Nystatin A Potential Seborrheic Dermatitis Treatment

Thanks for sharing.

I live in Manila and am wondering if i could get Nystatin here. Is that the brand name? The ones i seen online are for vaginal infections. May i ask which one you used?

Hi Anna,

Nystatin is the name of the actual anti-fungal agent. There are many brand names for it.
Wikipedia has some details on it.

I have also sent Joakim an email with your question.
Hopefully he can help clarify which specific one he’s using.

Hi Anna,
sorry about the mix-up! I guess that goes to show that it’s always a good idea to double-check the helpful advice you find online, or to talk about it with a professional.
Anyhow, the one I use is called Nystatin Lederle Creme and contains 25 g per tube. Actually, it doesn’t say anywhere on the packaging that it’s for SD, it just says it for fungal-infections so there might not be a distinction between creme from oral-, topical- or vaginal application. My guess is that any creme with nystatin as the active drug will do the trick, but I’m not a doctor, so you’d better consult one anyway :slight_smile:
I found an image of the one I have at home: http://tinyurl.com/k8xg7q9. Maybe that will make it easier for you to compare. They might not have exactly the same one in the Philippines or even the US. It might be possible to buy it online from Germany since it’s an over-the-counter drug, but I haven’t looked into that yet. Let me know if you can’t find anything locally, then I will look into the possibility of buying it online and having it delivered. It doesn’t make any sense for me to spread the word about this if no one can get a hold of the drug unless they are in Denmark or Germany :slight_smile:
I hope you can find a similar one, though! I really think it will do the trick.
Best of luck,
Joakim

Thanks Michael,

My SD is not that bad but it is all over the lower half of my face. It’s quite debilitating as my profession needs me to meet with many people.

I guess I might as well bring it up here just in case you have any leads… any clues about the best make-up for people with SD?

Thanks for forwarding my message to Joakim.

Thanks for your reply Joakim.

I’ll definitely call my dermatologist, who by the way keeps on insisting on a cotrisol cream. I’ve given up on that since it doesn’t really make it go away completely plus it a few days later it get really bad after using it.

Wanted to share with you as well that at the moment, what I’m doing is the salt water treatment that I’ve been reading about online. It’s my 2nd day and it seems that the flaring has improved. It’s still visible and still inflamed but I think there is some improvement.

Also, would you know anything about DermaZinc? BHA Exfoliants?

Will let you know if I’m able to find Nystatin here.

Grateful for your help,

Anna

I guess that goes to show that sometimes you have to start digging around the internet for solutions when your own dermatologist can’t do his job! I’ve read countless times that the prolonged application of hydrocortisone is a bad idea, so that doesn’t give me a whole lot of faith in your dermatologist, I’m afraid. Tell him that it doesn’t work and that you want an alternative.
I’m happy to hear that the sea water treatment is working out for you. It’s such a relief to make some progress. I also recommend going to Palawan to get the full-on sun & saltwater treatment! That cured me while I was there :wink:

I haven’t hear about DermaZinc but it sounds like something that might work. I guess it has zinc pyrithione like my shampoo and head&shoulders. Generally, I’ve heard good things about that, but for me it didn’t change my face, and my scalp wasn’t really cured until I started using nystatin on my face: Only then did I get rid of the whole thing - it’s sort of weird actually.
I never tried exfoliants, so I’m not sure about it, but I had bad experiences trying to cleanse my way out of the flare-ups. It might just give the Malassezia yeast more room or better conditions, I’m not sure - but it probably wont kill it like your aiming for. Unfortunately.

But if both things are over the counter you might as well try them out. I had to go through a lot of trial and error, but it seems that a lot of people find different solutions, so DermaZinc or BHA might be it for you. I just recommend nystatin, since that worked for me. Other anti-fungals might work to the same extent, so if you cant find nystatin specifically, it might be worth giving something like sertaconazole or miconazole a shot. But now we’re getting to that part again, where I’m passing medical advice like I’m a doctor - which I’m not. I haven’t had experience with sertaconazole or miconazole, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. At least they’re some alternatives that you can discuss with your dermatologist.

Fingers crossed!

Joakim

Hi Anna,
The DermaZinc is essentially the same as Head and Shoulders. Previously I have tried similar products from Noble Formula (tried the bar soap and the cream), it’s basically identical to the DermaZinc and sold on Amazon as well. My results were mixed. It worked really well at first. For 3-4 weeks my face was totally clear. Then it just seemed to stop doing it’s job. Also it made the skin quite a bit less healthy looking in general and quite sensitive to the sun. The reviews on Amazon for this stuff are fantastic though and based on those lot’s of people find success with it (there are also some who describe same experience as me).

As for make up I have no idea since I’m a male. What I remember reading though, was that some women had great results with make up that contained UV protection. It is common to use zinc oxide as a UV protecting agent in skincare products. And zinc seems to actually benefit in reducing the SD.

Good luck and hope your progress continues.

Thanks guys!

Just so you know. I’ve been religiously washing the affected areas (jaw area) with sea salt and have been applying KETOCONAZOLE which my doctor says is the generic name for NYSTATIN. I don’t know if this is true though.

So far, the salt wash has helped tremendously in reducing the swelling / flare up. I just started Ketaconozole yesterday so let’s see what happens.

Grateful for your time.

Hi Anna,

Glad to hear your seeing some improvements.
Hopefully the Ketoconozole will help as well.

Strange that the doc said that they are the same as they are actually different.
For example here is a study that compares the two: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3905986

They are both anti-fungals and serve a similar purpose. Ketoconozole is actually the active ingredient in Nizoral dandruff shampoo. Here in Canada it is sold over the counter without any prescription. The shampoo didn’t work out for me as it was really harsh on the skin. However, I’ve read some people have great success with it.

Would be interesting to hear about your experience with it.

Hi, Could you upload photo of your cream facts? In my country this is of course prescription drug but there are many nystatin creams with different bases. As you wrote in another post seb derm like oils so what should be the base of cream to do not feed seb derm?

Sometimes I read in Internet about cream with Sulfacetamide 10% and sulfur 5% whitch helps a lot in seb derm and rosacea, Did you heard about it?

Thanks a lot for help, and sorry for my english.

Regards

Hi Joakim.

Thanks for sharing your battle with SD. What symptoms did you have on your face? Was it red inflamed skin or more mild flaking only? What areas were affected?

Hi Maciej,
I can’t find a photo that shows the facts, and the only websites I can find are in German, but I’ll translate:

“1 g creme contains as the active ingredient: 100.000 IE Nystatin corresponding to 22,73 mg dry-matter.
Other Ingredients: Macrogol stearat 1000 [a different name for polyethylene glycol], cetostearyl alcohol, isopropyl myristate, glycerol 85%, sorbic acid (E200), lactic acid (E270), sodium hydroxide, purified water.”

But this is not meant as a moisturizer. The point of nystatin is not to avoid feeding the malassezia yeast, it is to use an anti-fungal to kill the yeast, so you don’t have to worry about moisturizing. I don’t know why the first anti-fungal I tried didn’t work (specifically miconazole combined with hydrocortisone in a creme). I read somewhere on wikipedia that their ways of killing the yeast are different. The azoles are lanosterol 14
alpha-demethylase inhibitors, while nystatin works by ergosterol binding - it has to do with their cell membranes. Anyhow, the details are not important to us, the important thing to learn from this is that “anti-fungal” is a broad term and it would be a mistake to think no anti-fungal will work simply because one didn’t. So try another angle of attack :slight_smile:

Personally I haven’t heard of sulfacetamide 10% and sulfur 5% or tried it on myself, but wikipedia says it is a suggested treatment. Maybe Michael has some experience with it?

Hi Vincent,
it was the double-trouble of both flaking and red, inflamed skin. During flareups it would also itch to some extent. I had spots of it on my scalp, my forehead, the skin under and close to my eyebrows, the sides of my nose and parts of my cheeks and throat when it got really bad. I also had a small area of it on my chest, similar to where Superman would have his logo or where Ironman has his power-core thingy, although I didn’t feel very super at the time :slight_smile:
As I recall the shampoo alone got the inflammation on my scalp down. It would still flake, but the skin didn’t look red at least. But by just using the nystatin creme on my face it cleared up the rest of the flaking from my scalp (while still using the shampoo) and the area on my chest as well. To me that’s almost the most impressive thing.
What have you tried so far?

I have tried many natural remedies and prescription drugs. Currently, I’m on 1% ciclopirox. I don’t have flaking, just red inflamed skin on my chin and nasal folds. 2 dermatologists have said it is seb derm. However, nothing has healed the face redness as of yet.

Joakim - How long did you use the Nystatin before you saw improvement with the redness? And how long until you experienced complete remission of the skin redness?

I really appreciate your help!

Hi Maciej,

Not sure, but I believe I remembers stumbling upon the sulfacetmatide and sulfur products. Think I found them when I was looking for a Lotramin Ultra alternative for the face.

Personally I never ended up ordering any of the sulfacetmatide and sulfur products because I couldn’t find enough safety information. Also the main place to buy it was eBay (no listings on Amazon), so I wasn’t sure how the product was regulated/produced.

Thanks a lot for answer. I have friend whos working in pharmacy and he could make me cream because in PL we dont have nystatin cream - nystatin is only in form granules and infusion. Unfortunately components from your cream arent avalible in pharmacys (only in larger production) but I hope that friend use good components - I told him to avoid from using oils.

I don’t understand second part of your post: “But this is not meant as a moisturizer. The point of nystatin is not to avoid feeding the malassezia yeast, it is to use an anti-fungal to kill the yeast, so you don’t have to worry about moisturizing.” Cound you write more clearly? My english is quite bad sorry.

If I recall correctly I started using nystatin around December 8th and by Christmas Eve it was gone. I think I started seeing improvements after the first week or so. It was a pretty fast process of recovery, actually. I used it daily at the time. Now, I tend to forget 2 days a week or so, but in the beginning I was on point!
My dermatologist sounded very confident when he prescribed me the stuff. He was like “Try this and I bet you’ll see improvements by the end of week the. Otherwise come see me again.” Now I wonder what he would have done, had I come back. Maybe he was just reassuring me, and he knew I wouldn’t come back.
I’d recommend you trying it if you have the possibility. I also tried other anti-fungals that didn’t do it for me. I think ciclopirox and nystatin work differently, so there’s hope! :slight_smile:

Hi Maciej,
I found a website that looks like it sends nystatin to most European countries - including Poland. Otherwise, it’s an over-the-counter drug in Germany, so if you go to Germany you can buy it without a prescription from your doctor. Anyway, here is the website if your friend cannot help you make it: http://www.apons.eu/nystatin-lederle-creme

The point I was trying to make is this: With nystatin you are killing the SD. The reason we should avoid oils is that we don’t want to feed the SD, but when we have already killed it then it doesn’t matter with the oils.
I have completely stopped using moisturizers since I got nystatin. I don’t get dry, red skin anymore so there is no need to moisturize (with or without the oils). I hope that makes more sense - otherwise just ask again if there is something you want me to explain better :slight_smile:

Best of luck!

Hi Joakim,
Thank you very much:) I wrote to few eshops from Germany about ordering nystatin cream - we will see what they answer about buying from Polnad. Anyway thanks again for help.

Now I understand you :slight_smile: You give me a hope to cure for this terrible disease!

:slight_smile: