Prednisone and acne?

[UncleChuckSucks]

I was on a round of prednisone from January-April of this year. After I went off, I have had horrific, weird acne for months. Now, at the end of October, my skin is still "different" from normal but I don't get the really bad acne as much. Can it really take that long to rebound?

I have had really nice skin since college and take great care of it. But after I quit the meds, my skin broke out in painful big zits that refused to heal for weeks and left scars, plus tons of little white hard bumps that I swear weren't normal whiteheads. My dermo put me on 2 rounds of antibiotics (yikes!) but I don't think either did jack. The big red bumps are less frequent but I still have lots of little hard white bumps. Again, not normal acne here--they never go away and there seems to be no "life cycle" to them like with a regular pimple.

Here's the weirdest part: The skin around my ears and along the front of my neck itches like CRAZY. It's so weird!

I'm extremely conscious of skin allergies and only use gentle products that the rest of my skin doesn't react to.

Has anyone else been through this and actually recovered? What was your timeline? Will my skin get normal again?

 

[Jennifer]

I didn't get any skin issues from Prednisone but I know many people do. It sounds like your skin is getting better though, just slowly.

The little white bumps you mentioned could very well be "Milia" which is not the same thing as a pimple or zit and is often mistakenly called baby acne. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002343/ I get it too and didn't start getting it until a few years ago. They do go away on their own but do take a lot longer it seems. I sometimes try to treat them with heat (hot wash cloth) to try and get them to go away faster (I read somewhere that it helps but can't find it now). I also had smooth skin and never had a break out but for some reason things changed which didn't seem medication related for me.

With the itching is sounds like you may be dealing with a dry skin issue. Do you use any type of lotion? For my face I use Oil of Olay Regenerist. Its expensive I think but I haven't found anything better for my face and the surrounding skin. Also in the itchy areas are there any bumps, redness, flakes or silvery colored (or any other color) skin?