Taking Care Of A Pityriasis Rosea Outbreak

A few weeks ago, I had a strange looking scrape on my right side of my ribcage. Throughout the day, I do a lot of different motions so I didn’t really think much of it and thought I probably rubbed against something. Almost a week went by and then I noticed another very similar scrape appear just under the first one as well as a few small red dots. Now I knew I had an allergic reaction to something but didn’t bother with antihistamine pills for another two days.

Those two days had past and I woke in the morning and was shocked to see my chest looking like this picture below. I didn’t take these pictures with the intention of sharing them online so sorry in advance for the poor quality. I was just keeping track of the progress for myself but decided I should share to help others that have to deal with this. It gets ugly, you’ve been warned.

After seeing that in the morning, I went to the pharmacy and purchased some Benadryl since those things pretty much take care of everything. Boy was I wrong! I gave those pills a chance for three days but my condition worsened to the picture you see below. Again, it gets uglier.

At this stage, I was kind of freaked out to see this crazy breakout on my body and I wasn’t able to narrow it down to anything different I may have done over the last few weeks which may be responsible for this. At this point in time, my body is also starting to itch pretty badly and the red dots had also spread onto my underarms as well as my biceps and a few spots on my forearm. I went to the doctors office and when he saw my arm, he said it was chicken pox but as soon as I lifted my shirt, he said I had something called Harold’s Patch. That initial scrape that I had mentioned is referred to as the Harold’s Patch although the medical term for it is Pityriasis Rosea.

I was glad he was able to identify it and was looking forward to the medication to take care of this thing. But then he dropped a bomb and said that there is no medicine that will help and that I should expect this condition to last between 8 to 12 weeks! His only suggestion was to use ointment to help with the itching but it wouldn’t do anything for my red dots and rashes. I was pretty bummed for about 10 days but then I asked Dr. Google and there were entire chatboards about this particular topic. I don’t know why I waited so long to investigate further.

After doing image searches for this condition, I knew my breakout was bad but other people have had much worse. The picture you see above is as bad as it got for me. I’m certain my breakout would be even worse had I not taken action and used to following methods to take care of my Pityriasis Rosea.

How To “Cure” Pityriasis Rosea
After a bit of reading, I narrowed it down to the three most discussed solutions for the condition. Unfortunately, I don’t know which therapy works best as I started all three at the same time. I didn’t have time for trial and error as I wanted this thing gone as soon as possible.

Tanning – A lot of people had success going to the tanning salon. The next picture you see below is after one tanning session and the picture after that is after the second tanning session. I have only done two sessions of tanning so far.

Neutrogena T/Gel Therapeutic Shampoo – This ‘Coal Tar’ shampoo is used on hair/scalp to treat dandruff and other scaly, itchy skin conditions such as psoriasis or seborrheic dermatitis. I used the shampoo on all of the affected areas on my body which included my entire abdomen, underarms, biceps, a little on my back, and some on my forearms. This shampoo works by causing the skin to shed dead cells from its top layer and slow down the growth of skin cells. Coal tar will also help decrease itchiness. I would use this shampoo twice a day and I made sure that I took a luke warm shower or even a bit on the cool side.

Erythromycin – I went to another doctor to get a second opinion and he recommended Erythromycin to see if it would work. This belongs to a group of drugs called Macrolide Antibiotics. These antibiotics slow the growth of or kill sensitive bacteria by reducing the production of important proteins needed by the bacteria to survive. I take these pills three times a day, for 30 days.

Two Days After The Three Therapies Started

It was a huge relief to see the progress made in only a couple of days so I continued taking my pills three times a day, taking two cold’ish showers a day, and doing a follow up tanning session four days later.

SUCCESS!

As you can see, the progress I made in six days is pretty good. I still have a few weeks of antibiotics to finish up so I’ll continue with all three therapies until then. Although the doctors say there is no cure for Pityriasis Rosea, I would highly recommend the therapies I used. You should also know that Pityriasis Rosea is not contagious and medical professionals think it may be a viral infection. If you or someone you know ever has a breakout like this, refer back to this page and save yourself weeks of itchiness and the ugly breakout. I hope I didn’t gross you guys out too much with these pictures.