Dermatitis Treatment and Natural Remedies

Started experiencing dermatitis (and maybe it's also heat rash) about 6 weeks ago. Just discovered this website and have started following some of the advice (ACV, Biotin). At night when the itching gets bad I discovered two things that help. 1) Sensitive Skin Aloe Vera, and 2) Ice Packs. Just wrapped them in a towel and laid them on the itching area. This gives great relief.

A couple of weeks ago my 11 year old daughter showed me a red patch on her thigh just above the knee. It was about 1.5 inches big and a very pale red color. I didn't think anything of it as it was not sore and the skin had not been grazed or broken, because we live in a tropical climate with lots of biting insects I wondered if she had been bitten, then 4 days ago we noticed that it had changed in color to a dark red/ brown color, we also saw small spot like patches on her lower arm and 2 fingers. I took her to our local hospital and the doctor immediately said it was Berloque Dermatitis and has prescribed Elomet cream which contains a steroid. He asked if she'd used bergamot oil or anything containing it, I've looked at the products in her bathroom and can't see anything that would contain it, except she has a facial wash made from natural products from a local supplier here which I suppose could contain bergamot, but she has only used it on her face, not her leg where the largest ""bruise"" is.

I wondered if anyone has experience of berloque and what causes it and help me treat it and speed up the healing time.

Thanks

Dear Elaine,

If I were dealing with this with one of my children, I would try extra virgin coconut oil topically a couple of times a day.

I would also try turmeric, internally as it is so helpful for skin problems. For an 11 year old I would try 1/2 teaspoon twice a day. It can be taken in capsules (2 would be about 1/2 teaspoon) or mixed in some yogurt, milk or applesauce. A bit of black pepper with it will help it to work even better.

Please let us know how it goes!

~Mama to Many~

Dear Mama to Many:

Thank you, I will try with your recommendations today and let you know our results, I would never have thought of using the Coconut Oil, but that must be better than a steroid cream. Thanks.

Hi there, I suffered from very mild dermatitis a couple of years ago, but then it got worse until I had a terrible outbreak, did the usual thing and visited the dermatologist , did the antibiotics and steroid cream for about 2 months. all was well until finished the cream , a week later I got out of bed looked in the mirror and was horrified, my skin on my face was swollen , itchy , the corners of my mouth and eyes cracked, I was in a terrible condition. So I found this site, yahoo!!, tried the suggestions of firstly making a face mask of natural organic yougurt mixed with organic honey, oh the relief!! Then I dabbed my face with diluted apple cider vinegar with the Mother, it stung but I was desperate. I started to drink the ACV daily and continued to use the face mask twice daily, by the following week my face was completely clear, it was amazing.I've never had an outbreak since thanks to drinking the ACV daily, I've not looked back since.

I've tried almost ANY treatment listed here, calendula ointment, coconut oil, acv, neem oil, tar soap. ACV spread the rash further! So did the coconut oil and calendula. Yogurt masks only helped a little bit and still left my face dry and tight.

As I believe it's caused from the inside and I think my reason is I react badly to Magnesium stereate, clogged bowels/liver while I've been suffering from constipation as well besides eating gluten/dairy/egg/nut free. Please look into candida and or parasites as well which I believe may play a big role in this! Flushing with castor oil works wonders in cleaning out the bowels and healing my skin.

Now when it comes to treat it topically:

please please stop using any lotion, ointment, oils natural or not!!! It only spreads the rash further (learned it the hard way).

1. buy some Dead sea salt (make sure it's 100% pure).

2. I usually use a bowl and fill it with warm water, dissolve about 1 tbsp in it.

3. I then wash my face with warm/slightly hot water to open my pores and splash my face with the sea salt water. Yeah it will sting and burn and seem irritated, but a good sign, the yeast is reacting to it.

4. After splashing my face a few times with it, I end washing my face with cold water. Pat dry with a clean towel.

my face actually doesn't feel tight or dry after it at all. If it does I moisturze carefully with a tiny bit of cod liver oil cream.

My redness was decreased almost 100% overnight the next day!!! Do this once in the morning and at night.

Hello, My name is Sophie and I am writing to you for some help. For many years I am battling Pigmented Purpuric Dermatitis or commonly called Schamberg Disease.

It usually comes at the bottom portion of my legs initially it is very itchy but mostly it is just annoying and looks ugly during summer since I can't expose my legs in sun and wear shorts and skirts, for a woman it is very frustrating. Not sure if this is hormonal or stress related but usually it comes out when my body is fatique. Please suggest something for me to try. Thank you in advance.

I use 1 part each powdered green tea, turmeric, and buttermilk powder mixed with a little water as a daily face mask. I remove it with a warm microfiber wash cloth (nothing scratchy) and olive oil or a beeswax cleanser.

I have also used just the green tea and turmeric mixed directly into buttermilk or yogurt with similar results, but the dried buttermilk keeps in the cabinet more easily. I have no idea if water would work.

It took 2 weeks before I saw a notable reduction and 6 weeks before it went away. The redness came back about 4 months later so I started the process over again and it worked again!

I recommend using the mask as maintenance every week once it goes away.

I really enjoyed reading some of these posts as I have struggled with seb dermatitis for years. Never really new what it was until one day the dermatologist matter of factly told me and gave me some gel for it.

To the point, about 4 months ago I had a food sensitivity test and found out I was mildly sensitive, not intolerant to gluten. I decided to cut it out altogether or at least not eat anything that obviously would contain any significant amounts of gluten. The psoriasis/dermatitis I had on my arm went away within a week of stopping eating gluten. I lost about and inch over my waist and my hair actually began to grow on my head in thinning places. No other reason I can figure for these changes since I had tried many things for months to get rid of the dermatitis, bloating and and the only change was eliminating the gluten. So, I believe that the gluten was most likely a big factor.

The dermatitis on my face which comes and goes but never really goes away totally for long even got better and went away in some areas. This is even with the use of Elidel cream twice daily. After reading these posts I decided to apply ACV to my face morning and night and within three days it has almost all disappeared. I also began taking biotin and probiotics even though I am not sure how much of a factor they have been.

Thanks to the folks here who posted about ACV. I have taken ACV before at times but never used as an astringent on the face. I don't know how long it will have an effect but hopefully I can cut down using it once a day and maybe longer as time goes on. My skin actually looks somewhat normal now. Wooohoo.

I do have PD and try many things like most of u, from pills, creams and many home remedies, but this was what work for me. I started treating my PD as mites or fungal infection. I use dandruff shampoo (which is and anti-fungal shampoo, generic brand for head n shoulder because I have sensitive skin. The lady on this site recommended nizoral- too strong for my skin) to wash my face with it (the first time I letted sit in my face like for ten minutes and I saw a big differece right way) dry all the bumps, ichying was gone. After I rinsed my face and dry it well I applied an anti-fungul cream (oxistat 1% is RX but lotrimin is over the counter) 3 days later big improvement. Now that my condition is better I am going to put lanolin (lanolin is to help heal sore, cracked nipples, fos women that breastfeeding) to help the skin healing process faster (like I said nizoral was to strong for my skin so it buned my skin a little). I hope this help others. I will post later to let u all know how's going. thank u Earthclinic for this site.

Updating I'm my PD. I can happily say my face is 95% clear now. I am still washing my face with dandruff shampoo and applying antifungal cream 3 times a day. There are 2 area (each side of my nose) that still shows a litlle PD. So this morning I applyed an antifungal liquid call NO MORE FUNGUS (sally hansen brand) and wow 3 hours later big different! Please don't give up, keep trying this is what I did untill I found the remedy that worked for me and I am sharing it cuz maybe might work for someone else too. Thank u Earthclinic for this site! :)

Just wanted to ask Francine from Boston, where I can get the ready made cream you use? I have had very bad pd since I became pregnant, very red and sore right from both nostrals and down around my mouth.

I have tried eliminating all SLS, flouride, and ive tried topical ACV, yogurt and taking acidophilus... nothing is helping at all....

Where did you get this ready made natural cream? What is used as the base? Jojoba? Olive oil, etc? Thanks for posting that!

I tried probiotics, antibiotics and yogurt in the face but it doesn't have any immediate effects.

I avoided sls in any products that I used. It works. It really helps to lessen the pd. Maybe because of the consistent use of hypo allergenic products that I used I get the results gradually. Hope it will work for the better. I'll keep track of you guys for the betterment of this endeavour.

I found that chlorine helped- at least that is my best guess- as it was the hot-tub that cleared it up. I know it sounds strange, but mine went away within a month or so just by immersing the lower part of my face into the hot tub each day (sometimes every other day)... I had the POD for a few months- much to my embarrassment and had previously tried the ACV (Apple Cider Vinegar- organic) treatment, externally and internally, as well as eliminating as much of the SLS (Sodium Laurel Sulfates) from use as possible. Perhaps I just didn't get quick enough results, so when I noticed sitting in the hot-tub one time had such a profound effect (when I woke up the next day the whole area had flaked up and revealed improved skin when flakes removed), I just kept doing it. Now, it is completely gone... and the red area where the rash was, is starting to disappear as well.

So I tried: probiotics, biotin in high doses, Apple Cider Vinegar internally and topically, coconut oil, tea tree oil, lavender oil, natural yeast treatments and the thing I found to work best is a combination of herbs found in a tincture- Milk Thistle, Yellow Dock. I am now taking milk thistle, yellow dock and burdock root (also in the above tincture) and I am like a new woman! These herbs have been described to me as "blood cleaners" and are all used for liver health. I looked like a dermatology pamphlet and now my skin is nearly flawless. Nothing else worked like this.

I would love to know the amount you took. Did you just follow the prescribed amount on the bottle? Also, do you take this forever or just until it clears the PD up?

Do you still have clear skin. Can you tell me what herb product you purchased to rid your PD for blood cleansing.

Thanks a bunch! Mary

I got rid of my perioral dermatitis thanks to finding & reading this site!!! My skin doctor gave me a cortizone cream for a rash on my body & a few monhs later the rash was gone but a new one had started on my face!! I started drinking ACV regularly, & I used a mixture topically of first, Calendula gel, then Home Health's Rose Almond Oil and topped it off with a layer of Balmex, which is basically zinc oxide. The doctor told me it could take a year to heal and I was healed in 2 months. After a year or so using the Balmex I started to break out in a little acne. That was my skin telling me, your pores are fixed, you don't need to clog them anymore with this heavy zinc cream... So now I only use the Balmex when my skin feels very dry or chapped. Thank you so much earth clinic!! I'll never go to a skin doctor again! You changed my life!!

I stumbled across this page as I was also looking for natural remedies for dermatitis as an alternative to the mometesone furoate that I've been applying for years.

What I immediately noticed is that everyone talks about how to control the symptoms, but none of you seem to delve into why it is that you have this condition. I was much the same for many years, as GPs and dermatologists all just kept prescribing corticosteroids and telling me that I will have this the rest of my life, and the best I could do was manage it.

It wasn't until I decided this wasn't acceptable, and did my own research and testing. What I found was that if I overindulged for a series of days, i.e., ate heaps of sweets, junk food and drank alcohol, I would flare up more the usual.

I suspected dairy was my issue, so eliminated it from my diet. Lo and behold, no more dermatitis! I then went to a naturopath who specialises in digestion, and she informed me I had leaky gut and put me on a gut repair program. I also did an igE blood test which tested me against 99 different foods. The results showed I had a strong dairy allergy, followed by yeast, and a few other mild ones. For 6 months I followed a strict elimination diet, and I didn't have a single breakout. I also slimmed down as I was always prone to bloating as a result of the intolerances.

Since then I do lapse occasionally as I suffer from a sweet tooth! And when I do flare up (it takes weeks now to show, instead of days as before) I've been using the mometesone. I wish to stop all together, as I suspect it has affected my fertility - that's a whole other story!

Anyway, I want to share my story, as the more I learn about digestive issues and related intolerances the more I'm fascinated to learn how many effects can be related.

P. S. I also stop snoring if I eliminate the foods I'm intolerant to, which my wife enjoys most of all! :)

Hi, I also have discoid dermatitis and recently I have found that manuka honey worked for me.

I had the red marks all over my forehead and after applying the honey overnight and moisturising cream for the day time this has cured it fairly quickly as opposed to when I was using a cortisone ointment.

I hope this helps others! I used Active Manuka honey 5 .

Donnalsm, some good ideas to help prevent the symptoms of ezcema and dermatitis but I believe you need to get to the root problem in the first place rather than just treating the symptoms.

I believe that dermatitis and ezcema and many other skin rashes/conditions are caused by Candida/yeast infections. If you only treat the symptoms, the underlying cause is still there. Often antibiotics are the cuprit for getting candida/yeast infections.

Iodine is one of the best ways to cure candida/yeast/fungal infections. If you are lacking in iodine the yeast will take over your body and cause many problems throughout the body. Dr. Orian Truss in 1953 used an Iodine Protocol on many people with many disease problems and cured them. He found that other problems that had plagued them including depression were cured after he gave them iodine. Google him.

I'm in my early 30's and always had clear skin, much to my shock after several months on lots of antibiotics(had a severe pneumonia), I broke out with a rash around my mouth, just under my bipap mask which I wear 24/7. Anyway went to dr, told it was dermatitis and was prescribed topical steroids which I took for 10 days like everyone else it made it worse. Thankfully I found this site stopped the steroids (however I am on a low dose orally which I need for my breathing), and started the apple cider, which did give me relief. I used it topically twice a day, drank it twice a day and I started taking a probiotic. Within 10 days it was better then what it was, but my face was still very red and dry, I tried coconut oil, then I tried paw paw ointment and both made me break out. So I had read on here that calendular ointment was really good as its antifungal, antiviral antibacterial and anti inflammatory. I decided to stop using the ACV topically and I bought the pure calendula ointment and to my surprise 24 hrs later I could see a improvement, 10 days later it is nearly all gone. I put it on very regularly(every 60-90 min if I remember)and it really soothes the skin etc

Things might have cleared up if I had used the mother ACV but I couldn't get any in stock at the time, also having a mask over my dermatitis did not help as I never got any fresh air on it.

However if you don't get perfect results with the ACV I recommend the calendula ointment, thank you to whoever posted that initially, it has really helped :)