I was diagnosed with Pityriasis Rosea by a specialist after initially being wrongly diagnosed as having a fungal infection for which my GP gave me a course of Itraconazole which obviously did nothing to assist the rashes. I read a posting on this site by 'littlebum' and one other (whose name I can't remember) in Sept in which they said that steriods and penicillin cured their rashes. I spoke to my GP and asked for the same. He prescribed oral steriods (6 a day-5mg) and Betamethasone (0.1%) external cream with penicillin (4 a day 250mg), and low and behold, the rashes, which were extensive and had taken hold all over my chest, stomach, groin, arms, armpits, neck (front and back), bottom, lower and upper back, all cleared up and totally disappeared.
The specialist said that I was likely to have the rashes until the end of October, and that they could possibly last until December even, therefore I have no doubt, that despite the fact that the GP's and specialists say the condition is self-limiting, i.e. it clears up eventually on its own, that the steroids and penicillin assisted greatly to get rid of the horrible rashes which were all over my body, and did so in a period of just 5 days.
My thanks to 'littlebum' and the other person for posting their experiences, which if I had not read, I would probably still be sitting at home wallowing about how terrible my body looked. Fortunately my body is 100% back to normal without any remnants of the rashes that were all over me. You would never guess that I ever had any type of rash on my body just over a week ago, which is now completely blemish free!!
So the moral of my story is medication does seem to make a difference (possibly speeding up the recovery process) and the body does return to normal despite the fact that it looks horrifying each time you look at it with the rashes all over you and when you think this is never going to clearup or even if it does, it will surely leave some scars...
I hope this helps some of you out there who are in the thick of it just like I was a couple weeks ago as I know how I was feeling then, and I'm so relieved now that it's all over and done with... Good luck!!