Help! My face is falling apart!

[birdsnotbees]

Not literally. Past 2 months or so the skin on my face has become progressively worse. Started as dry patches in the smile lines between nose and mouth. Now I have red, scaly, very dry, flaky skin from the bridge of my nose to my chin, and it spread this week to under my eyes!!

I have been using every moisturiser I can get my hands on: oils, vaseline, my kids' diprobase, washing with those aqua cream things.

I have always had really dry skin but this is awful. It has aged me about 5 years.

Does anyone have any advice? I am stressed due to work, but that's not about to change any time soon. And I'm still bf-ing my 16 month old daughter - maybe that's it?? I drink loads of water, am a veggie and eat well, rarely drink, don't smoke and do exercise...

Help! I look bloody awful!

I think you should make an appointment with your doctor. You might need a steroid cream.

I thought that as both kids have eczema but you can't use steroids on your face - it thins the skin. I'm tempted though, believe me (and smallest DC has a spare tube lying about...)

Yes see gp. I had a similar problem some years ago and it turned out to be seborrhoeic dermatitis. Do you have dandruff? It's also an issue with dermatitis.

It sounds to me like it might well be a dermatitis/eczema/psoriasis thing.

I have this on my face too.

Yes, they say don't use steroids on your face, it thins the skin.

It does with prolonged use. But what is the alternative? Bear in mind my psoriasis, when it flares up, tends to be at the corner of my lips (!) and looks like a fucking cold sore. I never get cold sores. I incorrectly treated it as one for yonks, it was there 3 months before I realised it was frikkin psoriasis. 2 days of betnovate and it was gone. Bear in mind also in this place it cracks and you can't even open your mouth to laugh or eat or give blowjobs stuff.

I never use it for more than 2 days on the trot and then I try and "maintain" or stave it off with the coal tar stuff (which incidentally the cat loves, so in the middle of the night she attacks my face and licks my lips and tries to snog me basically but that's a whole nother thread) but at the end of the day I don't give a shit about "thin skin" when there is "copious amounts of cracked bleeding skin" as the alternative.

So yes, you are right, but still see a doc. They can at least "diagnose" - and who knows the coal tar might work if its psoriasis, or they can at least give you something on prescription, Dovorniex or whatever its called is a bit gentler I think...

Really? Oh no! No dandruff, never had it. Have always had dry skin & assumed it was an extension of that... OK, I'll go and see my (usually dead-behind-the-eyes) GP and see if she can come up with something. Thanks!

Thanks dunky, not sure what sounds worse: coal tar or cat's tongue! I'm getting old, have crappy freckled and seems-really-thin-already-thanks skin so really don't want to go for steroids. But it's horrid. I've never looked so old and people keep telling me how tired I look. Which I am, but I don't need to be told!

Last week I was prescribed hydrocortisone 1% to use on my eyelids for a week due to bloody awful hayfever swelling them up so I could barely see. Worked like magic in 48 hours so I stopped, but my point is that steroids are occasionally seen by GPs as the lesser of two evils on the face?

The gp prescribed steroids for ds1s face when he was 8 months. It's fine for short term use when necessary.

Go to the gp and get it sorted!

I'm getting to the point where I'd try anything, tbh. I have tried moisturising all through the day (and not wearing make-up, eek) and even that didn't work - within an hour of putting oils on, my skin was back to being flaky and dry again.

birds Are you me? I was going to post exactly the same thing, right down to nose to mouth patches. I've been messing about trying to cure mine for over a month now. Tried 1% steroid from pharmacy - useless - made it redder! Now trying washing face with coal tar shampoo twice a day, patting dry and appying a layer of sudacreme. This seems to have stopped it spreading and itching.

I reckon i'm so pissed off with it I'm going to GP

I get eczema, usually hands and feet but also on my face. GP gave me Eumovate cream, it works.

It is a toss up, thinner skin or let it get really damaged by recurring dry patches. Using a steroid in short bursts really does help and makes the skin much more comfortable.
Good luck with it, it is a dreadful thing.

I recommend going to the doctor too, but not before trying Aveeno. It is a brilliant moisturiser for dry skin. DS had terrible bad skin a month after he was born. It sounds like your dry skin is similar to what he had. It wasn't eczema, as it didn't appear on the joints, but it was white flaky skin on his face.
My HV recommended Aveeno, and the dry skin disappeared with the first application. I was amazed. I also suffered from really dry hands which resulted in cracked knuckles and Aveeno sorted it out. I use it on DS everyday after his bathtime now.

Aveeno, yes agree. The cream, not the lotion.

It was recommended to me for dd a couple of years ago (after prescribed steroid-type cream failed to work) and it did the trick. Brilliant cream, and is now a household staple here.

I've heard good things about Doublebase too, but haven't tried personally.

Has anyone tried teatree oil?

thenightsky sorry to hear you're going through it too! And steroids made it worse?! Thing is, I'm pretty sure mine isn't eczema, as both my kids have had it and it's nothing like theirs. And I also know my GP is so crap that she'll just bang out the steroids and look at me with that bovine stare of hers when I ask if it couldn't be anything else.

(This is the same GP who insisted DD had impetigo when she had chickenpox... even though I said I thought it was chickenpox.)

rainys & Mrsbovary will try aveeno cream - thank you! Is Doublebase the same as Diprobase (the kids have that; again did nothing for me)?

Hmmm - do we share a GP?

I'm beginning to think mine is psoriasis.

Doublebase is fabulous, DS and I both use it daily, it's fab for soothing sore, itchy, inflamed or just dry skin. You can buy it over the pharmacy counter in Boots for about a tenner for 500ml.

OP - are you getting little tiny fluid filled blisters amongst the redness and flaky dry bits?

Doublebase and diprobase aren't the same. Doublebase is a light gel, diprobase is horrible thick cream which stings both of us, like aqueous cream.

I feel like i've got athlete's foot on my face to be honest

When I got scales the Protect and Perfect Serum got rid of it when nothing else worked.

thenightsky no blisters, no - sounds horrible, you poor thing. You really need to get to your GP! (or maybe it's a reaction to the creams on top of the redness??)

springforward thanks for that, I'd assumed they were the same.

OK lots to try (maybe not all at once....) - off to Boots in the morning!