Uncomfortable as it is for me, I will be baring my naked face in this post, in the hopes that it might help anyone out there going through the same thing that I did!
I had some skin issues throughout 2016 and I wanted to share my story with you, just in case anyone out there is suffering with similar symptoms. I'm lucky to have always had good skin, it's always been pretty clear, smooth and 'stable'. I obviously got the odd breakouts when I was in my teens and still get the odd spot here and there now (I'm 26) but I can also go months without any problems at all. So in May last year when I started noticing some differences in my skin, namely a dry red patch just at the corner of my mouth and slightly below my nose on the right side, as well as some bumpy skin above my right eyebrow that just seemed like some blocked pores, I wasn't too concerned and just thought it was a form of eczema or dermatitis (such a vague term).
I tried a lot of things including Sudocrem, La Roche Posay's Cicaplast Avene's Tolerance Extreme Cream, various facial oils to hydrate, I tried not putting anything specific on, but nothing was working to reduce the dryness and I noticed it seemed to be spreading a little bit more over the right side of my chin. As it wasn't going away, I decided to go to my GP to see if I could get some sort of intense moisturiser, at this point I didn't think the eyebrow thing and mouth thing were linked, as I was sure it was some form of eczema because it was so dry. I was prescribed a cream with a small amount of steroids in and told to apply a tiny amount every day for 2 weeks and see how it went from there. It worked really well and started clearing it up, however, on days when I may have forgotten to apply it or when I finished using it after the two weeks, it would always come back, and eventually it came back a lot worse than it had been. My whole right cheek was covered in small red bumps, they didn't really look like spots, it was just very red, sensitive and really uneven in texture. At this point I was freaking out a bit because it was October and I was getting married in two months and honestly having never really experienced any skin issues before I was so unprepared for it! After a weekend spent with my sister and her family, when they obviously saw me without makeup and were honestly a bit shocked with how it looked, I went back to the Dr's that very Monday morning on the verge of tears. I'm going to put in a picture here of it when it was probably at its worst in late November, don't scream haha! The red bumpiness was also above my right eyebrow (this same side) but unfortunately I didn't get it in the picture. Below this is a picture of my skin now in January - a pretty good difference (ignore the one spot on my cheek)! I haven't got any make up on in either picture.
Of course I'd been for a visit to Dr Google to try and find out what was going on and this is when I came across perioral dermatitis. I know, I know, it's terrible to self-diagnose but I was convinced this was what I had because everything I'd read fit to the letter. Perioral dermatitis is a skin disease localised around the mouth and nose area, and can occasionally appear around the eye/eyebrow area too, it commonly affects women between 20-45, and it can very often be caused, or made worse, by topical steroids. I read that patients will often get prescribed a topical steroid from their GP's because they'll think it's dry skin, the cream will work but then due to the steroid it will come back much worse. This was exactly what had happened to me and on my trip back to the GP this is what he mentioned before I'd even said anything - hoorah!
I was prescribed antibiotics for 12 weeks and told that the improvement could be quite slow but to keep persevering and come back if nothing happened. Well, I'm glad to say that it has completely cleared up and my skin is pretty much back to normal again. I have some slight redness still on my red cheek where it was the worst but this will diminish as time goes on, but the texture of my skin is back to normal and there is no sign of bumpiness or dry skin. Throughout November and December I tried as much as possible not to apply anything to my skin, so on days I wasn't at work I would only wash my face with water day and night and I wouldn't apply any form of moisturiser. I tried to wear as little makeup as I felt comfortable with (of course if I wore makeup I did make sure to cleanse it off properly with Liz Earle's C&P, but I wouldn't follow this with anything) and I think this helped towards the improvements a lot.
I know there are much bigger problems in the world and my face is certainly not up there on the priority list, but as I'm sure you'll know if you've ever suffered from bad skin on your face, it can be really quite hard to deal with. I don't want to sound patronising, but it's really made me think more about those who suffer from acne, eczema and other skin conditions because it was hard for those 6 months that I had these issues and I'm very lucky to have had the problem diagnosed and sorted. I wanted to share this with you just in case you were noticing any similar issues, not that it will necessarily be this, but if it can help at all it would be silly not to.
I hope this helps some people, but if you do have any other questions please just send me a message and |I'd be happy to answer what I can. I'm happy to say that since this flare up a couple of years ago I've not had it happen again, but at least if it does I'll know what to and what not to do next time!
Sophie
No comments