3 whole months of this bs (pics of how it started vs. what it turned into vs. today)
NSFW because the pics are so gnarly, I just wanted to share for anyone morbidly curious. Last pic has no crusting, just acne scars.
First I thought it was acne, then 1.5 weeks later it turned into the first picture. Got diagnosed with impetigo and was prescribed 10 days of Cephalexin (did not help at all). Then 10 days of Doxycycline and mupirocin ointment (doxy worked but mupirocin never helped me, except with softening crusts). I went through almost 3 rounds of Doxycycline because it kept coming back, until one of my swabs finally came back with something: overgrowth of klebsiella pneumoniae. I was switched to Bactrim and it helped, but of course it came back again on my cheek.
It was suggested to me that I had a skin infection caused by klebsiella that presented similarly to impetigo. Not sure what to believe. Maybe that IS the case, or maybe most of the negative swabs (that showed no staph or strep) were done too soon after I finished antibiotics, or maybe my infection started being caused by a different bacteria (in this case, klebsiella?) in the middle of this 3 month period, idk! I'm open to what anyone else here thinks.
But after noticing the new crusts on my cheek, I started spot treating with betadine soaked q-tips 2x a day after washing my face. I chose betadine because it's coverage was so broad that I hoped it would help no matter what type of bacteria was causing this. I am on my 4th day of this and I basically have no crusts anymore. Betadine is literally the only non-antibiotic thing that has helped me.
Notes/Things I realized:
- I am probably getting reinfected because my skin barrier is so destroyed now. I plan to continue spot treating as needed and using products like CeraVe Healing Ointment on areas with no crust to repair it and make infections harder to reoccur.
- I have been taking bacillus subtilis HU58 and MB40 for ~1.5 months, and lactobacillus acidophilus (for bactrim, I was scared of developing a
UTIyeast infection) for ~2 weeks. Always several hours after my first antibiotic dose of the day (I have been off antibiotics for ~2 weeks now, still taking them). It seemed like it helped slightly but not enough as prevention or to cure. - I tried hypochlorous acid face spray. Same case, not enough as prevention or to cure. I'm sure it still has useful applications, though!
- My infection has never spread to anyone around me, so it feels even more like proof that this is happening because of my weak skin barrier being reinfected by normally harmless bacteria. I have also been severely stressed for like 2 years now. That probably doesn't help.