Seborrhoeic Dermatitis

i am 20 years old from phillippines , i also suffered from your cases... and it started one year ago until now. my doctor prescribed me a ketoconazole shampoo and a miconozole cream for the affected area specifically located on face ..... i am student and incoming fourth year this semester.......... you i'm so stressed with this horrible illness. if you dont mind, may i ask u if how are u after getting this kind of illness........

Hi

I'm similar - I'm 24 now, started with this about 2-3 years ago - affects same area (bridge of nose going on to cheeks and forehead just above nose area). I also have times when it makes me not want to go out as it gets really red and noticeable. I was prescribed a steroid cream from doctor which I found worked brilliantly for about a month and then started having a detrimental effect (maybe my skin got used to it? I still have it and use ocassionally)

I have tried various creams and moisturisers - all of which inflame the condition or make my skin feel tight and irritated. The only two things which I can HIGHLY recommend -

Clarins gentle day cream - for some reason this moisturiser has never irritated my skin and does help soothe it - put on once or twice a day and it generally stays under control - downside - costs £32 for 50ml so quite expensive considering I get through a pot a month

Just discovered -Palmers cocoa butter - this also does not seem to irritate my skin - put on at night and in morning my skin does look better, evens the tone out etc. (I have only just started using this though so as yet to verify long term) - and at £4 a tub is much cheaper!

Please give these a go as they really do help me, unfortunately its one of those conditions which we probably have got to deal with and the best treatment is prevention - try and keep it under control.

I notice the main triggers (as described by doctors) are when I'm stressed, and when it's cold/dry (as it always is in england). The only time I can truly say my face goes back to normal as it used to be is when I go abroad on holiday - for some reason the sun over there clears it right up - so best solution would probably be to emigrate! (if only!)

Hope this helps, I would love to hear back from anyone who may try the above if it also worked/didn't work for them

I also have SD and can completely sympathise with anyone who has it. It's embarrassing and really knocks your self-confidence, I keep thinking if only it was on my bum, and then no one would see it!

I think the worst part about it for me is the visual symptoms, the red patches and the flaky bits and also the 'dandruff' like flakes in my hair, although having said that the itching is pretty annoying!

I first noticed my SD when I was working in a job I hated and was very stressed, In fact, one day I went into work and one of my colleagues said \"Oh my god, what has happened to your face?\" She was referring to my SD! I was mortified and spent most of the day hiding!

I have found something that work quite well, (after trying what feels like 300 creams, lotions, and shampoos from my doctor!) I have an aloe Vera plant given to me as a house-warming gift, this is by far the best 'cure' I've found.

They are really easy to grow and because they are part of the Cactus family really difficult to kill! All I do is snap off a little bit of one of the leaves and scoop out the gel like stuff in the middle with my nail and spread it over the effected areas! It's great and I swear to god, next morning no sign of my SD! I normally do this once a night/day and it keeps it at bay. Also, Aloe Vera plant is great for spots, sunburn, mild grazes, splinters and fact pretty much any skin condition!

I've even gave a small plant to my neighbour as her little girl gets nappy rash and my neighbour has thrown away all the creams and stuff from the doctor because it works so well!

Trust nature to get it right!

It's definitely worth a try right? And if it doesn't work you've got a funky looking plant sitting in your window! Win, Win!

I think you should be able to get an Aloe Vera plant in your local Garden Centre, but I'm not sure! And like I said they don't need any special treatment, just water once a week and thats it!

Well, I hope this works for you and it would be great to hear from anyone who has tried Aloe Vera too!

I am almost 60 and have had SD all my life. I have used everything prescription and non-prescription to control the symptoms on the scalp, facial skin of nose, eyebrows and hairline as well as inside and

outside my ears. A few years ago, I inquired about laser skin resurfacing around my nose and face to

ease the symptoms. Was told it would help for a short time but the symptoms would return if I didn't find what was causing the allergy. Yes. I was told it was an allergy. So, from that, became a quest to find it.

I soon discovered an allergy to soy and wheat. Especially the wheat. Went off wheat for a couple of

years, just because, and decided to try it one day. After the second day of eating wheat, the back cracks

and inside of my right ear crusted up, the nose folds became inflamed, the hairline broke out

along with hair just dropping out. One by one, all day long. The symptoms clear up if I don't eat

the wheat. I eat it and not eat it to see if this indeed is a culprit. I have been allergic to wheat all my life!

The soy just makes my hair fall out.

The symptoms on the scalp are treated with Ketoconazole shampoo, prescription or non-prescription,

and Desonide for the face and ears. Have been using these products for the last decade because

they're the only ones that are effective. The products are not used everyday anymore or even every other

day if I don't eat the foods or use products on my skin that affect the SD.

Try to become your own advocate by paying attention to what you are ingesting into your body or putting on your skin that affect your SD. Go a week or two without a certain food or product, then eat it or use it

again for a couple of days to see if you get a reaction of any sort. If you do, then more than likely this

means an allergy or a reaction. Try this a few times to be sure. Then work on going longer and longer

without the food or product until your symptoms are under control. It has taken many years to figure this

out. Most of all,try to be patient. I hope this helps.

When I was in my late teens (teen boy), I suffered with really bad yellow scaly flakes on my scalp. At first, I didn't go to the doctors about it as I figured it was just something I had to live with (crazy I know). I used to use all kinds of hair gels and hair styling products, which I now realise didn't do me any favours. I tried various off the shelf non-medicated shampoos, Head and Shoulders, etc, but nothing would help. As I reached 20, my hair was thinning quite badly, which I was told by my family that premature hairloss was "in the family". I reached 22 and after struggling with this condition for long enough, I went to the doctors. The doctor said I had a fungal infection and prescribed Nizoral shampoo for 3 times a week for 3-4 weeks. After 2 weeks, the scaling had 90% healed. Within the month, it had completely gone. Unfortunately, it did not magically make my hair grow back although I am almost convinced that this condition caused the hairloss. I have now been shaving my head for 10 years. In the recent years, although the fungal infection has never returned to that extent, my scalp still itches with red dry flakey skin and I also get it around my mouth (beard and mustache).

After reading a lot about the links between SD and food, I've recently set about looking at my diet. I noticed that when I had pizza with a can of coke, I seemed to get a flare up days later. When I went out for a night and drank alcohol, I seemed to have a flare up a few days later. When I cut these out for a while, I didn't notice any huge improvement, but things did improve slightly.

However, recently, I have experimented with coffee and tea. For years, I have had just one small cup of coffee a day (milk and one sugar) and a couple of cups of tea. For a couple of weeks, I cut out coffee completely (not tea), and I had no itching, no red dry patches anywhere. So this week, I went back to drinking coffee as before, and I've had the biggest flare up I've had in weeks! Scalp really itchy, beard area really dry and itchy and red.

I'm not saying this will work for everyone, but there is a link to coffee and SD, so look at how much caffeine you're consuming, and in particular coffee.

I have had a lot of the symptoms that people have spoken of. I've had treatments from my doctor and they have been working but I wanted to add to the comment above that coffee ( and I've only usually drunk it once a day as well) seems to exacerbate my dermatitis, particuarly on my scalp. I also found that honey, I used the Manuka honey, seems to help my skin, I've rubbed in a small amount before going to bed. Why I don't know though it supposed to be anti fungal. It seemed soothing, especially as the treatments, though they work have often really irritated my skin.

Its better to consult a Dermatologist. May be some laser treatments will cure this. Many new treatments are available in Laser clinic centers to enhance beauty. I  know one famous laser clinic center known as Fairview Cosmetic surgery at Toronto. They are providing excellent treatment for this.

Hello, having used this website for information and advice in trying to treat my seborrheic dermatitis,  now that I appear to be on top of it, I wanted to share my experiences.

I am a 34 year old male and developed facial seb derm almost 2 years ago.  I have always had sensitive and at times dry skin but when very visible bright red patches of flaky skin started to appear around my nostrils and at the bridge of my nose by my eyebrows, I new this was something more.  I tried many different brands of moisturiser, but nothing helped, in fact most made it worse and it was really getting me down.

My doctor was not sure on the cause to start with.  He prescribed some emolient creams and these had no effect.  The next time, he suggested it could be seb derm and prescribed nizarol ketoconazole cream.  This helped to moisturise the flaky skin without causing any worse inflammation, however it did not relieve the redness, which was only getting worse.  The next time, he prescribed daktacort cream to be used in short bursts (a few days at a time) in between the nizarol cream.  This worked in reducing the redness (at times completely) for the first 3-4 times I used it, however after that it only made the redness worse. I switched back to just using the nizarol and transferred to a doctor specialising in skin conditions.

Having done a lot of research online by this point, I went to see him and asked to be put on a course of oral anti-fungals.  He agreed and that was the next treatment.  I took sporanox tablets daily for about a month, also continuing with the nizoral cream.  I believe they did help to an extent to reduce the flakiness, but still not the redness and my frustration at it by this point was really getting me down. 

This was 3 months ago.  I went back and from my research, asked to try anti-biotics.  He suggested both that and a continuation of the oral anti fungals for 3 months.  Since then, I have been taking daily lymecycline antibiotics and the anti fungals at weekends.  From about 2 weeks in I started to notice results and now almost at the end of this medication, I can happily say all my seb derm symptoms are gone.  No flaky skin and importantly, no redness or patches. I still continue to use the nizarol cream infrequently to moisturise the affected areas, however the medication seems to have also really improved overall my sensitive and dry skin too. 

In conclusion, I would recommend pushing for antibiotics as soon as possible.  I have suffered no side effects from these and in the time I have suffered with seb derm, this has been the only effective solution to clearing the redness and patches. 

It's really interesting to see everyone else's experiences with SD. For me, the most helpful thing has been doublebase emolient cream which I got from the GP, it's really gentle and doesn't irritate the SD on my face at all but soothes it. Unfortunately the most annoying thing about my SD is my hair loss but nothing has worked on that yet!