Fighting Stress, Dermatitis, and Dandruff with Ketoconazole Shampoo

Stress has been getting me down lately, and it’s been affecting my skin. It’s not like I don’t have the tools to cope with it. I can spout a litany of ways to cope with stress right off the top of my head.

I have been doing my best to apply these tools, but my skin is not getting with the program. Especially not the skin on my head. Along with seborrheic dermatitis of the scalp and atopic dermatitis on my face, I am now losing the hair on my head.

One time I lost my eyebrows and eyelashes, the cause determined to be focal alopecia. It took two years of twice-daily consistent care to get my brows and lashes to grow again. My constant battle with dermatitis on my eyelids and eyebrows only made regrowth take longer.

So, I finally grow them back, only to start losing them again! Truly, this is wholly unacceptable.

How have I been dealing with the hair loss?

While this new progression has been depressing and has only served to exacerbate my stress, I have been on the ball with crisis management. My most effective coping mechanism to losing my hair has been researching ways to make it stop.

With the support of my doctor, I have started a course of prescription and topical medications that we hope will act as an “all-in-one” regimen that will address hair loss and cystic acne - while hopefully not flaring up my dermatitis in the process. She recommended topical ketoconazole shampoo for the dandruff and oral spironolactone, and topical minoxidil for the cystic acne and hair loss.

Why did I want to prioritize treating the dandruff?

In my estimate, the first thing to address was the dandruff. I figured this was the most important thing to get under control first because not only does it trigger my acne and atopic dermatitis when it flares, but I don’t think an angry scalp is the optimal medium on which to grow new hair.

My dandruff started getting really bad just before summer. Luckily, I’m pretty well-versed in treating dandruff. My daughter has terrible sebhorric dermatitis. We have found ketoconazole shampoo helpful for quick treatment and always have some on hand for her flare-ups.

Well, now that both of us are constantly scratching our heads, that backup store went FAST. Fortunately, since we ran out, we have discovered that Costco sells massive bottles of ketoconazole shampoo!

How has the ketoconazole shampoo worked?

Now that we had the supply, we began our full-scale offensive against our dandruff. We began using the shampoo 3 times a week, leaving it on the scalp for about five minutes before rinsing and using conditioner. Within two weeks of using ketoconazole shampoo my daughter’s scalp was calmer than it had ever been.

My scalp was also flake-free, but in an unexpected development, so were my eyebrows and eyelashes!

Since starting my ketoconazole shampooing treatments, I haven’t had an eczema event of any kind on my face! Even during a sweltering heatwave, which usually causes catastrophic flare-ups, it has continued to work.

The hair loss aspect of all of this is still an ongoing journey, and hopefully, one day soon I can report progress on that front. I think with the drastic reduction in dandruff from the ketoconazole shampoo I might finally have a chance! Nevertheless, I am glad to have found some substantial and unexpected relief in the form of ketoconazole shampoo!