35 Year Old Man Suffering From Recurrent Seborrheic Dematitis
Question for Ted: I am a 35-year-old male, of slender build and no known major diseases. I've been suffering from recurrent seborrheic dermatitis on my face around my nose for years now. I control it with a mild cortisone and nizoral cream. Last May, the day after I returned from Hawaii, I noticed some sudden pimples on my face. They spread quiet rapidly. To make a long story short, a culture showed positive for staph. I'm now stuck with a recalcitrant folliculitis in the beard area which hasn't responded to 3 rounds of antibiotics or nasal bactroban (the western recipe). I've had to grow a beard to hide the unsightly lesions, but the hairs are falling out in the infected areas. I've tried the turmeric recipe on this site with no effect (perhaps folliculitis in the beard is different than boils). I wash with chlorihexidine solution to no effect. I do use some iodine on the lesions, and that does seem to wipe them out quickly, but they pop up elsewhere all the same. I've disinfected my home and nebulize the air with eucalyptus oil... My health is otherwise fine, and I assume the bacteria is on my skin affecting the hair follicles easily in the (formerly) shaven areas due due to years of dermabrasion from shaving. Would investigating my ph levels be useful for this? How about thyroid? I haven't had a blood or urine test yet... anything else I should be looking for? Does internal iodine have the same effect as topical iodine? I tend to have oily skin on the face (the seb derm) but no acne. The folliculitis is new, and stubborn. The only other possible indicator of health are my nails, which are ridged (but otherwise strong). I apologize for all the questions. I read your comments with great interest.
Dear Boris:
A culture showed positive for staph.
Does internal iodine have the same effect as topical iodine?
I tend to have oily skin on the face (the seb derm) but no acne
Thanks for clues, so it just makes life easier for me to find the remedies! Staph is relatively resistant to iodine, and won't go away. Oily face is a clear condition of zinc deficiency and manganese is obviously implicated. So taking some soy milk will restore the manganese level. It takes a while longer about one week to notice the effect, if you can't find manganese supplements, in form of manganese sulfate in your local drug store!
The usual dose for manganese sulfate is 50 mg/day, taken for about two week should be more than enough, taken on an empty stomach. Taking zinc acetate can take awhile longer such as a month for the body to have enough of it before you discontinue. To help its absorption of manganese, since your body may be acid, sodium ascorbate form of vitamin C should be about 500 mg/day.
Raising your iodine levels by taking it in your body is not going to help since the body have trouble utilizing them directly. Therefore an organic form of iodine should help, such as eating plenty of dried seaweed and kelp. In Thailand there is a craze of fried seaweed because it is tasty, do not eat this kind, as most nutrients are destroyed as a result of high temperature frying.
Staph has an achilles heel: alkalinity. So if you can find potassium carbonate solution, or a weaker, less effective, milk of magnesia, to apply it for staph this might help. However you should get most help by alkalizing yourself and killing the staph from the inside out.
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