Replied By Carmen (Chicago, Il) on 12/24/2012
Thank you for posting this! I thought I had correctly self-diagnosed myself with perioral dermatitis, as my story was very similar to everyone else on these boards (whole life of perfect skin, then recurring outbreaks around the mouth to create a 'muzzle' effect with increasing frequency) and it became so bad at one point that the moisturizer and makeup I put on top of the rash became a staph infection. So I had to take antibiotics for the infection, then I had a severe alllergic reaction which caused my face to swell up to alarming proportions. So then I was put on a 6 day steroid pack, which worked wonders for both the rash and the swelling, but a few days after I finished the pack, my face rash symptoms came back. On the verge of despair, I saw this post and decided to try some clotrimazole on the affected areas. While the effect wasn't amazingly immediate, the areas did feel less itchy and irritated than they had before, so I continued putting the cream on several times throughout the day. Now, 2 1/2 days later, the rash is about 85 percent better and I'm hoping that by tomorrow I will be fully (or almost) better again. So I encourage you to try the antifungal cream, especially if, like me, your symptoms were less papule-oriented and more dry/flaky/red.Thanks again!