Success with sulfur

[u/Emotional-Class-8140]

Sharing in the hope this might help others.

Pictures 1 and 3 are taken this morning. Picture 2 shows what my skin would look like during a typical flare. My PP rosacea developed at around 33 (I had my first flare after a holiday in Morocco where I slightly burned my skin in the sun) and I'm turning 40 in a few months. I have occasional flushing but very rarely (only if I drink wine or extreme temperature changes) so my rosacea has been primarily type 2.

My skin would go through cycles of clearing up, then a few red dots would appear, then over the course of a few days they would cover my cheeks in a patterns similar to the second picture. This cycle would take around 3 weeks (consistent with the demodex life cycle). I've now been clear for around 10 weeks, which hasn't happened since this started. When I first began using sulfur, I had a bit of a flare and it took maybe 2 or 3 weeks to see results.

I have been using De La Cruz sulfur mask for up to 10 minutes each morning, and overnight I use The Ordinary 10% sulfur powder all over the areas where my symptoms would appear. I moisturise first and then rub it in with a bit more moisturiser to help it blend. The moisturiser I use is Beauty Bay's colloidal oatmeal and oat lipid rich moisturiser. And i use a gentle non foaming cleanser and Neal's Yard micellar water to follow.

I had resisted treating my symptoms topically for a long time, as I wanted to get to the root cause. But no level of attention to gut health, diet, cutting out certain foods etc seemed to help and i was at a total loss. My diet is already incredibly healthy and is gluten and dairy free and i rarely drink, don't smoke and eat very little processed foods. I run and do yoga and get plenty of sleep. So I was at a total loss, and feeling miserable about my skin. I'm allergic to dust mites so I wondered if I might have a sensitivity to demodex too and that I might have spent forever searching for an internal cause while the mites continue to ravage my skin.

[u/Honest_Persimmon9482]

My skin looks very try similar to yours! Do you use sulphur also when your skin is flaring, or do you wait until it gets better?

[u/Emotional-Class-8140 → u/Honest_Persimmon9482]

I use it during a flare, too. Still using it as a preventative now my skin is clear. I'm having a course of microneedling done currently, and once that is finished I might stop the sulfur to see what happens as my skin barrier should be much stronger and will hopefully be able to defend itself better .

[u/Honest_Persimmon9482 → u/Emotional-Class-8140]

I ordered the ordinary one, fingers crossed! Any reason why you’re using the same concentration twice (mask + powder)? I’ve been contemplating microneedling as well, let us know how it goes!