I am a long time sufferer of Seborrheic Dermatitis and after using the Skin Drone website as my go-to for help I feel compelled to write down some of my experiences to hopefully give people hope and suggestions on how to deal with this.
I’ve had this for nearly 20 years and it started with a tiny red spot below one of my eyes which I thought was just some kind of rash which would go away in time. I was told to change the soap I was using as perhaps it was too harsh for my skin - at this early stage I had no idea about how using soap on your face could possibly be a problem. Needless to say the rash did not go away and another dime sized spot appeared below my other eye and then more redness on either side of my nose creating my first visit to a dermatologist and the beginning of many treatments with zero long term solutions.
I was diagnosed with SD and given the usual steroid creams and hydrocortisone which had short term help but long term side effects which I didn’t really pay attention to at the time - I just wanted to control the redness and didn’t care about the side effects. My SD was limited to my face although I did get the dandruff too but for me this was easily controlled with Head and Shoulders antidandruff with pyrithione zinc. My dermatologist also told me to try using the H&S on my hair and then let it slowly run down my face to cure the SD on my face. Also was told to put the shampoo directly on my effected parts of my face to get rid of redness and neither methods worked for me.
I got into the habit of applying steroid cream and hydrocortisone on my face everyday and after a few desperate months of doing this I noticed even more redness appearing on my cheeks which seemed odd as my research had always told me that this disease mainly attacks the t-zone. Upon further investigation I found that I had steroid induced rosacea due to using these products too much. I had to stop using all the steroid cream and hydrocortisone and was at a loss at how to control this ongoing condition. More trips to the dermatologist with little help at all, lots of surfing the internet for advice and possible breakthrough treatments with no luck. Needless to say I have given up on dermatologists as I don’t believe this can be cured by any kind of drugs they can provide you with, just my personal opinion.
I don’t want to make this too long but fast forward to today and I can tell you what has helped me in my struggle to contain, but not cure this disease. I believe this is is something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life and am okay with it as I have found a method to control it so that I can go about my daily life with relative normalcy.
I believe that stress, food and heat are the main three factors that create flare ups for me personally. I try to dress as cooly as possible at all times and avoid heavy sweaters and thick clothing as well as being in any kind of central heating which severely dries my skin and causing problems for me. As this is a problem wherein your oil glands are constantly over producing oil I figured that if you dry out your skin its going to produce even more oil to combat the dryness. I also try not to wear anything on my head for an extended period of time - although when I run I do wear a cap - I try not to cover my head which just makes my entire body hot. This can be challenging as we all live in different climates, so this is just my personal experience.
Running for me is a great way to sweat and clear out my pores and I try and get out about three times a week. I try to run outdoors and not in a stuffy gym as I believe in the health benefits of a small dose of sunshine although when the weather is not cooperating I do not have a choice but to go to the gym. If i do find myself in the gym I always head towards the fan or close to the AC vent to keep my body as cool as possible whilst I work out. Exercise in general goes hand in hand in helping me contain this issue and I just feel like getting a good sweat on helps me destress too.
I started reading the Skin Drone a couple years back now and have experimented with most of the methods that have been presented by both the author and people in the comments section. I have tried the ACV method which didn’t really work for me. I tried using it as is, as well as diluting it with water but I saw no immediate results so I abandoned that method. I do believe that longevity is the key with any method you try and perhaps I didn’t give it enough of a chance. As people so often say with this disease what works for one person quite often does not work for others. I tried various other methods of treatment including washing my face with sea salt water, not washing my face at all, not moisturizing at all and many other desperate methods to clear up my face, all of which failed me.
I then started looking at my diet and thinking back to when my skin was at its worst and what I had done the day or night before and tried to find a connection. I found that after eating a big meal in the evening before I went to bed I would often find that my skin would look worse in the morning. I concluded that if you have a big meal shortly before you go to bed your body has not had the time to digest the food so it does all the digestion whilst you are sleeping. I decided to focus on have bigger lunches and smaller dinners and this seemed to help me.
I’ve added coconut oil into my diet on a small scale - I’ll cook with it whenever possible, I went through a stage when I applied it directly to my skin but that didn’t work out so well for me either. I’ve cut down my sugar intake too and went through a stage where I cut wheat out of my diet as I believe many people have said that yeast plays a role in this disease. The dieting lasted a few months with no positive results for my skin. I honestly think that the food I am putting in my body is not the culprit as I eat relatively healthy but if you’re drinking loads of sodas and junk food everyday you may have a bigger problem.
I also found that drinking alcohol makes your body hot so naturally that would dry out my skin and make me look even worse. I thus curbed my drinking and although I still drink whatever I want I have made some choices to help with this issue. I will often choose the lightest beer available when in the past I didn’t even care to look at the alcohol content. I also drink red wine on occasion and will always have a glass of water next to me and be sure to drink extra water before I go to bed to balance out any of the alcohol I have put into my system earlier. Water is the key to hydration and I never leave home without a big bottle of water which I will swig on all day long. Some people would look at my skin in the past and tell me I was just dehydrated and needed to drink more water but those people had no idea about the skin disease I was dealing with. Drinking water won’t make this go away but it may assist in regulating the temperature of your body and keeping you hydrated.
Stress is a tough one to deal with as everyone has different things going on in their life, be it work or family issues to deal with. Its hard to tell someone to eliminate stress from their lives as having this disease is stressful enough, it can even keep you from leaving the house. Unfortunately I don’t have any advice on how to manage the stresses you may have in your life but I do believe that in periods of stress you can have some bad flare ups. I have been told to try yoga as a means to destress and unwind and have yet to try but have only heard good things about it.
I have used many different face washes and moisturizes to try and deal with this issue and I would not have enough time to try and write them all down and am not sure I want to start mentioning names of brands as I don’t think that would be fair. The bottom line for me was to try and choose a soap free, non comedogenic face wash and avoid anything that had harsh chemicals in it. There are many of these on the market and after lots of trial and ever I finally found something that has given me some good results. Thanks to this website I decide to try a milk based formula which has been very successful for me so far.
Next up was finding a moisturizer which follows a similar path, my main goal was to find something which was alcohol free, not actually sure why but this was what I had figured out in my head - sometimes by a process of elimination you come to a decision and this was mine. I have tried so many different textures of moisturizer - tinted, gel, oil free, zinc based, with spf, matte finish, thick, thin and the list goes on. I would sometimes have good results for a few months and then things would go back to normal.
I finally found a moisturizer that worked for me and had been using it with much success in combination with my face wash for about 6 months when I noticed my red areas slowly starting to reappear and this is where my help from the Skin Drone website came in. I had ordered the BIOM8 oil a few months back and started using it on my skin as instructed. I was waiting for instant results as I’m sure most of you do when something arrives in the mail that many people have been raving about. Due to my impatience and perhaps the moisturizer I was using at the time I had little success with the BIOM8 and decided to shelf it along with the 100’s of other products I have done that to in my life. Now was the time to go back to the BIOM8 and give it a second chance and be more patient as I was sure I had found the right face wash, moisturizer and daily lifestyle to deal with my SD.
Its been about 8 months now and I have been using the BIOM8 in combination with my face wash and moisturizer and I firmly believe that this is the key to getting my skin back to where it was many years ago. Most of the ingredients in the BIOM8 I have at one stage in my life used on there own in some form or another with little success, but this product seems to have combined all those ingredients to create something that finally and magically helps heal my skin. I use it in the evening before I go to bed and it has been a life saver for me.
I was using it both in the morning and evening initially as I was so excited with the good results I couldn’t get enough of it but logic told me that too much of a good thing would be a bad thing so I stopped the twice a day usage and went back to the evening application only which is where I’m at now. I was using a q-tip at first and putting the oil on it and then dabbing it on my skin but I found that most of the oil would get absorbed before it made it to my skin. Now I just pump the oil into the palm of my hand and dab it on my face with my finger.
I just wanted to thank the Skin Drone for developing this product that has given me hope and possibly a long term solution for my SD. The struggle is real for everyone out there dealing with this issue and I hope that you find something of substance that you can take away from this website to help combat this disease.
