So I've had face, chest and back acne in the past which have cleared up really nicely, I occasionally still get a bump here or there, but I've been researching things and I'm not exactly sure if it's acne or pimples at all anymore, but rather a form of folliculitis. Originally my acne was relatively mild, I got tetracycline prescribed for me back when the acne was still mild/moderate and it cleared it up originally, but after I had eaten it for a while, around a month and my acne was basically completely gone, it came back 10 times worse in a few months, and it came very rapidly, cysts and pimples appeared everywhere, face, back and chest and I wasn't really sure what to do at first and since it came so rapidly it got pretty bad before I went to a skin doctor and got isotretinoin prescribed for myself.
I used isotretinoin for nearly 2 years, after which my acne was pretty much all clear and my skin was no longer as oily as it was before. Then it started coming back again a few cysts on my face and back, and I went to the doctor to get isotretinoin prescribed again, I ate it for 2 months and everything was fixed up again. Then everything went nicely for around 3 months in terms of pimples and cysts, no really new ones or anything like that, but these bumps in the pictures were still there on my chest and in my back. Then after those 3 months of everything going pretty smooth except still having these whitish little bumps I was just waiting for the red marks to start fading by themselves, but then I got new pimples/bumps, but this time they were only on my scalp and next to/under my mouth, mostly where there's hair and/or when sleeping drool would go on (pretty much exactly like this thread: ).
Then I went, once again, to the skin doctor, this time I suggested myself to get prescribed tetracycline and the doctor agreed with me that since there's no longer any cysts or anything worse and the red bumps were pretty much only in my scalp and on the places the person in the thread I linked had. So I've eaten the antibiotics for nearly a month now and the redness and inflammation of the bumps on my scalp and around my mouth have pretty much gone away completely, but these bumps in my pictures still remain in my back and chest. I tried microdermabrasion for the bumps in the pictures and it kind of smoothed out the skin and made them a little better, but they seem to come back and they can't really be popped or anything, since when I tried popping/opening one with a needle, obviously cleaned it with antibacterial first, blood was the only thing that came out, so I decided to leave it alone.
My skin doctor said they could either be clogged up pores/white heads and I asked if retin-a 0.05 could be something that would exfoliate/work on flattening them out/peeling them off (the retin-a was also for the redness left by the latest cysts/pimples) so I got prescribed retin-a. I used it on my chest and back for around 2 weeks, the white bumps seemed to get a little worse/prominent even though the redness on my chest faded, and they spread a little and I stopped using retin-a on my back since it had the same effect, and it gave me a red rash on my back and a little bit of blistering. I understand that those were side effects and/or too much usage when my skin isn't used to it so i kept a 2 day pause and started being a bit more careful with it.
Since the retin-a seemed to only make the bumps more prominent and my skin got very dry and the bumps bacame more visible, I decided to stop using it for now, even thought I know it takes a while for retin-a to do it's job, months, I thought that I don't really need it since I don't really have acne nor cysts, it hasn't really had any effect on the bumps/maybe made them a bit more prominent, and the red marks can be helped with microdermabrasion, but I'm still interested in knowing what the bumps actually are.
Just around a week ago I found about folliculitis and thought that I might have that based on what I've read here and the thread I linked where the bumps are around the mouth area, basically where moisture / drool from the mouth would go and so it would be the optimal place for the fungi to grow. I got 2% nizoral cream and stopped taking tetracycline 2 days ago, I'm not yet applying the nizoral on my back since I need to use hydrocortisone to take care of the rash retin-a caused first.
My skin seems a little dried out in the pictures and it's because of the retin-a I stopped using a few days ago, I've applied nizoral on my chest, back and around my mouth for 2 days now, but I don't see much of an effect yet and I'm not exactly sure how long it should take to see the effects, but I guess it takes a little while so I'm trying my best to be patient with it.
EDIT: And they're small bumps not just areas of a lighter color.
I used BP at when i went to the microdermabrasions and it seemed to help these white bumps, i'm going to start using BP again and see what happens, hopefully it will help. I'm actually starting to think it could just be KP I'm having, maybe it didn't come from isotretinoin, but rather with my age, since KP is apparently pretty common in the age group i belong to.
hey man, how long were you on the oral antibiotics for? I honestly think (similar to my case), that oral antibiotics can cause the onset of worse acne.
Was your body acne like this prior to antibiotics?
Were you on accutane for TWO straight years?
Around three years ago i took my first course of tetracycline (antibiotics) for around 1 - 2 months and it cleared up my mild - moderate acne, then when i stopped taking tetracycline 2 months later my acne came back, and the second time after the antibiotics it was severe. Then I went on accutane/isotretinoin for 2 years, I kept 2 pauses, they were pretty short ones, first because my overall mood and health seemed to really drop down from them at first and i was extremely depressed, and second time I stopped it since my acne was nearly completely gone, but it started coming back just a bit so i continued it for a little while more. It was about a total of 2 years.
Now I'm really confused with these white spots and especially the condition of my chest because there's 2 hypertrophic scars which are scars for sure, but then there are these whitish bumps all over my chest and a bit of redness. My skin is very dry on my back and chest and my back blistered horribly from testing retin-a 0.05% on it and so i had to stop using it.
I'm trying to figure out what I have right now and here's a list of things I've thought about / tried to treat:
- Pityrosporum folliculitis / Malassezia folliculitis, mainly because my scalp is pretty dry and flaky and the whitish bumps on my shoulders/chest/upper back could be it as well
- Keratosis Pilaris Alba, also white bumps, however the whitish bumps on my skin are more like in little groups and not every pore, and some are pretty big, too
- Eczema, because I was researching the subject and it seems eczema/extremely dry skin can cause the whitish bumps and since my back reacted to retin-a's drying effect so dramatically (blisters and a huge red rash all over my back, which has now healed after i treated it with hydrocortisone and moisturized) which points to my skin being very dry right now.
I'm also wondering what could be causing these reddish cracks on my chest and shoulders, which are also full of the white bumps/seemingly a bit bigger than normally skin lesions. This is pretty much what my shoulders and chest look like right now:
However, there are also a little bigger bumps like that on the back of my shoulder, but they only seem to be located on the shoulder and chest area and the sides of my back, right in the middle upper back these whitish big bumps don't exist, the smaller ones might be there though.
I'm pretty frustrated with this right now since it's so persistent. I'm trying nizoral shampoo right now, and I will, if it shows no signs of getting better, try calmuril and moisturizing my skin a lot to see if it's keratosis pilaris or eczema.
What you said about the antibiotics having a worsening effect on the skin in the long run is probably because it deprives your skin of it's normal flora and bacteria and so the fungus (malassezia folliculitis) is a possible follow up of extensive antibiotic use. The problem with all these things is that i shouldn't take antibiotics if i think it's malassezia folliculitis and instead use the nizoral, but if i want to try if it's eczema or keratosis pilaris i'd have to moisturize my skin, which would feed the fungus at the same time, so im trying nizoral first to see if it gets any better, if not im going to try the moisturizing and calmuril/restoring my skins normal condition, since it's so dry now.
Here's another picture that looks a lot like my current condition on my chest:
You can notice that somewhere there's a lot more of those bumps than at other places, which is also a bit weird. Right in the middle of my chest i barely have any, but on the edes around it and all the way up to the beginning of my neck. Some of them seem to have a hair growing out of them but some of them, especially the little bit bigger ones seem to have no hair at all on them. I'm aware that my chest has a bit of hypertrophic scarring, but I believe if I got rid of these bumps it would already look a lot better, at least in my own eyes and I could take a look into scar treatments once I'm over all these bumps and things.
EDIT: Found one more picture which shows the appearance of the white bumps pretty clearly, apparently this case is keratosis pilaris:
I had time to take another picture of my chest and here you can see how it is currently, at the bottom left there's a hypertrophic/keloid scar, but the rest, small little bumps which seem to be near where the hairs grow from and then that reddishness at some spots. I'm trying to figure what these spots are right now and once I get rid of them I intend to try and treat my scars. If anyone has a similar condition or has cured/gotten rid of it I'd like to know.
EDIT: I think this could also be a form of collagenoma/elastoma caused by the acne on the chest before, I might arrange a meeting with my skin doctor and ask her about these different conditions and try to figure out what it is. Also found this description of eruptive collagenoma:
"Eruptive collagenomas are acquired type of connective tissue naevi of collagen type and are referred to as Lipschutz type.[4] The dermal nodules seen in eruptive collagenoma are discrete, firm, skin - coloured, and slightly elevated. Some lesions have a Peau 'd orange surface. Lesions are symmetrically distributed over trunk and upper parts of arms."
it is funny but my skin looks very similar to yours, but worse because of all the hyperpigmentation I have on my shoulders.
Mine was definitely caused by taking antibiotics for 4 months.
How long were you on antibiotics during your second course of antibiotics?
Also, if you do not mind me asking, when you spawn a pimple, does it take a while to heal and does it flake/dry like crazy?
P.S. let us know if nizoral helps you
it is funny but my skin looks very similar to yours, but worse because of all the hyperpigmentation I have on my shoulders.
Mine was definitely caused by taking antibiotics for 4 months.
How long were you on antibiotics during your second course of antibiotics?
Also, if you do not mind me asking, when you spawn a pimple, does it take a while to heal and does it flake/dry like crazy?
P.S. let us know if nizoral helps you
Usually when there's a pimple it's either a cyst which takes a week - years to even surface so it extracts and after it extracts there's a red mark for another month - year. Whenever I get the white ones which pop easily they usually develop really fast into the point where by gently helping it out the core can be extracted, it leaves a tiny red spot for a little while on the area which usually completely disappears within a week. As for the antibiotics i did around 1.5 - 2 months both times, i stopped for the time i used nizoral for about 10 days, but nothing seemed to happen to them with the nizoral and i had to go back on the antibiotics because my scalp acne started slowly coming back again. Also, I get cysts in my armpits if i don't use the antibiotics which are really uncomfortable and painful. It's as if they're there always just waiting until the meds are done to come back again. I started with the retin-a again, been using it for a few days now, I'll keep going with it for a month or two to see if there's any improvement. One thing the retin-a does is that it dries out the existing red marks / hyperpigmentation a lot more than it does for the "normal" skin, so it will probably help a little bit with the red marks too. Oh and a small cyst that has been on my chest for nearly 1.5 years finally popped, i was wondering if it was some sort of a scar or something since there was this one underskin bump on my chest still that felt like something was inside and it now came out, hopefully it's the last surprise like that.
Anyway these whitish bumps make the texture of my skin especially on my chest look worse, and I'm not even sure yet what they are. I refuse to believe they're scarring, at least most of them most likely aren't and a few new ones pop up on my shoulders and upper chest every now and then. They're a bit shiny, slightly raised and it seems like there's something inside, same with the ones on my back and shoulders. Also if it put my shoulders forward so that the skin in my chest loosens the bumps show up a little bigger. Again if anyone has any idea what this could be I'd wish to know.
did u get these bumps only after antibiotics?
I am not completely sure when they appeared since my acne was so bad that it was red and bumps and cysts everywhere, but there's a good chance that these are the most persistent "closed comedones" that sometimes do not go away with accutane, since I still had a cyst, too. It's incredible how persistent acne can be, especially cysts and things deep inside the skin. Since my bumps do not seem to get any worse nor better from nizoral/ketoconazole nor the antibiotics, i will keep using the retin-a, and if it doesn't help in 1 - 3 months at all, I will try the exfoliating way, BHA or something similar. I will inform about it here if it works.
http://www.acne.org/messageboard/topic/291749-scarring-on-the-upper-body-follicular-macular-atrophy/
Read this thread! It's a type of scarring, nothing to do with fungal infections.
I think i have the same "acne" wijhe on my chest and I dont think that its a kind of scarring because sometimes i can squeeze one
of these pimples and they are definitely filled with sebum. Any treatment suggestions?
Cheers Sebo