MY SUCCESS STORY: Defeating Perioral Dermatitis

This entry is to hopefully help someone else out there diagnosed with Perioral Dermatitis. If you don’t know what that is, google it. Voila! Read on if you want to find out how to avoid taking antibiotics to “cure” (read: suppress your symptoms until the next inevitable flare up) your PD.

From what I’ve read the past two weeks on forums on Perioral Dermatitis, there is a common link between the source of outbreaks: switching to different products, or using hydrocortisone/steroid cream on your face. The corners under my nose have always been a little red but I thought that was genetics since my grandfather had rosacea, and my mother has rosacea. Went to see my family doctor about it and she prescribed me “Elocom” to use as a multipurpose miracle ointment on anything that’s suspicious: itchy, rashy, red, bumpy <– you get the idea (so… so…. pretty). This cream did the trick, as do all ointments with steroid/hydrocortisone/all those medical ingredients usually do. These actually suppress your immune system (read: make it weaker and further unable to handle shit on their own) (read further: dependent on the product) to diminish the symptoms. Anyway, for the next few years, I used this on my face, on my body, and even advocated it to my friends and family to use it if their skin didn’t look right.

Timeline

November, 2012. F…M…L. My first flare up. I had no idea what it was! There was a new fad with Clarisonic, and I didn’t know my skin couldn’t handle that kind of exfoliation (I still never fully learnt that my skin can’t handle this kind of exfoliation, bless those girls with skin that can tolerate it, until literally 2 weeks ago) (took me years to learn my lesson) so obviously me being product/OCD queen, the tiniest bump on my chin I Clarisonic’d the shit out of it. Then I coated it with Elocom. (HUGE FUCKING MISTAKE!) The area around my mouth (hence, why it’s called perioral) was red and bumpy. Not only that, I was stressed out with exams and eating really badly in university that I was breaking out on my T-Zone as well. I was not pretty. NOT PRETTY AT ALL. I would do a clay mask every night, and soak the affected areas every night in green tea, stopped exfoliating, then coated the area every night in Elocom and moisturizer. During the day, I covered my face in foundation (I never wear foundation) and concealer but it only exacerbated all the flaws on my face more 😦 it did not help that the lighting in the library was like fluorescent so it made everything even more HD. Self confidence was at an all time low. I felt bad for anyone who had to look at me while we spoke, and felt even worse that they were actively trying to maintain eye contact instead of looking at whatever the fucking shit was going on with my lower face. Thank god it was the end of the semester, and my family and I were going to Mexico for the winter holidays.

Over the next two weeks, after lots of sunshine and some home cooking, my skin looked back to normal and felt as good as new (THANK FRICKIN GOD because I had to go back to school and be social). The tan covered all the redness, and the salt water in the ocean probably dried up the bumps and whatever it was – it left. When my tan started to fade, the redness under my nose sort of came back. But no biggie, back to my old routine. I put concealer on it and it was fine. I would use Elocom on it again just to hope to treat it once and for all. I didn’t have another flare up until May 2014.

May, 2014. Fuck. Once again, I over did it on the exfoliation. I love to sauna, so I did that. Then scrubbed my face. I just wanted to really clean my pores you know. Just like that – outbreak. (The moral of the story is – steroids and hydrocortisone really messed with my skins natural ability to withstand exfoliation. It made it super susceptible to little, unpredictable irritations). Shitty thing is, I’ve done that many, many times before. I have a sauna at home so I would always do that to detox and exfoliate my face just because… impurities n shit u know. Since this 2nd outbreak happened while I was on vacation, it was harder to deal with. I had a limited amount of products with me, and no access to medical help or anything. Also ran out of Elocom. Went to a pharmacy and bought hydrocortisone the OTC kind. Finally got back home but didn’t think to go to a dermatologist. Instead, went to see my family doctor again. She told me I had rosacea. Prescribed me Metrogel. Made it worse -_-. Went to see another family doctor for a 2nd opinion. He diagnosed me with rosacea again! I was in disbelief. No way this was rosacea. I was desperate to figure out what it was. Finally splurged and went to see a dermatologist.

She took one look at me and said I have Perioral dermatitis. Prescribed me 6 weeks of Minocycline (an antibiotic to treat acne vulgaris) and made me buy her Hexam face wash and moisturizer. I was desperate to treat it so I hopped on that medicine train real fast. Except I was going on a Euro grad trip with my friends for a month, so my treatment went into my vacation as well. The takeaway here is that I was exposed to the sun every time my flare ups were treated (although when on Minocycline, you’re not supposed to be exposed under the sun. Oops…) I tanned like a mofo every day. I was sure it would work like my last outbreak. It sure did the work at covering the redness faster than if I were pale – but also made it harder to determine whether or not I was actually healing, or the tan covered up the redness. I also drank a lot (alcohol) while on this medication. Oops again. After my vacation, I came back and followed up with the dermatologist and she gave me the go ahead that it’s cleared. I asked if I could have the Minocycline prescription incase something like this happened again, and she said it’s very rare that it comes back. Alright doc. Took the extra prescription any way. Not worth paying $$$ just to get the same treatment next time.

March, 2015. Still not learning my lesson, I kept overexfoliating my skin, and putting hydrocortisone and Elocom on my skin whenever something was off. I thought the red patch on my chin was a result of my boyfriend’s beard. So I would use those ointments religiously, reverting to my old ways. It did not clear anything up – just kinda kept the bumps sort of flat. I had this patchy red area on my chin for a good few months. All it took was one time of using Clarisonic again, and boom. Bad news bears. The shady thing is that you never know when you’ll have a flare up. I’ve used Clarisonic many times in between flare ups and it was never directly linked. This time was bad. I was over it. My flare up occurred while I was on antibiotics for a UTI (my health sounds beautiful up until this point) so I didn’t want to refill my Minocycline prescription without giving my body a break. Except for the 2 weeks my skin was just so bad! I had to work everyday, meaning I had to cover my face in make up. I didn’t want to, but I had to.

This time, I turned to the interwebs for help. I wanted to find a quick fix without involving another 6 weeks of antibiotics that would further damage my health and immune system. Everything I read lead to one conclusion: antibiotics seems to be the only thing that would clear anyone’s PD.

*things I’ve tried based on recommendations I’ve gathered from forums:

Desitin: I think perioral dermatitis is linked with some sort of fungal thing? Gross. Basically PD is a combination of rosacea, eczema and acne. The worst 3 things grouped into one. So people recommend diaper rash cream to get rid of the eczema as zinc is a huge help to rashes. It was more like wishful thinking because I thought it looked better but it ended up drying out my skin and making it flakey, and was just ineffective.

Rodan and Fields Soothe Regimen: spent over $200+ on this treatment and thank god for their 60 days refund period because I’m refunding it. While I’m sure it’s great for some people, it doesn’t get rid of the bumpy and extreme redness on my face.

Zinc supplements: I have zinc and vitamin C lozenges. I mean, it doesn’t really help but it’s still healthy right?

Switching toothpaste and going SLS free: I couldn’t allow myself to make this switch. I love my products too much, and I need to feel that clean feeling after brushing your teeth with real toothpaste.

Nothing helped. I didn’t want to spend more money, and I was too scared to use apple cider vinegar like people recommend. Or coconut oil, because I read on some girls blog that coconut oil is one of those treatments that make it worse before it gets better. I was too lazy to do the yogurt mask thing. And I did not want to wash my face with anti-dandruff shampoo or put athletes foot cream on my face. One morning I woke up, my face was super dry, red, bumpy, flaky… I was defeated and fed up.

When my dearest mother saw how frustrated I was, she felt helpless. She reached out to all her friends and her friends dermatologist friends for advice without naming what my diagnosis was. She bought me Cerave moisturizing cream. That seemed to make my skin a little better and less dry, except it’s a horrible make up base. It basically flakes off because the cream itself is quite thick so applying make up on it was hopeless. Then she had a brilliant idea. When I was younger, I sought skin help with Chinese Medicine all the time – the herbal medicine that tasted super bitter and gross. So she took me to see a Chinese doctor – the kind you would find in Chinatown. This person was renowned apparently for curing skin diseases. She took one look at me and knew what it was (although she still translated Perioral Dermatitis to Chinese just to make sure she wouldn’t mistreat me). She was like a miracle worker. She asked me things like if I had lost my appetite, if my head felt heavier than usual, if the texture inside my mouth was “rougher” than normal, etc. Wrote a lengthy prescription of herbs for my mother to make me at home. Of course, she advised me to cut out seafood, alcohol, dairy, cheese, chips, anything fried, red meat, out of my diet for the next few weeks. Aka everything I live and die for. And after my first round of medicine, NO JOKE. Bumps went away. She told me to soak my face in the leftover herbal medicine after it’s cooled, and the redness went away. Just to make sure I was being treated as holistically as possible, I also got acupuncture that same day. The acupuncturist took a look at my skin and knew I had to boost my immune system.

I’m writing this post on my 2nd day of drinking her Chinese medicine. And my bumps have gone away, and the redness is rapidly subsiding. It’s smooth enough for me to put concealer over the redness to mask it. I guess I didn’t really have to tell you all the back story up there. But take away is: I managed to find something that wasn’t antibiotics to cure my Perioral Dermatitis and I hope this helps you! There’s not enough information out there about Chinese Medicine and Perioral dermatitis. She basically targeted the root of the problem with just one look at me.

I wish I was brave enough to publicly post pictures of my before and after. But please take it from me that I truly believe there are better ways out there to treat perioral dermatitis other than antibiotics. All that does is suppress the symptoms, it never clears it because the problem is only looked at from one angle when there’s a million other interactions going on in your body.

Learnt my lesson the hard way. Never ever using those ointments on my face again, and going to do my best to never over exfoliate my skin! Hope this herbal fix is a long term, life long fix. I don’t want to go through this shit ever again.