. Now I have maybe 7-10 pimples at a time. I changed my diet, I stopped picking, I changed up the products I use, I went on BC. no improvement. I am starting to think this isn't acne at all. Maybe the water here has fungus in it-and every time I shower, or wash i am making it worse. It would be easy to test for pityrosporum folliculitis-all I would need to do is get a dandruff shampoo and try it out for a day or two right? I just cant see how in a matter of a couple weeks my skin went from 99% clear to red inflamed spots everywhere. I just don't get it. I even drink the tap water here. god what if it is the water? help please! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kaylaann 0 Share Posted September 8, 2007 I started taking a multivitamin at the beginning of the summer and through reading here I realized that the Iodine might be aggravating my acne-so I stopped and also cut out most the salt in my diet. I am a vegetarian so I don't eat any fish. Thank you for replying so quickly because I was starting to get really paranoid! all I have done to my diet is add in a lot more vegetables and almost completely cut out dairy products (I have a tiny bit of cheese maybe once a week). I am just confused because I am on ortho right now and I was on it once before and my skin was completely clear-and my skin has yet to clear up yet (its been 3 months) I am starting to get impatient because I have been so good to my skin. I have been so good to my body too. I started exercising a lot, eating healthy, drinking lots of water. I haven't even been stressed out lately. Life has been great besides my skin-but it really inhibits me from enjoying life when I am having a bad breakout. I want to believe that my short break from BC threw my hormones out of wack and caused me to start breaking out-its just hard to believe that when I have seen such little improvement from going back on the same BC I was on before. I guess I just needed some encouragement to not give up altogether. Thanks for your reply! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
willow569 7 Share Posted September 8, 2007 I started taking a multivitamin at the beginning of the summer and through reading here I realized that the Iodine might be aggravating my acne-so I stopped and also cut out most the salt in my diet. I am a vegetarian so I don't eat any fish. Thank you for replying so quickly because I was starting to get really paranoid! all I have done to my diet is add in a lot more vegetables and almost completely cut out dairy products (I have a tiny bit of cheese maybe once a week). I am just confused because I am on ortho right now and I was on it once before and my skin was completely clear-and my skin has yet to clear up yet (its been 3 months) I am starting to get impatient because I have been so good to my skin. I have been so good to my body too. I started exercising a lot, eating healthy, drinking lots of water. I haven't even been stressed out lately. Life has been great besides my skin-but it really inhibits me from enjoying life when I am having a bad breakout. I want to believe that my short break from BC threw my hormones out of wack and caused me to start breaking out-its just hard to believe that when I have seen such little improvement from going back on the same BC I was on before. I guess I just needed some encouragement to not give up altogether. Thanks for your reply! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kaylaann 0 Share Posted September 10, 2007 basically I have been slowly phasing out BP (too drying, doesn't control my non-inflamed acne) for the past month and I am switching to using primarily MA and SA. My regimen now:Morning: -wash my face with cold water- apply moisturizer with an spf of 30-apply EDM makeup (roughly 4 days a week)night: wash my face with organic castile "soap" (again cold water) -every other night apply a conservative amount of MA-apply regular moisturizer (no spf) twice a week I apply the aspirin mask (SA) on the days I am not using the MA-primary use is to exfoliate off any dead skin from the MA and also reduce inflammation and redness in any active pimples I have. so far I like how the MA has begun to even out my skin tone-I like how the aspirin mask really flattens out any active pimples I have and reduces the redness. I also am very pleased to say that since I have been doing this my blackheads have been reduced by approximately 60%. Before I started this regimen my blackheads were everywhere and my pores were huge-I can definitely see a big difference. The reason I am not satisfied with BP is that I have mainly non-inflamed acne. I do get a few inflamed pimples (mainly around my period) but the main issue is clogged pores, uneven skin tone, and scarring. Based on what I had read it seemed like there was no way that BP would ever be able to control my hormonal acne. Sure enough every month I would have a bad breakout even though I was doing all the right things (only washing twice a day, not touching my face, applying BP correctly, and using a good moisturizer) despite how much I put into giving the DKR a good try-it did nothing for me except dry out my skin, increase the redness around my blemishes, and give me a blotchy skin tone. Yes it would help a little with shortening the length of the breakout BUT it would lengthen the amount of time my post-inflammatory hyper pigmentation would last. Thats because from what I have read it is not meant to exfoliate skin cells and thus would do nothing to even out my skin tone. I feel like I am on the right track with my regimen, I am happy with the products I am using. I am trying to really limit the amount of treatments I use on my face. I want to simplify things. The one thing I CAN say about the BC is that I no longer get pimples on my chest and back, although it wasn't bad at all before, it has controlled that. My main concern is about my face though and I haven't seen much improvement in that area. Hopefully in a month or two things will really start to clear up. Any thoughts? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
