Ok, this may be long but it will only take 5 minutes of your time as I really need advise on this issue. I have mild eczema on my face and only got confirmed it is eczema around this year April, and the problem has recently worsen like there's a few bump and scab kind of thing appearing around my mouth and nose area that itch the hell lot of me. I suspect this is an side effect due to the 2 years of prolong and on and off of using steroid cream (that time I wasn't told I have eczema so I stupidly depend on the cream). To cut the story short, I was given non-steroid cream called Elidel but it gave me side effects like cough, cold, dry throat. So on Tuesday I went to see my dermatologist to complained about it and in the end he told me the only option left to treat my eczema is to go back to topical steroid. So he prescribed me a very low dose of steroid called Desowen and told me to try it for 4 days. He also sent me to take two blood tests, one was food allergy test, and the other was IgE test (to determine what type of eczema I have). The pissed part was that he has NEVER mentioned anything about taking oral antibiotic or oral erythromycin as an alternative treatment to clear the itch and stuff. How I know about this was because after I came back from the visit I decided to do an extreme research about steroid cream and it lead me to this site,

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weeklyquestion/a/05_perioral_drm.htm

You don't have to click it, I'll copy the important part here and it says,


"In many situations, a child has a simple rash caused by irritation and is treated with a steroid cream. While that helps the rash get better for a little while, it then gets worse again and eventually doesn't respond to the steroid cream anymore. If you are using a steroid cream and think that she may have perioral dermatitis, then you should stop using it. Be warned that the rash will get worse once you stop using the steroids and will then gradually get better. Sometimes, a topical or oral antibiotic is also needed to help perioral dermatitis go away."

After reading it, I suspect I have perioral dermatitis, like I mentioned I've been depending steroid cream etc and it has now worsen the problem by giving me those itchy scab/bump lookalike thing. So I continued the research and found out that those who people who got perioral dermatitis eventually stopped all cream and got treated by taking oral antibiotic or oral erythromycin (another type of antibiotic) alone for at least one month and their inflammation got cleared off completely, I found it here

http://pediatrics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=pediatrics&cdn=health&tm=2&f=00&su=p284.9.3 36.ip_p726.4.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//dermatlas.med.jhmi.edu/derm/result.cfm%3FOutputSet%3D2%26BO%3DAND%26Diagnosis% 3D93

As for today, the third day I'm applying that Desowen I still don't feel right about it. I have a feeling even if those itch and scabs got cleared off it will still come back for more. I really feel like stopping the cream and I don't want to see my face from mild eczema turn into moderate eczema or severe. I'll be going back to see the dermatologist again next month to request for the oral antibiotic or oral erythromycin but I have a feeling he won't give it to me because he always say that "Yours is not that bad etc etc".

I'd like to ask if any of you who has eczema on face ever taken those oral medication, not oral steroid but oral antibiotic like I've mentioned? By the way, I've read some the side effects of taking oral erythromycin may include abdominal pain, diarrhea, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting. Do you think it's worth to take the risk? Seriously I'd rather suffer the side effects from oral erythromycin than seeing my face keep getting itch and those rash. I'm working part time in an office, the air conditioning is very cold so it's very hard to treat my current condition. But the job contract will end this December and so I intend to stay at home for the next 1 to 3 months by only taking the oral erythromycin (if I succeeded getting it from the idiot dermatologist). As from the site it says that perioral dermatitis patients were told to stop all kinds of cream and just taking the oral medication alone and most of them took at least one month and the stuff on their face eventually went off. I dare not to take oral steroid because I have a GP that once told me oral steroid will cause weight gain, fatness to the face, joint problem etc. So I think now my only option left is oral antibiotic which is that oral erythromycin.