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Grover's Disease: What works to help find relief?
Skin Health | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (2013)Comment receiving replies
This is cynical, but I believe the dermatologists I go to are uninterested in our home remedy treatments which for some of us have worked because these are not prescriptions and because no scientist has studied them. I wrote up a record of my success with cilantro: dosing, describing the length of time it took to go into remission. I also included others success stories from this site as well as the Earth Clinic site. Even though she tells me she only sees a few cases of GD a year I thought she would be excited and would share this information with other doctors.
I went back in 6 months for a non GD issues and saw her husband (both are dermatologists). I asked him if he had heard of others having success using cilantro to treat GD. He had no idea what I was talking about. Evidently his wife had never even discussed it with him or had him read what I wrote up. You might question why I still use her, but to her credit she was the first doctor out of several others that I had seen that figured out that I had GD. She took one look and recognized it, others were treating is as Allergic Contact Dermatitis. Not that any of her classic GD treatments helped but at least now I had a name for this rash and could research it.
Replies to "This is cynical, but I believe the dermatologists I go to are uninterested in our home..."
Unfortunately, many doctors in this country, have taken on the persona of gods and are often arrogant about issues that don't concern them, or diseases they are somewhat unfamiliar with. I was seeing another derm for a separate issue. After several prescriptions that didn't work, he prescribed Restelin (?) at $300 a pop. When that didn't work, he said I just needed more of it. That's when I went to a third derm who took one look at it and gave me creams that immediately eliminated the problem. My pcp Knows nothing about GD, but at least he listens to me and did suggest that I see an allergist to cover all bases. The allergst was fascinated by the cilantro smoothies. In the end, we appear to face this thing on our own to a great degree, hoping that someday someone in the medical field is empathetic enough to take the disease seriously.
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My GD was diagnosed remotely by dermatologist. My GP is always interested in my solutions to any problems which I or my husband have. She always writes down to look up. I haven't solved my GD yet, but to date, clove oil has kept it at bay and kept me functional. I still have to use 3 x day which is discouraging. I tried the Gold Bond Extra Strength powder today and was quite miserable in short order. I use extra strength Bengay for extreme itch relief. (Only need once in awhile now.) It has 10% menthol, 4% camphor and 30% methyl salicylate (relative of aspirin) the Gold Bond powder lists .8% menthol as well as zinc oxide, acacia Senegal gum and Eucalyptol, as well as methyl salicylate (doesn't say how much of the latter ingredients.) The Bengay gives me excellent temporary (hours) itch relief, but no effect on the rash. I prefer an MD who admits he/she doesn't know as opposed to giving advice that it misguided and throwing medication at a condition like throwing spaghetti on the ceiling to see if it sticks. Still waiting for my Far Infrared Sauna to arrive. I was impressed by the derm who referred his patient to this site. You are all life savers. Having worked as a physical therapist for most of my life, I have found that many doctors don't diagnose problems they can't fix, so it's a help to have a diagnosis of Grover's Disease if only to get to this site.