Online Test
Find out the severity of your symptoms with this free online test
What are these things??
Warning: sorry, this post is very graphic, please DON'T READ if you're easily triggered! I'm prone to hormonal acne, I usually pick at my face (especially blemishes on cheeks and chin) and dig out ingrown hair from in between my eyebrows.
As a result my face is often swollen and red, I have fresh wounds, scabs, plus many red / brown spots and scars.
So yeah, basically I look like sh*t most of the time, I guess if only I'd manage to really STOP picking for like 2 weeks, my skin will probably clear up and look even better, but I'm still working on this goal.
Anyway, lately all the blemishes I'm getting are some very weird small spots around my smile lines, jaw and in between eyebrows. They don't hurt and don't seem to go away on their own. If I manage to squeeze them usually they just grow back after a while, over and over again. They look VERY deep, like whiteheads under the surface of the skin. I'm sure they're not milia, cause milia are very close to the surface, while these spots are under layers of skin. The skin over them isn't smooth, they look slightly bumpy, which of course makes me crazy! When I squeeze them, sometimes they get out easily: the content is white and very runny, almost liquid, and exits from many pores nearby. Other times I have to take my tweezers and dig them out, which is very hard because they're so deep rooted! These ones look more solid, like a white embedded core of sebum or something. I didn't get these things 1 year ago, what in earth could they be?! Cysts? Clogged pores? Hair follicles? Underground scar tissue? Collagen? Do you get them too? My dermatologist said she didn't know and to use Differin cause they're "just pimples". ---> totally NOT! Pimples, blackheads and whiteheads look different and surface after a while. I'm afraid I might have damaged my pores so much they've scarred all over, so the sebum stays trapped inside. :( I feel sad and hopeless, like I've mutilated myself. If only this could be a wakeup call for me to never pick again!!
I had acne like this, mainly on my cheeks and near my eyebrows. The small pimples were deep, bled profusely, and would reoccur in the same spot, never truly healing completely. I think they were a form of yeast or fungus. They responded very well to over the counter anti fungal cream for jock itch, and also Monistat 3. I know it sounds weird, but do some research. According to derms, the Monistat can't hurt, if it doesn't work it will at least be a good moisturizer.
Glad I found this thread and it's many suggestions.
Hey! has anyone found the cure for this things? I have the exact same symptoms and location on my face (between the eyebrows and under my mouth) that Yuuki had. I found out that stopping to use cortisone creams somehow helped, but the old ones keep resurfacing, less fiercely..but they don't seem to heal completely. Please help! this things are killing me!
PITYROSPORUM MALASSEZIA FOLLICULITIS ******
Hello! I’ve had this problem for 6 years now and I’ve been doing research on it. It is indeed fungal acne and that’s why acne medication makes it worse ! Typical acne medication kills bacteria that would kill the fungus .....
These white gummy plugs will grow more the more we dig and pick . (But when they come out omfg hallelujah)
Here are the products that have worked for me at reducing the pain, inflammation, and formation of the plugs. The plugs HAVE to come out in order for the wounds to heal!
PCA skin care line: (i will use this forever)
facial oily/problem wash
rebalance moisturizer
Pure retinol (for scarring and smooth skin )
Ingredients that help pityrosporum Malassezia folliculitis :
NEEM oil! (OleHenrickson oil control line rocks)
Squalene - Sephora has pure squalene oil!
SULFUR mask- Sunday Riley
The SPACE RACE kit from Sunday’s Riley has done wonders too! It has a sulfur mask , dry oil that control acne, and matte toner that it antibacterial !
Google “how to kick fungal acne’s ass”
There’s an entire blog on it and an entire page on products and ingredients for this!!!!!
Hey Guys, I have finally seen some progress thanks to many of the comments here and to my own experimentation. As many of the posts here say, the plugs have to come out in order for the wound to heal, but I don't know if it's because of the products I have used or what, the plugs became more "liquidy" and have allowed for the wounds to heal better, not leaving such horrific scars, as they had in the past.
WHAT I DID:
I decided to attack the problem from various fronts: as fungal acne, I used ciclopiroxolamine for 3 weeks every night. Can't say my condition improved right away, but I did that. I also read somewhere that due to heavy corticoid usage, skin can get atrophied, so I tried to fix that as well (I did use a corticoid for more than two years). Skin atrophy is irreversible but I found a paper that concluded that ammonium lactate (12%) could help a little bit, so I tried that as well as a moisturizer mixed with squalane from The Ordinary. I also avoided any products that could make fungal acne worse. From all that, I did started noticing an improvement in the general texture of my skin.
When the ciclopiroxolamine, treatment was over, I started using more products from The Ordinary, that included Niacinamide (whole face) and Salicylic Acid on the scars, because I noticed that the scarring was happening because there was still something under there. The scars looked like deep craters, lots of texture and very very visible. It seemed the salicylic acid helped the "plugs" surface so I could extract them. But also something had changed, because some where plugs but others were very "liquidy", resembling more to what comes out of a regular pimple. When I extracted them, there would be minor bleeding, I could see the empty pore and an immediate improvement in the texture of the scars (less swollen?), but of course a lesion was left, how I handled that became also a very important part in the process. What works the best for me is putting a thick coat of Neomycine sulfate-Zinc Oxide cream on the wound and then covering it with micropore for as long as it was possible (2 days minimum) IMMEDIATELY (super important) after the extraction, 3 days later, the skin would look sooo much better, With the bigger scars I had to go through that same process 2 or more times, having them looking a lot better after every extraction.
Now I have no new lesions, and I'm currently trying to erase the scars the ones I've had left. Hope this works for some of you guys!
Hey Guys, I have finally seen some progress thanks to many of the comments here and to my own experimentation. As many of the posts here say, the plugs have to come out in order for the wound to heal, but I don't know if it's because of the products I have used or what, the plugs became more "liquidy" and have allowed for the wounds to heal better, not leaving such horrific scars, as they had in the past.
WHAT I DID:
I decided to attack the problem from various fronts: as fungal acne, I used ciclopiroxolamine for 3 weeks every night. Can't say my condition improved right away, but I did that. I also read somewhere that due to heavy corticoid usage, skin can get atrophied, so I tried to fix that as well (I did use a corticoid for more than two years). Skin atrophy is irreversible but I found a paper that concluded that ammonium lactate (12%) could help a little bit, so I tried that as well as a moisturizer mixed with squalane from The Ordinary. I also avoided any products that could make fungal acne worse. From all that, I did started noticing an improvement in the general texture of my skin.
When the ciclopiroxolamine, treatment was over, I started using more products from The Ordinary, that included Niacinamide (whole face) and Salicylic Acid on the scars, because I noticed that the scarring was happening because there was still something under there. The scars looked like deep craters, lots of texture and very very visible. It seemed the salicylic acid helped the "plugs" surface so I could extract them. But also something had changed, because some where plugs but others were very "liquidy", resembling more to what comes out of a regular pimple. When I extracted them, there would be minor bleeding, I could see the empty pore and an immediate improvement in the texture of the scars (less swollen?), but of course a lesion was left, how I handled that became also a very important part in the process. What works the best for me is putting a thick coat of Neomycine sulfate-Zinc Oxide cream on the wound and then covering it with micropore for as long as it was possible (2 days minimum) IMMEDIATELY (super important) after the extraction, 3 days later, the skin would look sooo much better, With the bigger scars I had to go through that same process 2 or more times, having them looking a lot better after every extraction.
Now I have no new lesions, and I'm currently trying to erase the scars the ones I've had left. Hope this works for some of you guys!