Grover's Disease: What works to help find relief?

I take Trazedone for sleep. 50 mg. cut in half or whole. It is a mild tranquilizer and requires a prescription. I sleep thru the night.

I assure you I am not being argumentative, but just for the sake of clarity, Trazodone is a mild antidepressant, but it is often prescribed by docs for insomnia, especially those docs who don't like prescribing drugs like Ambien that are actually designed for insomniacs. I've been an insomniac for decades and I take a generic form of Ambien called Zolpidem every night. I may have to give Trazodone a try someday.

If your PCP warned you about taking Benedryl because of the association between long term use and dementia, trazodone was also included in that list. I’ve been taking trazodone 50mg for >15 years for sleep. When I try to get off it, I don’t sleep and that is also bad. I’ve recently started using these drops called Relaxing Sleep by Herb Pharm which helps me get back to sleep when I wake in the middle of the night. It has valerian in it, but no melatonin (which doesn’t agree with me.) I think I might try to use the drops to initiate sleep as well. Also, I’ve found I’m much more sensitive to caffeine in my old age and have to stop drinking black tea by noon.

Thanks babbs, I have had serious insomnia for far longer than I would care to admit to having logged up. I will go check out the Relaxing Sleep by Herb Pharm drops...always willing to try something new.

Thanks for these suggestions. I use calm plus homeopathic tablets in addition to my other meds to help with sleep. I’m starting to reduce my Lunesta by cutting in half. Unfortunately I need the Benadryl at night due to severe itching and afraid Claritin might keep me awake.
This won’t apply to everyone but yesterday I got legs waxed after long time due to pandemic and immediately erupted in itchy lesions. It must relate to breakdown of collagen. I’m trying collagen capsules now. Ongoing search for relief...

I’m about to order the drops from Herb Pharma for first time, both cilantro and relaxing sleep. How do you use them, full strength on tongue or diluted? Thank you.
Really need relief without using all these meds.

I put a ⅓ dropper full in about 2 oz. water. Since I use it to get back to sleep, I leave it on my bathroom counter and take a sip or two on bathroom run. You have to dilute in water. Read on Herb Pharma’s site.

As for the cilantro drops from Herb Pharm, I started out with just two drops in a tiny glass of water, and I did this twice per day approximately 12 hours apart. Over almost two months, I have worked my way up to 6 drops twice per day. I would suggest that you completely ignore the recommended dosage on the bottle label. If you go to the Amazon.com website for this product and read a bunch of the reviews, you will see why. A few people started out following those directions and got seriously ill. The reason is that cilantro helps your body detox from foreign substances, heavy metals or chemicals you might have been exposed to, for example. If you detox too rapidly, you get sick. You will just have to experiment to see what works for you. I think @cindytxrunner takes more than me, but I'm not sure. I am also taking one large chlorella pill from Now Foods twice per day about 45 minutes to an hour before the cilantro drops in water. This is another detoxing substance. Here is an article that says why they think the two substances should be used in conjunction with one another. If you do an online search for "cilantro and chlorella detox" there are many such articles. https://naturalsociety.com/proper-heavy-metal-chelation-cilantro-chlorella/
Good luck!

Thanks for all this helpful information!

I wanted to update you guys on my current GD treatment experience. My main course of treatment is the bi-weekly injections of Dupixent that I mentioned several weeks ago. Insurance doesn’t want to pay for it since it’s not FDA approved for GD. However, the dermatologist gave me a couple of boxes to take home, so I’ve just been administering into my stomach via EpiPen every two weeks.

I’ve experienced no side-effects from the Dupixent, but whether or not it is working remains to be seen. As of today (08/13), it has been a little over six weeks. The doctor told me that we need to give it three months to determine if it’s really helping. While I have not had any worsening outbreaks, the Dupixent might have possibly stagnated the GD. However, none of my existing spots are healing up, which is what I’m really wanting to happen.

I’ve quit applying calcipotriene at night, just because of the expense of going through tubes so quickly because of the area that I’m covering. Instead, I just apply Gold Bond every morning and every night, which is annoyingly messy, but does help combat the itching. Although I'm considering phasing out the Gold Bond just to see if it's the possibly the Dupixent that helps the itching.

I just hate that the majority of my GD is on my upper chest and hovers around my lower neck, making me not want to wear anything other than crew neck shirts all the time to help mask it. Even in crew necks, you can still sometimes see some of the higher-up red spots.

Other than that, it’s just occasional Epsom salt baths. I abandoned the cilantro smoothies, since I felt like it was causing my digestive system to act very bizarre and have currently been experimenting with collagen peptide powder in my smoothies.

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of Dupixent, but I will provide an update at the three month mark to share whether or not I feel it's a possibly treatment worth pursuing for others.