Dandruff or flaky scalp? Pic attached

[MissyB1]

13 year old ds. Trying to work out which it is as we are struggling to get on top of this. He was using head and shoulders- ok ish but not great. Switched to body shop Ginger shampoo- eek even worse! He’s got the usual spotty hormonal skin for his age, but also eczema.
Any opinions? And recommendations gratefully received.

You could try T -gel or, if it’s really stubborn, Nizorel which has an anti fungal in also. You have to ask at the counter for it in boots & follow the instructions.
www.boots.com/neutrogena-t-gel-therapeutic-shampoo-250ml-10003246

www.boots.com/nizoral-anti-dandruff-shampoo-60ml-10025089

We have got T gel in the house. I will have to supervise him using it I think as he will rinse it off too quickly I suspect.

How often is he washing his hair?

After lots of research I used sebclair (from amazon) on ds. It is a seborrheic dermatitis (dandruff) treatment. They also sell a cream as DS had patches on his face too. It is amazing and after initial treatment only needs to be used if there is a flare up.

He’s washing it every other day. I will have a look at sebclair, that sounds interesting.

I would get him to wash his hair daily if possible. I know others may not recommend but that definately helped for us. You need to remove the oiliness before it has a chance to build up.

I find the moogoo scalp products excellent. There is a scalp cream that's also used for babies cradle cap and it's brilliant for dry scalps. I suffer from awful issues with my scalp and when it's bad there is a clear lotion available on prescription that's the only thing that works when I have really bad flare ups

I use the body shop ginger scalp shampoo and it has helped significantly. No amount of T gel shampoo helped, in fact it made my scalp sore.

Please check out shampoo with the active ingredient Selenium Sulphide. My scalp is flaky like that and pretty itchy and this works a treat after a couple of uses. It’s quite difficult to come by for some reason nowadays but you can get Selsun from chemist websites. It seems expensive but once you have cleared the problem you can just use it occasionally.

That looks like nits to me....

Looks like nit eggs to me op sorry

I’m pretty good at spotting nits, but I will take a closer look. It’s unusual to get them at his age though in my experience. They don’t tend to get so close together with their mates!

Yes, looks like nit eggs to me too. He seems to have lots of hair, so it could just be that he’s not giving his hair and scalp a good brush through often enough though.

He has very thick hair!

I have bad dandruff (the oily kind and the flakey kind depending how stressed I am) these flakes are quite small compared to what I have, we have not had to experience nits (yet!) so not sure on how those look.

I started using Faith in Nature rosemary shampoo and conditioner and it has helped, but I still get bouts when I'm very stressed.

You could test to see. If they were nit eggs they wouldn't come away from the hair strands easily.

Agree with moo goo and no need to supervise using them

Just had a long close look (used a torch as well). No nits, but he does have some scabs on his scalp. He’s using T gel just now in the shower.

Does he have any other dry skin issues? Psoriasis of the scalp supposedly has silvery scabs/ flakes while oily dandruff are yellow.

Yes he has eczema on his legs.