My folliculitis cure

I suffered from scalp/neck folliculitis for years before I finally found a cure. I saw many doctors (all useless!) until I found Dr Jacob Teitalbaum's website re: candida yeast. All of my doctors told me it was staph bacteria, even though all of my cultures and biopsy confirmed NO bacteria present. They also didn;t find any fungus, but that's because fungus is very hard to detect using cultures, especially candida. (Most doctors will not tell you this). So, if your problem is definitely not bacterial (easily confimed by swab culture and biopsy) then there's a good chance it's yeast-candida-fungus.

Antibiotics will help only as long as you take them, but as soon as you stop, the problem will return with a vengance because it only aggravates the candida yeast. Antibiotics kill good and bad bacteria, which allows the candida yeast to proliferate throughout your body. This is what cured me:

1. 2 Nizoral tablets every night after dinner (400mg). They will make you tired and lower your energy levels, so take them before bed. Take for 2 months every night.

2. No sugar, dairy, gluten, bread, pasta, rice, alcohol for 2 months. All of these feed the yeast. Instead, have eggs for breakfast and meat/fish/chicken + salad/veggies for lunch and dinner. Drink only water. Yeah - it's a boring diet, but it's only for 2 months, not forever. (No grains, legumes either - they feed the yeast).

3. If you can, do colon cleansing because most of these problems come from that part of your body. Eg, undigested food for months/years can wreak havoc and produce bacteria, candida, etc.To help with absorption of food, take 1 betaine hydrochloride tablet (with pepsin) after each meal.

4. Take one milk thistle tablet right after breakfast to protect and regenerate your liver, since Nizoral can be prety hard on the liver. Many doctors warned me about nizoral, but I recently had a Liver function test (LFT) and it was normal, even though I had been taking nizoral for quite some time. Alph lipoic acid is also supposed to protect your liver. Take probiotics too - but only the best quality, refrigerated, most expensive kind ( i bought mine at the colon clinic). They will replenish the good bacteria in your gut to rebalance the candida-yeast.

So, it's a combination of medication + diet + supplements. Do not "cheat", not even for one day. Another good doctor is Dr Sherry Rogers, who has a similar protocol. I like her and Dr Teitalbaum because they have both suffered from candida themselves, and it's only these people who have any idea as to what causes it and how to reduce the excess yeast back to its normal level.

My problem was caused by long term Antibiotics (tetracycline for acne) which wiped out all my good bacteria, which led to excess candida yeast. This is the most misdiagnosed condition in the world and most doctors and specialists/dermatologists are absolutely useless in treating it, because they are too lazy and don't even know what causes it. If your doctor won;t give you Nizoral tablets, then keep going until you find one that will.

You can take diflucan (easier on the liver) but many times the yeast will be resistant to it ( was with me), so I had to go for the "sledgehammer" approach with Nizoral. Btw, Nizoral shampoo will do nothing for chronic, recurring folliculitis because the problem is deep within the bloodstream. Topical stuff won;t reach in there. Makes sense, doesn't it?

This is the most frustrating illness I have ever had, and all I can say is thank God for the internet, because it's where I found my two doctors (Dr Sherry Rogers I found here on curezone - someone else's suggestion). My former illness only reminds me of how incompetent and ineffective the current system of medical education actually is. I mean come on, don't doctors learn about this stuff? Obviously not. Too busy learning about antibiotics, whcih cause a whole series of future problems. Now, I only take anitbios as a last resort. They cause too many problems.

Please have a Liver Function Test (LFT) before you take NIzoral, as it can affect your liver, then have an LFT once a month while on nizoral.

Re: Diet - check out Bee Wilder's website (healing naturally by bee) - she explains candida in great detail. The only thing is that she prefers an all-natural approach. I don't because it takes too damn long. Medication speeds up the process. Remember, if your folliculitis is not bacterial based, then it's probably yeast (candida/fungal) based, so antibios are useless.

Also remember that most doctors are useless - only about 10% are genuine (that is, trying to help people instead of make money). I learned this the hard way!!!