Dandruff!!

Factual Questions
1

This sucks! I don’t get dandruff! Other people get dandruff!

Two questions:

  1. What is causing this?! I bathe daily, I get plenty of sleep, I eat nutritiously. I am in good health. Why so I have dandruff all of a sudden?

  2. What can I do to get rid of it? I know there are lots of shampoos for it in the U.S., but I am in Japan. I could go looking for one…but is there some sort of simple home remedy or something? Is washing with regular shampoo making it worse? If I don’t wash my hair for a week will it go away on its own?

This is so disgusting! Help!!

2
  1. What is causing this?
    Who knows? Possibly a genetic susceptibility to colonization by Pityrosporum ovale.

I bathe daily, I get plenty of sleep, I eat nutritiously. I am in good health.
Good for you.

Why so I have dandruff all of a sudden?
Why shouldn’t you? Sleeping, eating, and being in good health have nothing to do with it.

  1. What can I do to get rid of it?

Use a shampoo that contains ketoconazole (sold as Nizoral in the U.S.).
Here’s a reference: “Successful treatment and prophylaxis of scalp seborrhoeic dermatitis and dandruff with 2% ketoconazole shampoo: results of a multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial” by Peter RU, Richarz-Barthauer U published in Br J Dermatol 1995 Mar;132(3):441-5 Abstract can be found at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7718463&dopt=Abstract

3

Why is the first response to all of my questions always from a smartass?

A little more please, if you don’t mind, about “Pityrosporum ovale.” I am not familiar with the term.

4

Forget it…found a site with info on dandruff and what causes it. Going to look at the drug store…but I am not hopeful. Feel free to close this one up if you want.

5

is to attribute dandruff to a fungus similar to the one which causes tinea. So while OTC anti-dandruff shampoos will lessen the symptoms, only killing the fungus will get rid of it totally.

Nizoral does work, but here at least is very expensive. There’s a new preparation which has recently been released here and requires a prescription, so if you have access to cheap health care, I’d suggest talking to a doctor rather than wasting money on expensive shampoos which will treat the symtoms but not the cause.

6

I have found that shampooing daily with Pert Plus keeps dandruff away. It only seems to occur when I neglect to shampoo my hair.

7

Kyomara,

I just asked my SO about dandruff shampoos in Japan, and she recommended Merit, made by Lion. There are probably several other brands that are just as good, though.

–sublight.

8

Thanks, Sublight. I actually felt kind of silly about freaking out and posting a thread when all I had to do was dip into the nearest yakkyokuya-san and ASK. What a crazy idea.

I got some stuff from a company called Mochida, and it seems to be working so far. I tried to find the brand whose active ingredient most closely approximated “Nizoral” when I looked at the katakana and squinted my eyes a little bit. I think I found it…

Smells kind of chemically and gross though.

9

Um, Kyomara, I think it’s fair to say that you owe Yeah a WHOPPING big apology. Looks to me as though you had your answer pretty quickly…