Last year I was successful in getting rid of my rosacea acne. Just wanted to
share what I did. Maybe it can help someone.
SUMMARY
Since I was 15 years old or so I have had acne. The severity varied over time,
but in the last couple of years it got really bad. My entire face was covered
in thick bumps an open pimples. I also had really bright red patches on my
cheeks, looking almost like open wounds.
My doctor said it was rosacea acne, and prescribed metro gel and several other
creams. Later, a dermatologist prescribed doxicicline but all this didn't seem
to help much. So I started researching the internet myself and tried several
treatments. Eventually, I found something that works. Both ZZ cream and De La
Cruz sulfur ointment did the trick for me. Acne was completely gone in a couple
of months and red patches reduced significantly.
DEMODEX MITES
In my research I regularly stumbled upon info about Demodex mites. These
creatures live in the hair follicles on our face. For some people, if there is
too many, this is said to cause acne. The relation to rosacea (redness in the
face) is not entirely clear as far as I can tell from my research, but demodex
overgrowth does seem to aggravate the condition. To see if I actually have
these mites on my face, I decided to investigate using a microscope. I figured
out a method to do this (see below) and yes, I could see them crawling around,
and a lot of them. Initially I counted about 100 mites each day.
SULFUR CREAM/ZZ TREATMENT
Next step was to find a way to get rid of the mites. I found a lot of candidate
creams and such, that are supposed to help (water and soap, tea-tree oil,
tea-tree washing gel, gladskin, scabies cream, ivermectine etc etc). I tried
some, but not the really heavy stuff. As the mites are said to be active mainly
in the dark, I even tried washing my face in the middle of the night. Not sure
if that helped though.
I then started to use ZZ cream and systematically counting the mites to see if
it has an effect. Using the cream once a day had some effect: I saw some of the
mites now weren't crawling anymore, but the number didn't really decrease. So I
then decided 2 applications a day. Now the number of mites I found started to
decline steadily, over a number of weeks, until it dropped to zero! At some
stage in the treatment process, I also compared the two creams (ZZ and De La
Cruz), by applying each to one half of the face. I didn't find a noticeable
difference between the two though. Mite counts continued dropping for both
creams. And yes, after some time, the bumps pimples started to go away, for
the first time in 30 years! Also the bright red patches on my face got much
less intense over time. Though they have not entirely disappeared, on some
days they are now barely noticeable.
SIDE EFFECTS
Both creams, ZZ and De La Cruz, contain sulfur. This can make the skin dry. I
saw this effect sometimes: now and then areas of the skin even got really
flaky, that wasn't nice. When it got too bad, I just stopped using the cream
for 1 or 2 days, until the flakiness went away. Sometimes I also rubbed on some
petroleum jelly after applying the cream, just to dilute it a bit. That also
seemed to work. What I also saw now and then, is actual wrinkles appearing,
especially around the eyes. That was a bit frightening I must say. One time in
the morning, I felt I suddenly looked 10 years older :s But taking a pause for
a couple of days then made that go away too.
ZZ cream is based on sulfur, but it also contains some kind of essential oil or
mint like substance, which is quite irritating for the eyes as it evaporates.
It causes a lot of tears to be expelled. Not sure if this is intentional
(demodex live in the eye lash follicles). But for this reason, I later
switched to De La Cruz sulfur ointment only, which seems to work just as well.
(And is a lot cheaper.)
METHOD FOR COUNTING MITES
You can just use either cream (or any sulfur based cream) and wait for results
without using a microscope. But if you want to try a microscope yourself, I'll
describe the method I used here.
To get the mites off the face, I use a round plastic scraper, cut out of some
stiff transparent plastic sheet material. The material is used for document
covers or overhead transparencies and such. I first rub some petroleum jelly
onto the face to trap in the mites, then use the scraper to get it off again.
You could also scrape the jelly off your hand afterwards, because that now will
also contain mites. (Best to use only one hand for rubbing on the jelly.) The
scraped jelly will not contain all mites from your face, but if you do it in a
consistent way (same way every time), it will contain a more or less fixed
percentage of the total number. So then the number you count in the jelly over
time, will be a good indication for the progress of the treatment. You could
eg. also investigate only your right cheek or something.
To be able to investigate the jelly under a microscope, I put the jelly between
two of the transparent sheets and press them together. I rub over the sheet
with a soft cloth, until the jelly is spread out into a thin, almost
transparent film. The microscope I use (nurugo 400) fits on my phone and has a
light built in. It can be placed on the transparent sheet to magnify the
jelly. Moving the phone up and down over the transparent sheet, one can look
for and count mites. They can be seen floating in the jelly film. Note that
both ZZ and De La Cruz creams are opaque, and this will also make the jelly a
bit opaque. So the film of jelly must be made thin enough to be able to see
through and make the mites visible. It works best if the transparent sheets are
placed on a black background. The advantage of using transparent sheets over
microscope glass slides is, that the area is much larger.
Moving the phone microscope by hand takes a bit of practice. Also one can't
really move in perfectly straight lines, so it is difficult to systematically
cover the entire blob of jelly without skipping areas or counting areas double.
To remedy this, I later printed out a grid with thin white lines (1/8 inch
spacing) on black background. Then laminated that with transparent plastic. I
then used this with a transparent sheet on top to press the jelly in between.
Under the microscope, the 1/8 inch squares then just about fill up the entire
screen of the phone. One can then move the phone along the lines to prevent
double counting.
After usage, I wipe away the jelly and clean the transparent sheet with some
80% alcohol. I usually did this procedure in the morning, *before* washing the
face.
Good luck !
_