Hi people. I have had scalp folliculitis for 2 years or more, It began when I got my head shaved, all my life I've been struggling with
Acne and I've taken 4 or 5 courses of isotretinoin but I never had issues with my scalp.
OK, as I said before it started afer shaving my head at first, as most of you I thought it was
Acne or insect bites but when I went to the dermatologist (the same I'd seen for all my troubles with acne) he told me it was folliculitis and sent me trimetroprim-sulfa and mupirocin ointment, I did what he said and in a couple of days I had nothing.
Some months later I went back to him for an
Acne on my chest, I've always had acne on my chest and back but this time seemed worse, so he gave me isotretinoin for 6 months.
During all this time, I had no major problem with acne or folliculitis I thought I was completely healed, at least regarding to my scalp. But when I stopped taking the drug my folliculitis came back, so I took another course of trimetropim and muporocin and again it cleared up.
Eventually I started having more and more folliculitis outbreaks, some really strong and realized that the antiobiotics effects lasted between 1 or 2 months depending on the dosage, throughout this time I saw like 3 derm doctors.
Finally the last one asked for a culture and it ended up being bacteria BUT (here it's when my surprise comes) it was staph epidermidis! so I began to read but found no relation between s. epidermidis and folliculitis, the results always took me to s. aeurus and internet even said s. epidermidis was easily confused with other bacteria since it was a pretty common bacteria which lived on skin.
Anyway the results showed that bacteria was resistant to trimetropim and other bunch of drugs except ciprofloxacilin and vancomycin (there were some others but these two are the ones I rememeber now)
The derm then prescribed cipro for a week (I'd already been taking trimetropim for 10 days) because I'd read about how important changes in food were (after I finished cipro) I started taking probiotics, Vitamin C, Garlic softgels, turmeric, coconut oil (applied), potash alum (applied) and food high in zinc) I must say I added these to my current regimen which consisted of antibacterial soap on scalp, armpits, bottom and behind ears, as well as shampoo anti-druff.
Today after exactly 1 month from ending cipro I have a spot which appeared yesterday so I'm quite depressed since it seems all this work has been useless, the last time I waited for getting the culture done my scalp got pretty bad.
In fact I don't know what to do now, I feel bad as all of you, every time I looked for succesful stories I found few and their treatments haven't worked on me. Folliculitis has been even worse than Acne and what scares me the most is that I have it for all my life, and I'm just 21 and most of my life have been struggling with many health issues, this feels like a prison.
Thanks for reading.