Rosaceans and Red Light Therapy, and effectiveness of Ivermectin |
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QUESTION: Rosacean's and Red Light Therapy and Sulfur creamSent: Sunday, 5 October 2008 6:39 PM Subject: Sulfur Cream Like many rosaceans, I have very sensitive skin. It is red and flushes badly and easily. Would your sulphur cream be suitable for me? Does it help the redness, flushing and burning, as well as the pustules? (Currently they are mostly controlled with long term use of oral antibiotics. I am on my second macrolide as the first stopped working). I still get some bouts though. Something else I must ask. One of my doctors recommended I try some Red Light Therapy (RLT). Apparently it has helped reduce the inflammation of many rosaceans overseas. It is not possible to have RLT if taking, or using photosensitizing drugs. I need to establish if your rosacea cream falls into that category or not? I know some oral forms of sulphur do. Or, is that 'sulfa'? I get confused. Also, what is your opinion of using topical Ivermectin for rosacea? Currently, there are trials taking place in Brisbane. I was not able to be recruited for the trial, as I don't have a face full of pustules......at the moment.The trial was only for this subtype, which I found disappointing, as a few overseas studies have shown oral ivermectin to be effective for redness and flushing rosacea as well. It would have been informative to see if the topical produced results in both groups. ANSWER: Rosacean's and Red Light Therapy, and effectiveness of IvermectinThe sulphur in our cream is elemental sulphur which is pure and uncombined with anything else. The base is a light moisturizing cream base and is ideal to apply after cleansing at night. Good results are obtained after 3 weeks as a guide. There is no harm in long term use and it is even safe in pregnancy.Sulpha drugs have sulphur chemically bound in the molecule which makes the molecules physically larger and able to react with light which causes the photosensitivity reaction. So our sulphur cream is safe to use with any treatment including Red Light Therapy. It is very effective combined with traditional therapies such as antibiotics as you mention.I can't recommend Ivermectin due to very few reports of it's effectiveness in Rosacea. There are many mentions of it but reports all seem to have originated from isolated reports of a few succeses. Ivermectin has been used to treat parasitic infections for many years and a few people have found benefits for rosacea. As it is a very safe medication it is worth a try. However there is very limited data on it's effectiveness for rosacea even though the few reports of isolated successes go back to the year 2000. My feeling based on this is it possibly may be useful but it seems to not be a wonder drug for rosacea. As the people using it were also using various other treatments such as antibiotics and red light therapy it is hard to say if the combination worked or if the ivermectin alone worked. Certainly Ivermectin is safe to try Success in several patients (no clinical study, just a report) has been obtained with Oral treatment with 200 µg/kg ivermectin as a single dose . That means if you weigh 50kg you would take a daily dose of 10mg. The tablets are available in Australia on prescription as 3mg tablets in a pack of 4If you have a good relationship with your dermatologist you could possibly trial this as Ivermectin has a high safety margin. Kind Regards, David Hosking. Return to our Sulphur Cream page |
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23A Keilor Road, Essendon, Victoria, Australia
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