Scarhead, 7621, Bredpitt, Jujubee83, rot,

Thank you for your posts.  I started suffering from Folliculitis Decalvans 7 years ago.  This past year, after more obvious scarring, I have gotten so depressed I have stopped the medications I was taking, but which didn't seem to work (rifampin, clindamycin and dapsone only seemed to slow the FD down a little bit, and oh yeah, ketoconazole shampoo seemed to help a little).  I also stopped taking the depression medicine.

I've lost all hope.  I used to be an attractive, successful man with an Ivy League education and a great future and hopes for a wife and children.  In the course of the last few years I've quit several jobs, broke up with girlfriends, and lost contact with all my friends and most of my family because I feel so isolated and alone, and no one seems to understand here.  I have no job, no insurance to go to the doctor, and no will to live.  Everyone said to let my hair grow over it and "comb it over," but they don't listen that my FD causes scarring and inevitable hair loss.   They don't read the medical journal articles on Folliculitis Decalvans which I emailed them off of Google.  Nobody understands but you guys.

Doctors don't really seem to care about anything other than billing me for repetitive, expensive visits which do no good, and every dermatologist I've been to has never seen or heard of FD until I educate them on it.  Then they won't even research it after several visits.  What a joke.  I say they don't care because after I bring in articles and pursue an aggressive treatment strategy, they just passively let me take the lead and they don't show any real interest in researching and finding a workable solution to stop the scarring.  It is wrong that after informing them of FD, I continue to be more knowledgeable about the condition and the medical research than they are.  Why am I even paying them?  For a prescription which apparently they are not qualified to give?  I have no faith in the medical community's abilities, desire to learn or care to help people.  I believe 99% of doctors are greedy and self-centered people who want to pull a six-figure salary while minimizing the amount of work and emotional investment in people to do it.  30 years ago, maybe things were different, but I'm speaking out of my own experience. 

I know they would provide a cure if they could, and that it's a rare problem, but I'm at the end of my strength.  The best advice I've gotten has come from this forum, not from uneducated and uncaring doctors and pharmaceutical companies who just throw out possible solutions and then charge a king's ransom for it.  What I need is a doctor who has a vested interest, one who is going through it himself or herself, who has a reason to understand and a desire to fix it.  If doctors can't help me, who can?  I've cried out to God and I feel alone and abandoned, but I realize it could be worse and that people around the world face much tougher struggles than I do.  However, I just can't see any hope in my current situation, which appears to get worse no matter what I do.  Thinking about starving children in other countries doesn't seem to make me feel less depressed.  I just feel like I'm living in a nightmare with no morally good reason to complain when compared with others' plights, and this only makes me feel more guilty for feeling sorry for myself.

I'm thinking about shaving my head and keeping it shaved and trying some of the remedies that "rot" from Australia has tried (Shave bald daily, Clindamycin & alcohol swabs topically, Benza-Clin NeoBenz Micro topically, Olux topically).  My own brother is an Emergency Room doctor and even he has shown no inclination to research or help.  He may have read an article or two, more than most dermatologists I've seen, but he says he is too busy and doesn't know what I should do, just "learn to live with it."  How do you keep a positive outlook when things seem hopeless?