Since getting acne, I have come a long way in my maturity and understanding of my body. Both have a very long way to go, however I think some people may find some use in what I have found.

When I first started getting acne, I was in 5th grade and would get maybe one pimple every few months.

Then just did not get acne until I was about 17. I started getting 2 or 3 at a time. Once again, I did not really care because I just thought it was normal. My parents felt bad and my mom started suggesting things I could to "control" my acne. Naturally, "mom is right," I did it. I started using Stridex Pads. Of course, I did not use the sensitive ones, I wanted MAXIMUM! You know, get rid of that acne fast and hardcore! These pads seemed to help a little bit, if anything they made my skin feel chilly when I put it on, so it must be doing something. Over time though, they had no effect on my acne, and it just gradually got worse. Then my mother, bless her heart, decided to suggest a dermatologist. The dermatologist suggested using facial washers before showering. So of course the doctor is right so I did just that. My skin felt cleaner, yet the acne still kept coming, seemingly worse too.

Anyone feel similar yet?

So next the dermatologist suggested Benzaclin, which is benzoyl peroxide basically. I started using this and it only made a small dent in my acne at first, but almost not noticeable. So now I was getting frustrated! I wanted some serious stuff.

My thinking was the harder my acne fought, the harder I should fight back.

So then my dermatologist prescribes me Tazorak! The bottle of Tazorak suggested a "pea" sized amount be applied to the whole face. How you spread a pea sized amount of ointment all over the face without getting a whole lot more in one area than the other, I do not know. Anyways, my face broke out with not just acne, but a horrible facial rash mostly on my chin. I did not go to school for the next few days. It was disgusting.

So now I go to the doctor and she suggests Accutane. I research it and supposedly it is just this "miracle cure" for acne. However, I am an anti pill-for-problem person, so I just was not sure about it and ended up turning it down.

I gave up my fight on acne. I threw in the towel and just said whatever.

After I just stopped doing everything, my acne disappeared in three days. I was completely acne free for about 11 months (usually one pimple a week, but I consider this a success for an 18 year old)

My mother noticed my success and commented on it and asked what I was doing. I told her I had stopped the Tazorak and she deduced it had aggravated my skin too much. Then she warned me that I had better start doing at least SOMETHING to my skin so I did not get acne again.

So I started washing my face 3 times a day with soap. I started getting more pimples, so then I figured I should start semi-treating them with Stridex again. Needless to say, I traveled a similar path again... No Tazorak again or anything, but still treating my skin.

I have seen a lot of people around here advocating the idea of "doing nothing." The only person I can name is Adam08, so you could start by looking him up and seeing the threads he is active in.

I think many people could get relief by giving their skin a break from the beating they give it.
I also think many people could get relief by giving themselves a break from beating up themselves over acne. The most useful tool I have found in the battle against acne is to just quit worrying about it.

All you people applying your multiple solutions daily looking at your dried out, red, inflamed skin multiple times a day are spending so much time in front of the mirror criticizing yourself and your skin.

Another realization I came to is that confidence is the final factor in how men and women will treat you. In the beginning of my junior year, before I even had acne, I started to figure this out. Then when I got acne, I let myself forget about that, and became very self conscious. It wasn't until I cleared up for my first time that my confidence shot up again. Then I realized that people treated me no different when I had acne or when I didn't. They treated me different because I was treating them differently when I was worried about my face. I was acting shy and sort of scared when I had bad acne, so they would treat me like a shy, scared, person. This past time when I had a horrible acne outbreak, I tried to act as confident as I could. I had no close friends because I just started college, so all the people I was talking to was usually for the first time. I found that acting confident was all I needed for friends or respect.

In Karma89's signature, he encourages anyone to show him a person who has actually cured their acne with the use of topical medication. I further implore anyone here to show me, and him, someone who has actually had permanent success with topicals.

I agree with Adam's stand point in just thinking that letting your acid mantle come back will help your skin. However, I would also like to go deeper into this method and why it may work. You may think you are stress free, yet every time you go outside, look at yourself in the mirror, talk to someone new, talk to a friend, you are constantly thinking about your acne. It at least enters your head some of the time.

As soon as you quit checking out your facial status every time you pass a reflective object, you forget how good or bad your face is. You lose any reason to worry. You lose acne.
Even if you do not lose your acne, you still feel better. It does not matter how bad your acne is, your goal is to ultimately feel good about yourself. Your goal is to be happy. You can achieve this whether or not you actually beat acne.

Achieving this can also help you beat acne.

-SnoW

Good post. I had similar experiences when using lots of products and topicals. My acne only got worse and not only that, my skin tone was all over the place. Now that I've stopped nearly everything except water and a moisturizer(winter dries me out badly so I need this) my skin is slowly returning back to a more healthy toned glow. My oil production is also a lot more balanced, my skin texture looks great and I *think* my acid mantle is starting to become healthy and functioning again because it definitely wasn't a few months ago. I still have marks left over unfortunately but the marks were mainly from bad pimples caused from irritation of products like BP. If I never touched any products in the past I probably wouldn't have any of these deep marks. Sucks to know that if I just left my face alone when I was younger(other than maybe a gentle cleanser/just water) that I wouldn't have any of these marks. I still get the mild breakout occasionally but at least now I know they aren't from products or irritation that I'm causing and are most likely from stress/diet/hormones.

I also completely agree with ignoring skin for the most part. I have some weeks where I'm engaged in other things and I hardly even look or worry about my skin and then I only look at the end of the day and it looks fine. I feel the more I check and obsess, the worse it looks in my eyes because I "zoom in" on the blemishes rather than looking at my face as a whole(which is 10x better and that's what people see anyway).

I definitely think a simple regimen, not worrying/obsessing about it, staying active and not layering creams and lotions on your face is the best route to go with skin care.

Its not that easy to forget about the acne, recently ive started getting worse breakout around chin and my lips, and all my friends are asking me what happend to my face and making jokes like it looks like a yeast infection and so on, my family even asking what;s with all that crap around your lips and on your chin, I try to tell my self its not that bad but really when i get commented on it everyday I just know its effing bad.

I like this post!

Sometimes topicals and cleansers and toners and lasers and needles and pills and and and--just help people to get by and have hope that theyll find something that works. Because some acne products DO work.

But, of course, everything in moderation...

glad au natural works for you tho.

.

This post has been edited by Heir: Oct 17 2009, 05:02 PM

I remember when I first burned my face with Tazorak, one of my friends saw me and was like "holy crap, what happened to your face?!"

He was mostly interested to know what actually happened, because it really looked like I got burnt and I did not have acne like that the last time he saw me.

I do know your pain, I had teachers look at me funny and all that. It is hard to forget when you are talking to someone and they look down at your chin or something and you know exactly what they are doing.

You are always going to have those rude/ignorant people. Having acne has taught me to always keep eye contact with people, especially if they have any sort of blemish on their face.

Basically surround yourself with the people who like you for who you are. While I was recovering from my face burning, none of my friends commented on my acne, or even treated me differently.

Around this same time, I had a friend in one of my classes who was a very pretty girl who I thought could get just about any guy she wanted. I saw pictures of her boyfriend and his acne was HORRIBLE, yet somehow he landed her. I do not think most people scrutinize people over acne. The ones who do, you shouldn't care about. I think your family is genuinely trying to help you, like my mom was. From time to time when my dad sees me he will be like "whats on the side of your face" and I'll be like "acne..." and he'd say he thought I got punched or something bc of the red marks.

What I do know though is whenever I have acne, no matter how bad, my friends just seem to look right through it. They do not treat me any different. Even my girlfriend, who has pristine skin with pores so small that they are almost non-existent, just seems to never notice when I have acne. Coming to these realizations helped me overcome my problem.

Back to the original post, as soon as you start coming to these types of conclusions, you will just plain feel better about yourself. Whether or not your acne is doing good or not, you will still feel good. Feeling good is what we all want.

Another realization I came to, that I think I will edit into the original post, is that confidence is the final factor in how men and women will treat you. In the beginning of my junior year, before I even had acne, I started to figure this out. Then when I got acne, I let myself forget about that, and became very self conscious. It wasn't until I cleared up for my first time that my confidence shot up again. Then I realized that people treated me no different when I had acne or when I didn't. They treated me different because I was treating them differently when I was worried about my face. I was always acting shy and sort of scared when I had bad acne, so they would treat me like a shy, scared, person. This past time when I had a horrible acne outbreak, I tried to act as confident as I could. I had no close friends because I just started college, so all the people I was talking to was usually for the first time. I found that acting confident was all I needed for friends or respect.

This is a beautiful, uplifting post. You have MADE MY DAY!! Thank you! I could not agree more with your theory!

I totally agree with you about the confidence factor. All you need is a little confidence and you can get as much respect and friends as you want . Staring people in the eye when you're talking to them is one thing. Just believe in yourself really. My skin is in pretty bad shape and I do try to avoid the mirrors or seeing any reflection of myself while in public places only because if I dont see it, I imagine myself attractive and I find myself to confidence to live on. The only time I look in the mirror is before and after going into public. No mirrors no acne. You know the way I put it, it didn't sound as great as the OP.

I am glad this way of thinking can be helpful to some other people too.




It is still good to get two descriptions of the same idea.

as crazy as it sounds, the less i cared about my acne and tried to fight back, yes the better it seemed to get. i remember one point i completly gave up and accepted it after having some horrible breakouts, i forgot all about it for two weeks and was clear for a while, now a days i dont stress about my acne as much as i used to , its a little better, but still there. the strangest thing ive experinaced was that there is always a correlation with a state change, if you give up, there is a moment of relief, the relief allows your body to rest fully, you become healthier. This is one reason i now do mantras and transcendental meditation, the whole goal of the practice is to get everything off your mind and let it go not just acne all thoughts together.

It would be nice if this has an effect on my acne, but i guess i shouldnt really be paying to much attention or worrying about it.

I do agree that the mind has a big impact on your life, when battling acne. Having the rigth attitude and mindset can do wonders. My bigbrother used to have moderate-severe acne and of course he was extremly upset about it for a few years or so, however at one point he totally changed his thinking habits and attitude after reading some books or something about the powerful mind. Once again he became the total popular, social butterfly like he was before acne and he still is (though his acne is almost completely gone now).

Your mind is what tells your body what to do. It is basically on autopilot unless you learn how you can control it. It's great to hear about your brother. I am willing to bet his attitude changed before his acne changed.

I wish I had tried this all those years ago. I took the plunge after various topicals and meds and went for accutane which has sorted out my acne but left me with devestating side effects, notably chronic joint pain, sexual dysfunction and constant sickness. My brother who is 2 years my junior has never used anything on his face, hardly ever washes and only has a spot here and there every month or so, minor too.

God, what a regret. I urge everyone to try this before considering dramatic life-changing treatments like accutane.

I do agree that much of what you see on the outside is perception of a person. If you act confident, no matter your physical appearance then others will treat you in the same manner. Positive people are attractive.

I am very glad you have figured out what works for you. =)

I just hope I can aid others in coming to this realization.

the guy u are talkin about that says show me anyone who out grew his or her acne with the usage of topicals is my P I C ( partner in crime), karma89

Thanks you! Post has been edited to give him credit.

Yeah I noticed too that when I stopped caring about my acne it started magically getting better despite the shitty food I reincorporated into my diet and etc. Now I have started caring about it again and trying to treat it with this herbal bullshit that I am basically forced to take and it has gotten much fuckin worse!

fucking inspirational. I too tried this, and i will continue this.

but what is your stance on vitamins and supplements?

Just let go again bro.




It depends why you are taking those vitamins and supplements. If they are for your skin or acne, I am very against it. For example, taking extra zinc daily. This is of no use unless you have a cold. Personally, I do not take any vitamins. I do not see a problem with a multivitamin or anything like that though... I just never seem to bother.