Rosacea, laser and ZZ cream

[kibong]

for me, not much has changed aside from the fact that my cheek and temple area are worsening, getting some spots and rashes (worst part is at the conjunction of temple and cheek).
one funny thing is that my forehead, nose and chin seems to be unaffected (no rash at all, only 1 itchy bump on chin for this whole 1 week)

[Walter]

Hello

I would not do the laser treatment together with our treatment and you probable are not
going to need it anyway.
You can use metrogel together with the ZZ but not applying at the same time of course.
Metrogel will not help you much though, the minimum quantity to do something against demodex mites
is 2%, metrogel is only 1%, the Xin Fumanling cream we sell has 3%.... plus other ingredients.
What is important is not to use too much in the beginning, think.
Your skin is in a bad shape to start with and can probably not tolerate so much for the moment,
you are using a product which is save but can anyway a bit aggressive for a sick skin.
On a healthy skin, the ZZ ointment will most of time do nothing.
Those bumps you get suddenly are not an allergic reaction from the treatment,
it is because mites are dying massively and creating an infection, also in some cases,
allergic reactions towards something from the demodex mites
(nobody knows exactly what yet, maybe their host specific bacteria, which become exposed in your skin when they die)
can make those bumps bigger and itchy.
Getting rid of demodex mites is not always an easy job, for some people yes, for others not,
you need to be careful not to use too much,
go very slowly in the beginning and build up the treatment listening to your skin.
In the first weeks, lots of things can happen, the key is not to give up en don't use too much,
after some time, all this problems will get less and less and you will be on your way to heal.

Walter

[Dr.VladimirKryptoïd]

Thanks Walter ! Won't do the laser treatment now that I'm almost sure that my skin is indeed improving.
Yeah, it's day 10 now and my skin is doing better. It was really flaky this morning but showering with a very mild soap got rid of these. My base color is notably clearer ( even though I'm scared that I could be speaking too soon ) today but it probably does not mean anything ( yet ). A few bumps here and there but nothing nasty. It's rather strange though because two of the bumps are rather itchy and when I look at them in the mirror they don't even look as bad as they should judging from the itch itself. They don't even look like real spots, just like a tiny area in which the skin is a bit redder but that's all. Still a bump though. However, the itch becomes worse in the evening and it gets on my nerves Oh well, it's allright. I've endured soooo much worse than that.

[Dr.VladimirKryptoïd]

Day 12 : I'm impressed by what ZZ does to my skin. A few bumps appear every day, more frequently than usual BUT what makes me quite happy is that some of them don't even last for more than a few hours after I apply the ointment and they NEVER develop into whiteheads nor do they get bigger. It's simple : since I've begun the treatment, I've only had one whitehead and it was in the middle of my rash reaction which is now gone. It's been almost two weeks and not a bump did get bigger than a pinehead. The ZZ dries them like crazy ! Redness has faded a bit also ! Even the itch is almost gone ! Keeping my fingers crossed !

[kibong]

glad to hear that dude, seems that the cream is working well
for me, the frequency of getting the itchy bumps has decreased
but instead i got few acne breakouts
now mainly dealing with the burnt effect, however at night i realized that some minor parts of my skin have become smoother than before, with lighter skin tone
seems that it will take longer time for me to get my original skin back, but patience is a virtue =)

[crazybas]

Hey guys, I just wanna say your posts have been really helpful. The more insight the better.

I received my first container of ZZ Cream earlier today and applied some to my neck a moment ago. I purchased the ZZ for facial acne, but wanted to test it out on my neck first to see how my skin reacts. I used a really small layer, just wet my fingertips and spread it out on slightly moist skin. I'll probably apply the ZZ to my face for the first time tomorrow night or the next.

I'll join you guys and post my results as I go along...

Again, thanks for your postings, they help us all!

[Dr.VladimirKryptoïd]

Well...I might be wrong but I wouldn't apply it on my neck for a test patch. Many people on this board have had problems with the ZZ when applied on their neck because the skin is very sensitive there, a lot more than on the face. Some of them have had rather bad reactions there so if you want to do a test patch do it directly on your face ( for instance your forehead ). However, be aware that, as Walter said, anything can happen during the first weeks because if you indeed have mites, they will die massively and thus unleash huge amounts of bacteries directly onto your skin.

Take Care.

[Dr.VladimirKryptoïd]

Day 15 : New outbreak, especially on my forehead. Very small spots but they itch like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Holding tight anyway but it makes me feel like tearing my whole face right now

[crazybas]

Well my face has gone through two nights of ZZ application, and my neck has gone through three.

My skin isn't irritated much at all, just a lil red which is nothing out of the ordinary. No increase in dryness either. My face has a big tolerance for harsher treatments, so I don't really expect the ZZ cream to irritate it as much as people seem to report.

No new acne breakouts either except for one larger pimple on my neck.

In the daytime I'm also using 2.5% Benzoyl Peroxide just on my face. Over the last 2 months, BP 2x a day has worked great for my acne so I'm gonna stick with it but just with 1 application a day. I don't want to use it forever, so hopefully the ZZ cream will kick in and replace the BP at some point.

[crazybas]

Day 8 on ZZ Cream (1 application at night):

I got a 2 smaller pimples about 2 days ago and 1 bigger pimple about 5 days ago on my face, and other than that all seems to be going alright. I don't have much redness, but there is decent dryness- small enough to be fixed with some moisturizer though. I also stopped using the Benzoyl Peroxide 2.5 % two days ago, mainly because using both topicals was drying out my skin more. So we'll see how the acne responds with no BP and just ZZ...

My neck seems to be holding up great (using just the ZZ cream on it), no new acne breakouts and no irritation.


How are you all doing?

[Dr.VladimirKryptoïd]

Well it's Day 22 and I'm doing ok I guess. I'm almost done with my second outbreak but the state of my face varies greatly during the day. I can look decent in the morning, my face starts itching around 4 or 5 PM, then I have three or four more pimples but they are very small. Then I wake up the next day, I have only one left ( the others have vanished, litteraly ) but some additional redness which disappears after moisterizing my skin. It's pretty weird because my face never really gets out of control like it used to but it changes a lot more than before and in ridiculously small amounts of time. It just seems that there is war over my skins and that the troops are battling for checkpoints...

[ed123]

Hi Dr. Vladimir,

I have been using the ZZ cream for 4 days now, and I use the ZZ cream morning and night after shower and use luke-warm water to cleanse my face after bath.

The problem seems to be the intensifying of itchiness on both my cheek. it itches like hell tonight...

Hopefully everything will be going fine tomorrow morning...

And Mr. Walter, thanks for your prompt shipment from HongKong.

Would the ingredients of ZZ cream the same with those from the old forum user?

[ed123]

I wonder would there be more new users that have gone through 3 months period of using ZZ cream that could share their photos or testimonial with all of us here in this forum?

Pictures would be nice as they worth a thousand words! (The testimonial page's pictures were those from old forum users, have there any successful users in 2008?!)

[kibong]

it's day 23 for me and nothing much had changed. My skin is still dealing with the redness, mainly from my original flushing and some mild chemical-peeling like conditions (which is lesser now since i've used less cream, before i applied too much until everyone can see a white layer of zz on my face ), aside of that, my face condition is quite ok. The bright side is that i almost never had any allergy-like reaction anymore, i do still feel itchy sometimes, mostly during night (when im sleeping) and in the morning.
Few days ago i had 2 bumps which i thought were cystic acne on my cheek, but now they had shrunk and almost disappear.
IMO a war is ravaging in my face right now , i do experience many high and low during past weeks, but i do believe that this cream is working. I personally think that my face would looks better after at least 2 months, everything takes time to work, so for all of you who are using this cream, dont give up too soon

here's a good quote i read somewhere before
"Any change you see will be over time though so don't expect overnight results... on the emotional level, its hard but just try and accept how you are and see the other things in life, one of my favorite quotes is "everything in life has beauty but not everyone sees it." Remember you are not alone, its all about mindset, you are happy if you chose to be "

[Dr.VladimirKryptoïd]

It's true. Rosacea has basically turned my life upside down almost four years ago now. It has brought me in places darker than I could imagine. I basically "decided" that I don't need to make it worse than it already is myself by being completely paranoïd about it as I used to be. Besides the outbreaks, ZZ seems to be working better than Metrogel so far ( it dries the bumps rather fast and they don't hurt as they did before, they just itch and I don't have much of them anyway ) so I guess it's working. I wish it would work faster but hey I've been patien for four years now. I guess a few months can't be that long, right ? Now when I see new spots, I just think "oh well" and think about something else.

I'm sure it's only a matter of weeks/months before we can fully appreciate our skin again.