Suspected Perioral Dermatitis Please Help!

[Rowlie]

To cut a long story short, I used a spot sticker for a spot three weeks ago. Had some sort of reaction to it and removed straight away. There was like a red rash where I’d used it. It didn’t go away after a week so I stupidly applied a steroid I had at home leftover from something else. This basically got rid of it, but still left a darkened mark. Stopped using the steroid BAM I now have what I think is perioral dermatitis and it’s awful all over my chin and lines up to nose. It was a potent steroid I now realise.

GP has so far advised zero product and just leave it alone. I have a front facing job at work and I am incredibly self conscious. I don’t want to make it worse by wearing makeup and I’m terrified I am going to be left with scarring. Stopped the steroid five days ago and no improvement as of yet. Soonest dermatology appointment (private) in my area is May so still six weeks away, not sure if I can live with this until then, I have a lot of important pitches at work coming up and events. I feel so stupid and incredibly down.
Does anyone know what I can do to get rid? It’s also itchy, sore and tight in addition to how it looks.

I’m not a doctor but I’ve had this and this is what I did. It took a while for it to go away completely.
Do not touch your face again with any steroid cream.
buy a sulphur soap, use it daily. Try this for a week or so. Don’t add any moisturiser. It will feel tight and dry and then it will calm slightly and feel pretty normal. Don’t pick or squeeze any pustules if they form.
Don’t wear make up or use anything else other than water.
When it’s no longer active and sore, try La Roche possay cicaplast baulm and use this nightly.
Some people have used nappy cream to soothe but it irritated mine.
if this doesn’t work, a long course of doxycycline helped me.
Mine was caused by over exfoliating and then trying to fix with steroid cream.

The only emollient I could stand with a similar complaint was Doublebase Flare Relief - all the others made my skin burn. In the end, though, the only thing that worked was 3 days of steroid tablets and a steroid cream suitable for the face from the GP. Luckily we have a GP with additional qualifications and an interest in dermatology at our practice. I could feel the tablets working within hours.

This! Plus swap out your toothpaste for a sensitive one that doesn't have sls and splash any residue off your mouth area after brushing.

And avoid sls in general and no retinols or anything like that.

@ForPearlViper everything I’ve read r.e. Perioral dermatitis says not to use steroids as it makes it worse long term as will cause flare up when you stop? It’s using and stopping a steroid which has caused this for me sadly

@sploshsplash do you always need the antibiotics to fully solve it? GPs seem clueless have all told me different things

do NOT use steroids. yes they work temporarily, it will come back with vengeance.
Can you ask your GP to prescribe metronidazole cream? That's the gold standard for perioral. Should work, if it's your first outbreak. In the meantime from home remedies, my friend had excellent results treating the perioral with black tea. She was very sceptical when doc recommended this, but it actually worked.
If you have a blue light lamp, that has kept my perioral under control for years now, can recommend.

I have this about once yearly.
Don't use any steroids
You need to take lymecycline tablets. The Dr can prescribe them but I buy mine from online pharmacies
Also rosex cream helps clear it

I had this when I started using that ‘Skin and Me’ that’s advertised all over social media!

in the end I just tried my best to leave my face alone. No products, creams or base make up, literally nothing. It took a good three months or so and it just cleared up all by itself

Rozex as pp mentioned is metronidazole. I would try that first, you may not need oral antibiotics.

I've had this due to skincare ruining my skin barrier. Agree with others re stopping the steroids. I used Aveeno Calm and Restore range (available on Amazon), the cleanser and the moisturiser. I also make sure that I have sls free toothpaste and brush my teeth before I wash my face.

It's five months now and it hasn't returned. You do need to taper off steroid creams to avoid a flare up but I think flare ups are much more common after prolonged use of steroids. Some people use them for years. I've still got most of the tube left.

I've not long got over three months of PD, my face was such a state. I found that using few drops of pure jojoba oil on my face for a couple of weeks calmed it right down, it's available on Amazon and isn't expensive. Then to get rid of it altogether I applied Tropic Tamanu Balm. It was gone within 3 days!

I tried the topical cream mentioned here for around 10 weeks and it didn’t improve it at all. The antibiotic alongside the soap fixed mine.

This is the soap I have used. It’s doesn’t smell as bad as you think it might. It really worked very well. Have a read up about it

The thing with Pd is that different things seem to work for different people.

I'm in the do not use anything at all for a couple of days camp.

Mine is caused by steroids. The first time was a steroid nasal spray. The next was steroid cream for my hands. That inevitably transferred to my face. Antibiotics didnt help. Azalaeic acid cream didn't help. But I know others where both of those things did help!

I only washed with water. And when it started to dry out I used the tiniest amount of aveeno to take the edge off the dryness. You dont want to stifle it with anything heavy or blocking.

Then I introduced products carefully. So a tiny bit of foundation. Removed with the aveeno I knew didnt upset it. Because like you I was desperate to be able to cover it a bit.

Slowly I introduced some micellar water to cleanse.

And so on. I had no scarring and I havent had a recurrence. Both times it took 6 weeks to go properly but I saw an improvement within 4 -5 days of doing nothing.

You can buy an oral antibiotic for it (or choose something else) via the online Superdrug doctor. I did this late last year. You upload pictures and they prescribe. It works but be careful with the oral antibiotics to drink with a glass of water and don't lie down immediately after as they can cause throat pain if the casing comes off shortly after swallowing

@Lionlion1 the GP has so far prescribed flucloxacillin which I haven’t started because I don’t think it’s the right thing and I don’t want to take antibiotics unnecessarily

Doxycilin was what I had from Superdrug. Worked very quicky. I wouldn't hesitate to take antibiotics when you have a legitimate reason to take them. Perioral dermatitis is really hard to properly deal with and the antibiotic was brilliant. It was an 8 week course, which I think says a lot about how difficult it is to beat it back! Hope you can get it sorted as I know how much it can affect your confidence

@Lionlion1 I’m not against antibiotics at all I just think the flucloxacillin they have prescribed for a week’s course isn’t the right thing for it

I've had oral antibiotics a couple of times, always 6-8 week course.

I had a 3 month course of oral antibiotics prescribed by a dermatologist and a back to basics skincare routine and that worked for mine.

My son has this and it was misdiagnosed as eczema to start with so he had steroid creams for weeks to start with. Every time we stopped them it flared up worse!!

Eventually it was confirmed to be peri oral dermatitis and he started on a six week course of lymecycline. On stopping the steroid cream it flared terribly so I took him back and we got a moderate and a mild steroid cream so that I could wean them
off gradually. We did a week of moderate steroid, a week of mild alternating with moderate, a week of mild steroid and then every other day for a bit. This worked well.

Sorry you’re going through this, it’s really an awful condition, so distressing when it’s on your face 😢

i get outbreaks when the weather is very cold and find that Avene Tolerance cream really helps. You can buy it in Boots. Neals Yard Remedies Stellaria cream is good to dot on throughout the day when dry but i think it’s been out of stock for a while. The NYR staff were v helpful during my last flare up and advised swerving products with essential oils as they irritate it and make it worse. Minimal routine is best. Antibiotic cream is fine to use for several weeks if prescribed and it will keep any infection at bay. Good luck, it’s extremely upsetting living with this but it will clear up.

Antibiotics are the only thing that worked for me. I was given a couple of moths prescription but I didn’t take them all and stopped after it had cleared up and it hasn’t been back since. My daughter also had it and she was given elidel which worked for her but did nothing for me.

Good luck!

Check out "steroid withdrawal " it's definitely a condition that can occur after using steroid cream. Takes time to recover from but OK once you stop using the steroid cream.