Hello all you red eyebrow sufferers!
I am a 45 year old female. I have always had KP of the upper arms as long as I can remember. I first noticed red spots in my eyebrows about 8-9 years ago. This redness got progressively, yet slowly worse over the years. Six years ago I was diagnosed (misdiagnosed) with dermatitis, and was given samples of DesOwen cream which helped over a period of approx. 2 years. When the redness became noticably worse, I saw another dermatologist, who seemed to think I might have an autoimmune disorder. He performed a biopsy of my left eyebrow (I'm left with an ugly scar) which only showed increased eosinophils in the tissue. I underwent intradermal steriod injections, and a year of topical clobetesal rx with little improvement. I eventually became dependent on the steroids to the point that they no longer even helped, and so decided to stop using them. At this point the redness rebounded and I lost alot of eyebrow hair. I eventually found my diagnosis with images of ulerythema ophryogenes online. 21/2 years ago (after discontinuing the steriods) I began seeing a dermatology group at Boston Medical Center. I have since tried topical retinol, topical metronidazole, azlaleic acid, elidel (which made my skin very red and burned), numerous vitamins, cessation of parabens, all to no avail. The redness has lessened quite a bit, and I'm left with pink, uneven skin where my outer eyebrows used to be. This condition seems to be affecting my whole eyebrow, as I have lost 2/3 of each eyebrow.
I was encouraged to read that some of you have had success with minoxidil. I began using it 2 weeks ago, and have noticed an increase in hair loss (I guess this is normal?), and more lately, redness and irritation. I am anxious to hear from anyone who is having success with any product. I am also taking a DHT blocker.
This condition is disfiguring and very frustrating. It's nice to be able to share some of this with folks who know what its like!

Wow, so many of us take different roads to get here to the same place with the same problem. Nice to hear other approaches, but not good to hear that they didn't work. I can honestly say you've tried things I haven't and I've tried a lot. Odd thing about your case is it started so late in life...most of the ones I hear about start around age 10-14. I'm still on my regimented treatment every day and have 1 month under my belt. I can tell you at this point, no change. I've been applying minoxidil each night and using Retin-A on the weekend, with Eucerin Redness Relief each morning along with Hydrocortizone 2% and sometimes Carmol-40. I mix it up because one thing will not work, it's a combination of treatments, or so every derm tells me. We'll see. The 4 month mark will be critical. That is where others have gotten to see the Minoxidil grow more noticible hair. Keep us up to date, we are all in this together and noone else is looking out for us. God bless.

I just started a new regimen with my son. Homeopathy. Very expensive but if it works it will be worth it. He is 14 and his skin and eyebrows (lack of) bothers him greatly. He could care less about the bumps on his body. I will let you know how it works. Spent a whole lot of money for an appointment and the homeopathic "medicine". Funny thing is that I don't believe that it will work.

Dear seahawk,

I think you should try the laser on your eyebrows... take a look at some posts on that topic here. That should take care of the redness.
Good Luck !!!

Marky

Just be aware they will shave whatever is there to get good laser contact. I'd like to hear from someone who has done the PDL laser on their brows and been effective. I had one PDL session and nothing.

I had 2 laser treatments about a year ago-no relief of redness or hair loss. Also I forgot to mention that I apparently have a scarring-type of U.O., because where there was hair, the skin is pink, shiny, with an uneven surface. I have been reading about accutane, how it can "control" this disorder; it has too many side effects for me to consider using, but I have increased my intake of vitamin A (since accutane is a synthetic form of it) as of yesterday, just to see. I did read that inadequate levels of vit. A are implicated in acne and other keratin-disorders. The FDA recommended daily amount is pitifully small-I am taking about 20,000 IU's (derived from cod-liver oil) which is the max amount one should take. We shall see-I would love to beat this frustrating condition!

Seahawk, I have the same thing, pink uneven and scared. Let me know if Vita A helps...I'm afraid I'm too far into this to have hair regrow, but I'm trying. You know there is a procedure called Eyebrow hair transplant where they take a graf of skin with small hairs from the back of your neck...that would be extreme, but permanent fix. Still debating.

Has anyone told you that you can transplant hair follicles into scarred skin? Be great if they could. I've seen some before and after pictures of eyebrow transplantation-it looks pretty decent. Do you pencil-in where your eyebrows are missing? I do, but it looks funky in the light of day! I keep ruminating that this disease has something to do with androgens and vitamin A-I'm driving myself batty. Also, my redness/irritation seems to come and go without any apparent external triggers, although I think this most recent exacerbation last week was due to the minoxidil, which I had used for 2 weeks, but have now stopped. Ugh!

No one has told me that. I've heard you can do single hair transplants up to 500! Or do a skin graf to replace the damaged scared skin which will make a new scar around the edges which can be treated to look normal with care, then transplant more hair.

That sounds pretty radical, but I'm getting desperate too! I am looking in to fake eyebrows-the kind you glue on. I'll let you know if they turn out to look good or not.

If anyone hears anything else out about methods of eyebrow hair transplants or locations that perform it, I would be very interested. Like many of you, I have tried almost everything and my condition has been present since infancy. I'm 23 years old now and I think a hair transplant is the only thing that would work for me and perhaps many of you. I haven't been able to find much on this kind of procedure.