DERMATOLOGY COMMUNITY
unclear diagnosis

unclear diagnosis

Hi, I have a recurring skin infection that tends to start off small, maybe at the site of a scrape or insect bite, and then spread throughout my entire body (arms, legs, scalp, nipples, and recently, face).  I even get what looks like pompholyx on my hands.  A lot of it starts off looking like folliculitis but over time may change into a patch-like appearance.  They continually ooze a yellow fluid and itch.  I've seen five dermatologists including the chief of dermatology at a well-known hospital and treatment always starts off with oral and/or topical antibiotics.  Culture results show that it is simply a gram-negative infection and a recent biopsy of a "bump" shows that it is just folliculitis.  However, the rashes, itching, and oozing never goes away even after weeks of taking the antibiotics.  It only goes away once I use a topical steroid after seemingly "wearing out" the infection with the antibiotics.  I've had to use steroid ointments on my body, hydrocortisone butrate on my face, and a temovate gel on my scalp.  I also notice that recently, even very small scrapes tend to get inflamed and have difficulty healing.  None of the dermatologists can explain why my skin doesn't heal with the antibiotics.  One dermatologist thought that maybe I had an infection and eczema happening at the same time and kept me on antibiotics for weeks along with a topical steroid which seemed to have controlled the situation for a while.  I'm wondering if any of you have seen anything like this before.

I would also like to add that on a previous outbreak, after several weeks, I had one of the oozing patches that once, but no longer looked like folliculitis, biopsied.  It showed up to be just a regular dermatitis.

Fortunately, they discovered that I had higher amounts of bacteria in my nostrils which may have been causing infection to recur.    
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