Time to wipe that smug grin off your face, Acne.

Well, guys. I did it. I bit the bullet, and now Accutane is in my near future. It's been a long struggle with this silly acne, and I'll admit, it's given me a run for my money. But I'm here to end this nonsense, and I've got an excellent dermatologist and a course of the big guns for it to try and survive through. If it does, well...it won't, so I won't postulate further on that.

I get my blood work done tomorrow, and my course begins Friday. I've always had issues with acne, and I've tried a lot of stuff (DIM, fish oil, chromium, niacin, Benzaclin, glycolics, Duac/Tazorac combo that actually worked but did nothing for my body acne, tetracycline, doxycycline, etc.) Some of it has worked somewhat. Here's a picture of me, about...hmm, six months ago.

[img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3906/6monthsbeforedermvisit.png[/img]

Look at that guy. Doesn't he look like buckets of fun? He's a happy one, he is.

Well, in short, my dermatologist refused to continue prescribing me my meds, because I wouldn't come in for another consultation. Now, you may ask, why? Why not go in?

Well, for one, she's in another city, and I am off at college. I'm too busy. She could've refilled my stuff and everything would've been fine. But she didn't, and this is what I have to look at these days.

[img]http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/6492/day1dermvisit.png[/img]

[img]http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/594/day1dermvisitleft.png[/img]

[img]http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7898/day1dermvisitright.png[/img]

Just in time for college. Oh boy, lemme tell ya, it's loads of fun.

So, today, I walked for 30 minutes to reach my dermatologist's office, ready to fight for my right to Accutane. I was willing to kill to get it if I had to. I went in and waited, studying for a test later in the day, and before long I was talking to a nurse, who reluctantly mentioned Accutane. I heard that sweet whisper and expressed my interest in the drug, and she wanted me to consider other options. This fight was not going to be easy.

My doctor finally walked in. He took one look at me, and the first words out of his mouth were, "What do you know about Accutane?" Well, after introductions and such. The point is, he knew what I was there for, and he was willing to hand it over. Added bonuses include the fact that my pharmacy is a four minute walk from the dorm. Hooray!

So, this is the beginning of my log. I will be keeping a journal here as often as possible describing the side effects, and posting pictures monthly to show my progress. I hope that, after six months, my problems will be solved.

My dosage is 40mg/day.

I'm ready.

Something to try.

I've had bacne since middle school. My facial acne was always a problem, sometimes to the point of me giving up, but I have been able to correct it (for the most part, I still get a few pimples every once in a while) with a Duac/Tazorac alternation every day and proper exfoliation when I shower (twice a day). Bacne, though, has been a little bitch the whole time, because I can't use the Duac on it for fear of bleaching my clothes and sheets. I didn't want to use the Tazorac, either, because I wanted to save all of it for my face. After all, my face is what people see. I haven't been shirtless in public in about 7 years.

So, I finally decided I'm going to correct this. And I've tried so much. My prescribed Tetracyclin and Doxycyclin or whatever didn't work. I got this Clindamycin treatment from my derm that didn't work. I tried Head and Shoulders Classic Clean, which only burned my skin (left it on all day). I tried Witch Hazel, which smelled so bad that I had to stop. I tried glycolics but they only helped the scarring, not the acne. And more and more times I was invited swimming or hot tubbing and I had to refuse and lie. My friends accuse me of being aquaphobic.

Then I found apple cider vinegar. I applied it once daily with a cotton ball. Upon seeing results, I bumped the usage up to twice daily. And when everything seemed to be going my way, it stopped working.

DAMMIT.

Well, I have a new regimen now that seems to be working quite nicely. I've combined the vast majority of the things I have been experimenting with, and here's what I do now.

Morning Shower:
Preliminary washing, using hot water.
Apply Head and Shoulders (Ocean something. It claims to have sea salt in it, which I have heard helps acne) to my back, chest, and shoulders. Leave on for five minutes.
Wash off H&S, turn off the hot water and rinse cold to close the pores.
After getting out of the shower, spray body with mixture of epsom salts and water (the ratio is something along the lines of "fill the bottle halfway with epsom salts, and then fill it with hot water and let it dissolve"). Massage into skin, wipe hands and let air dry.

Arriving home from school:
Apply Glytone lotion to skin (got it from derm, never used it because it didn't help acne, just scarring)

Night Shower:
Preliminary Washing
Apply Head and Shoulders Ocean Breeze or Mist or whatever for 5 minutes.
Rinse H&S with hot water, put on scrubbing/exfoliating gloves and apply Irish Spring Anti-Microbial soap bar with the gloves.
Rinse cold.

Pat self dry with a CLEAN TOWEL.



So far, I'm seeing very positive results. I'll post pics soon. Unfortunately, I never took any at the height of the outbreaks, but I can try to look for some similar cases on Google.

This may have merit (Tea Tree)

I had to go to Cancun for a week with family. Only one family member knew of my body acne, but she still found it hard to understand that I didn't want to swim because I didn't want my shirt to come off, which would expose the scarring and such to not only everyone at the resort, but also to the sun, darkening scars and making them even more of a bitch to get rid of. That, and I despise alcoholics/casual drinkers/anyone drunk within 200 feet of me. Which was everyone at the pool.

So, while my time was relaxing, I do wish I had gotten to swim. In truth, my body acne had gotten much better in the previous week to the Cancun excursion. Thanks to Jason Tea Tree Body Lotion.

Bought it at Walmart for cheap. Don't remember how cheap, possibly $7. Cleared up active marks very quickly (within a week, though it's been slowly getting better over time. Guess the Tea Tree was the final purge, so to speak). I've only gotten a few more since then, but my main problem now is red marks. My dermatologist prescribed me...Clindo something...Evoclin? For my body, which should help me with maintaining clarity, and Glytone for red marks. Things are looking up big time.


So, I suggest you give Jason Tea Tree Lotion a try. Why not?

Hello, fellow sufferers.

I'm Kirbatha, or K, or Kirby, or whatever you want. 5'10", 130 lbs., blonde hair, blue eyes, fading acne marks on my face and a newly found faith in Head and Shoulders shampoo for body acne.

How are you guys?

Crazy as it sounds...(H&S Topic)

Okay, here's a little history on me.

I was a quiet little kid in elementary. Always did my work, never broke the rules (to the teachers' knowledge), liked to write (still do), a nice guy. When my parents got divorced, I wasn't affected at all, aside from having to go back and forth an hour's drive every weekend.

Fifth grade I was forced to move with my mother, who had moved back to the city and lived about a half hour away. At the time, I wasn't a fan of my new stepdad because he was a lot more strict than my actual dad and didn't put up with our whiny BS (I sympathize with him now). We lived in a sucky neighborhood across the street from some dealers and down the street from a house where four people were murdered within the first few months of our residing there. The school was balls and had some really stupid rules (honestly, it's brainwashing or something of the sort to force elementary schoolers to tuck in their shirts. It might not seem like much, but coming from a much more free school, this was entirely unacceptable.) I had a few friends but I was mostly pissed because I was forced to move away from all of my other friends, after my parents promised they wouldn't do that to me and my two siblings.

In sixth grade, I think the acne bug bit me, though it was simple stuff and easily cured by 10% BP Equate cream from Wal-Mart. Middle school drama began taking place, I formed new friendships and destroyed others, and seventh grade rolled along with my acne suddenly becoming out of control. We tried just about every medicine out there, short of dermatologist recommendations, to no avail. It didn't affect me too badly, but it was around that time that I began getting really pissed at the world and people in general. In my mind, I don't associate it with getting acne, but I think it very likely had at least a minor role in my sudden emoness.

Eighth grade sucked even worse, because I had to take P.E. for a full year, and the bane of my existence - body acne - was setting in. It was originally just my back, and my gym locker was in the corner of the dressing room, so I could just face whoever I was talking to and hide the problem. It spread and spread, though, until I eventually had to learn to change shirts underneath other shirts, which looked ridiculous, but for some reason people thought it was a cool skill and wanted to learn as well. Stupid middle schoolers. My face problems intensified.

I didn't have to worry about my body acne in 9th grade, because I didn't have a P.E. class, nor did I ever do anything that required me to take my shirt off. I was slightly happier because my acne was responding positively (yet only slightly) to my dermatologist's prescriptions, Benzaclin and some other ridiculous method of shredding off whatever face I still had. My acne was gone, it seemed, until I realized that the only reason it was so was because my face was so red that all of the red marks and such had blended in. So, we switched dermatologists my sophomore year.

My new dermatologist was a godsend. She prescribed Tazorac and Duac (which is know is basically Benzaclin), Duac in the morning and Tazorac at night, and I've seen such a huge improvement in my face. I got the courage to ask out a girl I met and liked since meeting her on July 4, 2005, and she said yes (more like "Yes, finally!").

However, my body acne problem continued to tear at me. By tenth grade I had already become a much, much, much more agreeable person and had won the hearts of my school's theatre troupe, and acting became one of my passions. I remember in my first show, the makeup did not fully conceal my acne, and it was slightly depressing to see myself in a mirror under fluorescent lighting, caked in foundation and still acnified. Shows went past as time followed its course, and no longer do my red marks shine through stage makeup, and they are much less noticeable in general now.

But, this past summer, '07, I found myself in a dilemma. My friend wanted me to come with her to Schlitterbahn (a waterpark in Texas) for her birthday. I wanted so badly to go, but with my moderate body acne I was resistant. Finally, I agreed, and ended up wearing a thin gray shirt the entire day. My excuses?

"Are you going to take your shirt off?"
"And blind everyone within ten miles?"
"Haha, no, really?"
"I'm on an antibiotic so I'm supposed to limit sun exposure."
"Oh, okay. Cool, then."

"Hey, aren't you going to ride the waterslide with us?"
"I'm wearing contacts. I don't want water to splash in my eyes and lose them,"
"So close your eyes,"
"Well, then I can't see the waterslide."
"Fine..."

I still had a blast, because I had not been swimming in years since developing my condition.

But now, nearing the end of my junior year, I'm noticing that I really want to nuke this mutha****a and get my skin in shape. So, as I've been doing for years, I lurked around this board and found what I thought was quite a peculiar solution. Head and Shoulders shampoo. I happened to have a bottle on hand, and had thought for a long time that one cause of my bacne might've been the shampoo I was using drying on my back and clogging pores and such, so I started using H&S on my body and hair.

I am utterly shocked.

While I have only been using it for a few days, I'd have to say I've seen about a 50% improvement in my back, chest, and shoulders (I can't attribute this completely, as for about two weeks prior I had been taking epsom salt baths, but those got so boring). I've been trying to stop picking and popping for a while and I think that has had a positive effect as well. I'm not yet ready to go outside shirtless yet (nor outside my room...) but I think this H&S experiment has some value to it. I am going on a cruise on August 8, during which I plan on tanning this pale German vampire skin of mine, and hopefully by then (hopefully LONG before then), I will no longer have to worry about the dreadful curse of body acne I've been afflicted with all this time.

I'm actually determined now to better myself. This is just the beginning. Once my body acne has vanished (or gotten close), I plan on buying myself some athletic clothes and starting to run to lose the little layer of fat over my abs (I'm a ****ing twig, one of three in my theatre troupe, but not anorexic-skinny like one of them and heroin-skinny like the other), fix up my heart and lungs and such (because airsoft can get pretty intense around here), make an effort to take care of myself. When summer rolls around, I want to be at the pool every day, like the old days at my dad's house.

Hopefully, this method continues to fix me up and I can tackle this little thing we call life with clear skin.

((Pardon the life story, I feel it makes the reader feel closer to the situation.))