On the Lighter Side > Complementary Medicine
What is the treatment for molluscum contagiosum?
giffordpa:
My story too...
I had MC in my pubic area and I believe I caught it from a hottub. Some kids had been in it just before I had. Then I laid around in my suit for an hour or so, etc. Then a week later went into a sauna and didn't change out of my suit then either. Anyway, I found them around May of 2014. I thought it was a rash and tried various creams, etc, for a couple months. I think I was fairly lucky in that they didn't take over my whole body. Then I went to a dermatologist who diagnosed them as MC. I had them frozen. It turned out they were particularly sturdy on me and the next treatment had to be particularly aggressive with the freezing. It killed that bunch and then more came around. I had them frozen. At one point I remember her freezing over 25 during one treatment. I ended up going 3 or 4 times. Finally, around October, 2014, I went and she didn't find any. She declared me "cured." I hadn't looked again until 3/6 when I saw a bump. I had just had sex with a new partner the night before, I felt something funny, checked and found a very small bump. oh, I was stressed since the timing was very bad. Then three days later I had two very small bumps. Even more stressed as I was under the impression that MC would not reappear after I was "cured." The partner insists she has nothing (and was tested for STD's). I went to the derm on 3/13 and she took one glance and said, yep, they are MC and froze them. Now my question is... has anyone had an instance where they had MC. Got rid of them and then several months later, they reappeared? Of course, I could have re-acquired them from my new partner but the derm said that it's quite unlikely that I would have developed the bumps that quickly - one day. Any info??? BTW - in the past I did try ACV and found it effective but the freezing really does it for me. I'm in my early 50's and any scarring that might occur in my pubic area won't bother me at all. I had a bunch on my inner thigh that she was really aggressive with and the red scars are just now starting to fad. I just want them gone... again... :)
Any comments on the re-occurrence thing would be appreciated..
Thanks!
MCsucks:
Hey guys, this forum was extremely helpful to me in dealing with my own case of Molluscum Contagiosum so I promised myself 4 months ago, when I began to seriously treat it, that if any treatment actually worked I would share it on here.
While I have read horror stories of Molluscum cropping back up after years of being gone (really hoping that doesn't happen to anyone), I think I can reasonably declare that I am clear, and in order to make sure, I had a dermatologist fully look everything over and she agreed.
A tiny bit of background and I'll get to what I actually did. Noticed a few small bumps on my pubic area about 9 months ago, thought they were herpes- freaked out. Saw a doctor. She said it was folliculitis and not to worry. Over the next few months I noticed just a few more bumps appearing every so often, sometimes they'd disappear, sometimes they wouldn't. I popped several and noticed a solid white core inside them, online research led me to believe I had molluscum. However, two more doctors dismissed my symptoms as folliculitis or acne. Finally, around 4 months ago, one doctor changed his mind and decided I had molluscum, which was later corroborated by a dermatologist.
Now, I'll switch gears and begin describing the treatments I used.
Liquid Nitrogen: The first doctor advised treatment with liquid nitrogen. I agreed. He used a small spray can and basically sprayed the fluid onto my penis and visible lesions (at this time about 8). While, it was successful at getting rid of MOST lesions (some required more than one treatment), the treatments left discolorations that 4 months later, are still visible. While they aren't going to ruin my life and may go away with time, I'm still pretty unhappy about them. My conclusion is err on the side of caution with freezing treatments as they definitely have the potential for scarring. Also, as some people have mentioned, while I did notice that while freezing got rid of some of the lesions present, quite a few more appeared. It may or may not have had anything to do with the freezing but again, it made me somewhat distrustful of this method.
Zymaderm: Didn't do anything.
Iodine: Didn't do anything
Curettage: Went to a dermatologist 3 months ago (was pretty unhappy with first doctor on account of the freezing mishap). She opted to use a curette on the lesions. For the most part it worked, and surprisingly, really didnt leave any scars. Unfortunately, she missed several of the small ones and again, I had several more appear in the days and weeks after I left her office. While this method might work if you religiously went every couple weeks and had it done, I, trying for a quicker solution opted for apple cider vinegar. In retrospect, ACV took about 3 months anyway, so I might have been better off just hitting up the dermatologist every couple weeks.
Apple Cider Vinegar: This works. I'm convinced that ANYONE saying it does not work, is not using it properly. Here is why. Acetic acid, the component of vinegar that gives it its acidity, is a relatively strong acid. Strong enough to burn your skin (albeit slowly and not severely). If left on a lesion long enough, it simply soaks/eats through the skin above the molluscum core and being an acid, kills biological entities, including Molluscum. Think of a stronger acid, sulfuric for example. I can 100% promise you that if you were to drop sulfuric acid onto MC lesions, while it would eat a hole through your skin, in the process, it would definitely kill the virus. ACV operates on the same concept, just not quite as dramatically. As an aside, while I don't know if she was fully buying it, the dermatologist actually thought apple cider vinegar was relatively harmless and worth a shot as well.
Here's what I did with the ACV. I took band-aids (all different shapes and sizes), soaked the absorbent pads in apple cider vinegar (applied via a soaked q-tip) and put the band aids on the lesions, replacing them twice a day. Over the next two months, I applied it to any lesion that cropped up, and one by one, got rid of them. The general sequence of events for the individual lesions after application of vinegar is as follows: For the first few days, sometimes up to a week, nothing happened. Then I began noticing the skin around the lesions, under the band aid pad getting irritated. The lesions would come to a really gross white head (I argue it is critical to keep them bandaged and apple cider vinegared during this phase). Then within a few days, the head would turn yellow/black, and fade away. At this point, I'd continue bandaging for about a week and then call it good. One thing to note, be careful with ACV on the actual shaft of your penis (obviously if you're female, this doesn't matter). I got a little overaggressive, treated for too long, and would up with some minor scarring. If you are unsure, just have a doctor/dermatologist curette lesions on the penis, but after they've been curetted KEEP THEM COVERED FOR A FEW DAYS.
After about 2 months of this, I was declared clear. I have held off on posting this until just now, 1 month later in order to be more reasonably sure.
Random advice: Obviously, if the lesions are present in hairy regions, you will need to trim them but DO NOT SHAVE as cutting the lesions open seems to make them spread. I think it is critically important to keep lesions covered up, whether or not you are applying apple cider vinegar. Molluscum might transmit to the skin next to it regardless of whether or not you have it covered but at least by covering the lesions up, you are preventing it from transmitting by rubbing against other. I bleached ALL of my underwear and washed my towels after each use. I washed very carefully in the shower, isolating regions for cleaning and washing my hands between each region (probably excessive but I wasn't taking any chances). I switched over to using paper towels for hand drying as well. I think some of the stuff I was doing was likely just OCD and pretty excessive but I wasn't taking any chances and I mean it worked. The most important things are the apple cider vinegar application and keeping the lesions covered.
LASTLY: While I can't advise you not to listen to doctors, my experience with them was that they did not know as much about this condition as they let on. Research into it seems woefully incomplete and doctors base their decisions on personal experience (limited) and research (here- incomplete). You know your body better than a doctor does, and you are far more invested in your condition than any doctor will be. They are not infallible. Make your own judgments and ALWAYS err on the side of caution. Best of luck to everyone, I really hope this helps. Remember, not having sex while you have this is a bummer, but use the time to learn a new skill. You can turn this awful condition into something positive.
TL;DR- USE APPLE CIDER VINEGAR- IT WORKS
AnnieOne1987:
Thank you, very informative, I have a question – has anyone tried shungite water? One of my friends advised me to try it, in his case it helped. If anybody faced this situation and tried it please advise.
mcv_dad:
Hi, I have heard that eugen oil works well. Mollenol also.
koolmelee:
Seems like quite a few people have various ways of treating this. I'll be brief and give my current status & what I'm trying:
Status 9/15/2015
* Noticed bump on stomach that looked like pimple. Attempted to pop without success. Attempted to shave around the area.
Status 10/1/2015
* 14 lesions(13 on stomach, 1 forming on penis). Spread on stomach likely due to shaving, not sure how one formed on penis though
A couple weeks later(10/13/2015), the lesions are still there, so I attempted the following treatment:
* Heat up something metal on a candle and apply to each lesion - helped with removing the outer skin layer, but painful
* Scrub with qtip dipped in rubbing alcohol to remove the outer layer of skin
* Dip gauze/cotton balls in 75% apple cider vinegar/25% tea tree oil and cover lesions and tape on. Keep on for 1hour
* Result: Most lesions started growing outward a bit as if inflamed and then turned brown/blackish and scabbed up a little. I'll update this later when I know if I've gotten rid of it!
* Side effects: Minor skin drying/chemical burning where applied
Status 10/19/2015
* Skin peeling/turning pink around where I chemically burned it - not super painful though.
* Scabs remained, so I peeled them off and saw white area under the 3 of the scabs(not sure if this is virus or just my skin 10 layers under)
* Reapplied apple cider vinegar/tea tree oil as spot treatments for 1hr to the 3 areas and they seem to be browning again.
Status 10/22/2015
* Skin peeled off a bit where chemically burned, but healing now
* Scabs still there on larger lesions, but peeling off.
* No signs of further molluscum contagiasum lesions, and existing lesions seem to be healing up and don't show signs of the virus either!
Overall, my approach is extremely aggressive. I don't really fear pain/scarring so I tried to tackle this as quickly as possible.
So I got rid of this in about 1 week with agressive treatment. I believe the initial treatment on 10/13 eradicated it, but I did follow up treatments to be sure. They key seems to be the anti-viral properties of apple cider vinegar and tea tree oil!
I'm not sure if it's just in my head, or what, but I feel like I have more energy now that the virus is gone!
Follow up suggestions:
* Spot treat each lesion individually. I had covered a large infected area with single piece of gauze and ended up with chemical burns on a larger area of my skin than was necessary
* Do not shave the area to prevent it from spreading
* Wash hands/sterilize anything you use to contact lesions, preferably with alcohol
* Showering before treatment seems to puff up the lesions a bit(perhaps bringing the virus closer to the surface)
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