For the past year-and-a half I have been dealing with what I believe to be demodex mite festation on my head face and neck and back. I will contribute what I learned, and how I was able to save my skin. I’m currently 90% cured and optimistic about my future outcome, though it’s a day-to-day thing. My symptoms, treatment and skin care continue to evolve.
For a year-and-a-half I struggled with bumps, sores and rashes on my head, neck and face. Initially, I thought it was warts, then for many months thought it was a fungal infection. I treated this supposed fungal infection with many anti-fungal creams, pills, and folk remedies with little success. I also went on an anti fungal diet. I experimented with Sodium Chlorite (MMS - Miracle Mineral Solution) using it topically and orally which helped, but was tricky to work with, as was garlic. Both garlic and MMS have to be used carefully when applied to skin as both will burn skin after more than 20 minutes applied undiluted. The main thing that really worked was baking soda applied topically as a paste, and MMS as topical spot treatment. Baking soda had the advantage of being readily available, cheap and safe, but was a bit messy to use.
After many moths of trying many anti-fungal creams and diets, they did not help. Ketoconazole cream did help a bit, it is rx in the US, but I was able to get a tube in Mexico where prescription is not required. I went through a tube of ketoconazole that improved my symptoms, but when it ran out, I tried the Nizoral shampoo which did not help (Nizoral shampoo has ketoconazole as an active ingredient). After the nizoral proved ineffective I tried more OTC antifungal creams all to no avail. All the while, I would revert to baking soda and/or sodium chlorite as effective but challenging treatments, but these were no silver bullets, though they did help
After a year of dealing with this problem, I came across the idea that mites live in the skin and are a source of rosacea and skin problems. The doctor who talked about this claimed that rosacea would improve after sufferers applied ivermectin to their skin thereby killing the microscopic mites (demodex).
This sounded like a promising lead, so I decided to treat my skin with the new mite infestation hypothesis. A brief search revealed that an insect repellent ingredient I already had in my cabinet was effective in killing skin mites. The ingredient was deet, which I had in the form of wipes from the brand Bug X. These wipes contained 10% deet. So for the next three days I applied these wipes once a day on my affected areas, adding some DMSO to enhance absorption, and leaving it on my skin for about an hour. I should note that on these days I also used apple cider vinegar (diluted with water)  for the first time, separately, also leaving it on for about an hour (later I used ACV undiluted for long periods of time with few side effects). Every day after this new treatment regimen, my skin improved substantially. After the third day, I stopped the use of deet since it’s toxic to humans in large amounts, and I was feeling side effects of lethargy and fatigue. Since then, I’ve only used deet as spot treatment, but continued using apple cider vinegar since my skin seemed to like it with little to no side effects. However, I suspect that the deet is what made the difference, the ACV also seemed to help.
There are other pesticides available in the form of common insect repellent like permethrin, which I tried but was unsure of the effects since deet and ACV had already done most of the work. The permethrin I tried was possibly too low concentration .25% compared to prescription 5% cream. After my supply of Bug X wipes ran out, I got a bottle of 40% deet from Walmart, which I used as spot treatment.
My symptoms plateaued, mostly gone but not entirely, since I was leery of using too much neurotoxic pesticide. I also found evidence of scabies on my back and arms and buttox, which were caused by a different species of mites apart from those on my head and face (demodex). I had had symptoms of these scabies for years in the form of small calluses and jet trail patterns but weren’t much of a problem nor did I know what they were (until now).
Continued research revealed that common prescriptions for scabies and demodex infestations were ivermectin, moxidectin, and metronidazole, which were said to be safe when taken as prescribed. They all require prescription for human consumption but are easy to acquire when intended for pets or animals. You can get all of these on eBay, Amazon and pet supply stores, but marketed and masked under different names. You just have to adjust the dose for your human weight.
Moxidectin is newer than ivermectin and said to be an improvement, so I bought moxidectin as horse paste dewormer and acquired metronidazole in the form of aquarium fish care product API General Cure, which also contained praziquantel as a secondary ingredient, on eBay for 25$ and 15% respectively. I’ve been using these two products for the past two weeks and my symptoms are almost completely gone (though early on I experienced an outbreak of sores, which I suspect is a reaction from mass die-off.)  Both products can be used orally or topically, but the API General Cure tastes quite bad. Later I was able to get and use ivermectin as well, and added it to my rotation.
I also started using natural ingredient based insect repellents in the form of sprays and wipes containing clove oil, peppermint, cinnamon oil, etc. These I used more liberally than the synthetic pesticides since they seem safer and smell nice. I could leave these on my skin for long periods of time without irritation.
I also used bentonite clay (Indian Healing Mask), and also used borax soap scrubs as many people recommend borax soap. I didn't really take to the borax, but I enjoyed using the bentonite clay. A favorite go to technique when all else failed was applying a baking soda (paste) mask and leaving it on for an hour before rinsing. I also used DMSO quite a lot with all the aforementioned ingredients.
Just recently I started taking full body baths in a tub (for those of us with tubs in our bathroom), with a mix of the aforementioned ingredients (mix-and-match), or premade ingredients like Dr Teals bath products. I hardly have any symptoms now, but I’ve kept up a maintenance regime since I’ve found that symptoms tend to return after a while of doing nothing.