18 replies to this topic

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So... this is my differin 0.3 plus doxycycline plus zoderm (6.5% benzoyl peroxide cleanser in a urea vehicle) log.

I just started all of it together today, went to a dermatologist for the first time yesterday. I use the cleanser and antiobiotic (100 mg/day) in the morning, and differin at night after cleansing with Garnier's detoxifying gel cleanser.

I have lots of acne and cysts and blackheads and all that fun stuff on my face, upper back, shoulders, and chest, and I started breaking out when i was 8 or 9 years old, so I've got tons of hyper-pigmentation too. My skin is crazy oily too. like CRAZY oily.

I'll only be on the doxy for a month, and if my skin isn't improving by then I'm going to start Accutane.

I asked my normal doctor about Accutane in November, and he gave me a rx for it, but i had to do jump through all the iPledge hoops and tests and sh*t, and finally finally finally (about 3 weeks ago) got a new script and i had my little card and I had answered the online questions, and I was literally in my car at the pharmacy holding my card and script when my parents decide they don't want to take the chance that my liver will implode, and to get a 2nd opinion.
Needless to say, I was incredibly pissed. I waited and filled stuff out and took tests for 4 months, all for nothing.

So, that is my little acne story <-- ha, it's a ninja

Also, my derm said to not use moisturizer... is it just me or does that sound weird? I'm afraid my skin will get really flakey and stuff...

Gosh, I sound whiny and such...I'm not really, the accutane story just makes it sound like i am

So....here we go...!

the thread title is from a beastie boys song by the way... hey, at least its interesting! haha

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bleeeh...
day 3.
my face is tight and dry, and the corners of my nose burn, and that whole chin/ upper lip/ sides of mouth area is really dry and flakey and looks pretty darn gross. but of course my skin still gets really oily. i'm very tempted to use moisturizer haha! i just hope it gets better!

i've had a few new white heads on my face, and more redness/ nodules on my upper back since i started.

i heard that the doxy works best if you take it on an empty stomach, and this morning about 30-40 mins after i took it (100mg) i felt really sick, like i was going to pass out, and i had a low fever (100.4 degrees). i was pretty nauseaus too, so i don't know if all that is from taking the doxyciclin by itself or not.

well, i have to go study now. fun fun fun!

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day 4.

the corners of my nose are peeling and flakey and they burn. ow. most of my face, pretty much all of it but my forehead, is flakey and peely, my forehead is just dry-ish. the upper part of my chin and under my nose and around my mouth burn too. and it's only day 4!

i gave in last night and used some of the body shop's aloe night cream on the really dry parts of my face, and it helped some. i also used a bit of moisturizer this morning under a wee bit of foundation. i also exfoliated yesterday and today, but it's still just...bleh!

my back and chest and all is just fine though.

aah my nose burns! it feels like i've had a cold for 2 weeks...

this had better get better! haha

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day 5.

the really dry, flakey, peely skin has spread to everything on face except my forehead. it's a resilient bugger haha! it still gets very oily though.

i have a spot on my chin under my lip that's quite red and raw and peely and hurts like heck. same with those little nose corner fold things.

the skin around my eyes is real dry too, which is weird... it's like the differin migrates lol. so i put some eye cream on tonight (haha, i have eye cream and i'm 16). i also put some on one of my cheeks and it helped a lot with the dryness...so i have one flakey cheek and one less-obviously flaky and a lot softer cheek haha.

the dryness is getting very embarrasing though
i didn't apply the differin over my whole face tonight- just on my forehead, on spot on my chin, and a wee bit on my nose.

my back/ chest/ etc isn't dry or anything though. it's just dandy. well, except for the acne of course haha.

i'm going to go to the body shop tomorrow and see if i can find a good gentle, moisturizing cleanser or cream or something.
bleh.

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day 7.

my skin on my face is very dry and peely and flakey and all that. nothing new there. but now my whole neck has been turning red and dry and rough and generally irritated looking/ feeling since yesterday. that's no fun. my back/ chest/ etc is still just fine. haha.

i got a cleanser, exfoliating scrub, and day cream from the body shop's aloe line yesterday, and i think it helps my skin look and feel a lot better, so that's good.

i haven't really gotten much new acne since i've started all these meds. a couple little things going on on my face that aren't really new, and general redness and unhappy bumps on back. so that's good i guess...?

i watched elizabethtown tonight with my dad. i liked it. a lot. i want to go on a road trip now! like, tomorrow haha

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day 8.

same old same old with my skin. peely and dry.
the rough/redness of my neck is spreading...a wee bit of my collar bone is very dry/ red now too yuck... it's very sensitive too.

i've pretty much given up on make up... my face is too flakey to hide the nastiness that is my face bleh...so it's pretty much just eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow...but i can't even do much of that because even my eyes are flakey adn dry! and i don't know why... the differin seriously migrates!

i went for a drive today in the convertible, and the sunset was soo pretty...but then it got cold and i got lost...and i was lost and cold...but then i eventually put the top down and then i got home. haha.

i know, great story.


y'all can say stuff y'know...don't be shy haha i don't bite...

later!

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day 10

the little corner-y parts of my nose are so raw...after i washed my face tonight, clear stuff was sort of oozing out of my pores there (looked like the stuff in an acne bump after the pus/ with the blood, you know what i mean? when you've squeezed out the other stuff) (ha, that's not gross at alll). and one spot was even bleeding a wee bit. gah!

most of my back is still the same. no improvement there. the bottom 1/2 of my neck, and part of my chest and back (like where a t-shirt collar is) is all red and very rough and dry and veerrryyy sensitive. i'm not digging that. it's also a weird sort of shiney?

i have a thing coming up in my left eyebrow, near the end of it...it's still skin-colored, but i can feel a lump forming grr.

also there's something going on in my left ear. ear acne is the worst! it hurts so bad! i'm going to have to load some BP on that spot tomorrow morning!

i've had lots of big acne spots (i absolutely hate the z and p acne words... i don't know why, they just sound so gross... that's why i say 'spots' and stuff... it's just bleh) in front of my ears, like where my sideburns would be if i were a guy... like, all lumped together and gross, but i think the differin is actually helping that- that whole area is pretty much healed, i haven't seen it without big open cysts and crap for months! those newer scars also seem a wee bit lighter...?

wow such a long post just talking about my skin! sorry

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day 11

my shoulders/ back have started to get a little dry. 2 or 3 new acne things popped up on my forehead today the little cyst coming up in my eyebrow is hard and painful, but still normal skin- coloured so you can't even see it, but still... bleh. my face skin is still dry, but i think the body shop aloe products are helping with that. i don't like how the moisturizer leaves my face shiny looking though, but i just put some cargo blu-ray mattifier over it and it helps. it's still too dry to use foundation or powder or anything that's been hard 'cause i'm so self conscious of my dozens of red spots and hyper pigmentation.
that's all folks!

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day 12

gah!
my chest/ shoulders where i've had that weird red dry thing going on has become itchy!

i've read that you should hold off the differin for 4 days before waxing, but i've also read that you should hold off for 2 weeks... i opted for the 4 day thing, so i didn't apply the differin for several days on my upper lip area and when i waxed it today it was normal but some of the immediate redness didn't go away like usual...and there are still red splotchy splotches...and it does not look good haha... it's like parts of a layer of skin dissapeared. so those spots kinda burn and look bad. i tried icing it, but it's still red even 7-8 hours after i waxed.
oops. guess i should have waited a few more days...? idk if that would have helped though.

anyways!
the mini-cyst sort of in my eyebrow came to a head and popped (admittedly with a wee bit of help ... ). other than that i only have 5 or so 'active' acne spots on my face, so that's good. but my back and such still has a lot going on.

the dryness is getting better though! that's good.

gosh this whole post sounds so gross. haha. sorry

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day 19

wow, i knew i hadn't updated in a few days, i didn't know it'd been a whole week. oops. i've just been busy with school and stuff. i babysat till midnight last night gah!

so all the bright red skin erosion around my mouth has gotten a lot better, i only have 2 spots left to heal.

my back/ chest/ shoulders have gotten a heck of a lot worse in the past few days. there's lots of acne, and the skin is very sensitive and red and burns uugh, i don't like that. everything irritates it, and that whole area has started to realy dry out and flake off. just lovely, eh!

my face is just bleh. i think some of my nose blackheads have gotten a wee bit better, and i don't have much active acne on my face. but i have lots of just big, clogged pores that look gross and bumpy. i don't think the anti biotics or differin are helping much with that.

i go to the derm in 2 weeks!

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day 21
wow, 3 weeks already!

my back/ chest have started to get really dry and flakey, and this is so gross but the inside of my shirts looks like i have dandruff haha, it's just...ew. and that whole area is still pretty bad looking, it's been breaking out and everything makes it hurt/ burn.

the skin erosion on my upper lip/ mouth ish area is almost gone, i just have a couple spots left. but i still have some on the corners of my nose that is raw and red and not happy.

i don't really have much active stuff on my face though. mostly just blackheads, big blocked pores and general bumpyness, and lots of hyper=pigmentation, red scars, and healing acne that was active like afew days ago or whatever. but still. and man, that hyper-pigmentation is like impossible to cover up!

my face isn't as dry as it was a while ago though, so that's good. with aloe day cream, i can use some mineral foundation during the day! that makes me so happy to be able to wear foundation again

i might not be here for a few days because of a trip i'm taking for spring break, so...yeah! bye

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day 28

sorry it's been a whole week, iwas out of town, but i had a great time so it's all good, right? yeah.

the breaking out on my back and chest stopped, and the dryness and weird redness has all gone away, i mostly just have blackheads and tons of scarring now.
my face has been mostly clear for about a week, the whole time since i last posted i've only had 6-8 new things pop up. i still have some blocked/ enlarged pores, blackheads, and tons of scarring though, so my skin is far from perfect yet, but it is a HECK of a lot better than it has been! it's pretty much not dry anymore too...like, it's kinda dry in a tight-feeling sort of way, but not anything like the peeling and flaking raw patches of a week or 2 ago.

so overall it's going good! i go back to the derm in a week.
happy early easter

[merf]

day 28

sorry it's been a whole week, iwas out of town, but i had a great time so it's all good, right? yeah.

the breaking out on my back and chest stopped, and the dryness and weird redness has all gone away, i mostly just have blackheads and tons of scarring now.
my face has been mostly clear for about a week, the whole time since i last posted i've only had 6-8 new things pop up. i still have some blocked/ enlarged pores, blackheads, and tons of scarring though, so my skin is far from perfect yet, but it is a HECK of a lot better than it has been! it's pretty much not dry anymore too...like, it's kinda dry in a tight-feeling sort of way, but not anything like the peeling and flaking raw patches of a week or 2 ago.

so overall it's going good! i go back to the derm in a week.
happy early easter

Hey there. Your regimen is similar to mine. When you use the differin, do you use only a pea size? If you use anything more than that, it will cause you to peel so bad. My doc said to put light moisturizer on first, so the Differin will spread more easily. Then take a pea size amt on your finger and gently dot all around your face, then use fingertips to blend in. It doesn't take much at all to work (apparently). Of course, I just got mine today so this is just what my doctor told me. I plan to do like he said, then put heavier moisturizng cream in any drier areas. I have very very horribly dry skin.

I'm really glad your regimen is working for you. it makes me feel optimistic of how it will work for me.

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hey merf
yeah, my skin definantly looks better but it will get much worse before it gets better- i got horrible dryness, peeliness, redness, sensitivity and all that fun stuff and then an IB almost 3 weeks in, but now my skin isn't really dry at all and it looks a lot better. which kind of differin are you on?

tomorrow is my last day of antibiotics! i'm scared that when i finish my round of doxycycline my acne will come back more...
i have a bit of a mini break out i guess... i have about 6-8 actives on my face that came up fast.
but hey, some of my nose blackheads have definantly improved over the course of my treatment and do i have less acne than when i started. i just want it to keep getting better!

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so, i went to the derm today. talked about accutane, which is kind of a sore subject (see earlier posts). so that was frustrating. we ended up just increasing the doxy (200 mg a day) and i go back in 2 months. i might get a package of chemical peels (3 in a pack), but idk, we (me + parents) havne't really talked about that yet. they're supposed to help w/ acne and the post inflammatory hyper-pigmentation.

my skin is bleh. i have a couple dry patches on my shoulders, and my face is just a little tight and dry after i wash it then very very oilly a little while afterwards. i have several healing spots over my face, and several are still partying it up. lol. soo...yeah.

ok, totally un-acne related, but i have this guy friend and we haven't known each other long and we met at church and we've been IMing a lot (and i mean a lot a lot!) and we're just friends but i'm scared we're moving too fast or something. does that make sense? like, we talk about a lot of deep stuff and i basically don't have any other guy friends, and at this point i know him more than i know most people and he knows me more than most people, but we've only been friends for like 2 weeks. so, i'm scared of either of us getting to vulnerable, becoming too close too fast and this it just blows up all of a sudden. does that make sense at all?
any input at all on that situation would be nice

later y'all

[merf]

so, i went to the derm today. talked about accutane, which is kind of a sore subject (see earlier posts). so that was frustrating. we ended up just increasing the doxy (200 mg a day) and i go back in 2 months. i might get a package of chemical peels (3 in a pack), but idk, we (me + parents) havne't really talked about that yet. they're supposed to help w/ acne and the post inflammatory hyper-pigmentation.

my skin is bleh. i have a couple dry patches on my shoulders, and my face is just a little tight and dry after i wash it then very very oilly a little while afterwards. i have several healing spots over my face, and several are still partying it up. lol. soo...yeah.

ok, totally un-acne related, but i have this guy friend and we haven't known each other long and we met at church and we've been IMing a lot (and i mean a lot a lot!) and we're just friends but i'm scared we're moving too fast or something. does that make sense? like, we talk about a lot of deep stuff and i basically don't have any other guy friends, and at this point i know him more than i know most people and he knows me more than most people, but we've only been friends for like 2 weeks. so, i'm scared of either of us getting to vulnerable, becoming too close too fast and this it just blows up all of a sudden. does that make sense at all?
any input at all on that situation would be nice

later y'all

I take 200mg of Doryx (doxycycline). Hopefully that will work for you. D

As for the guy friend, go with your instinct. Perhaps you need someone to discuss these things with, and you have found exactly what you need. Or perhaps it's too much too soon and your friendship will crash and burn after a while. I think my advice would be to mention your concern to him. If you're talking about all this deep stuff, you should be able to have that discussion. Good luck!

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lol thanks merf

aaah i'm so busy and stressed out.
my cheeks were a little dry this morning, but my skin is still really crazy oily. and i have 2 new things popping up on my upper lip area...thanks, acne gods. my other stuff is healing some i guess... most of it likes to just hang around for a good long while lol! so, that's my skin.

and about my guy friend... we're good...haha... we covered that one issue, and then another one that really freaked me out but it's ok. we're clear now haha.
anyways.
the end of tonight's post. it's not like it's 2 am or anything haha...

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wow, i haven't posted in a long time! sorry!

not much new. i'm on 200 mg doxy a day. i got a new tube of differin today, and it was $142.52!!! it goes towards my insurance deductable but still, that is soooo much!! i was like WHOAH. that's more than $3 per GRAM of the stuff!

my cheeks get a wee bit dry after showers sometimes... my skin is still very very oilly though
my acne... eh... my chest is mostly clear, i still have some random stuff going on on my shoulders/ back though... and my face has less active acne than it did a couple months ago but it still has a lot going on, plus tons of hyper-pigmentation yuck!

[Axsuul]

wow, i haven't posted in a long time! sorry!

not much new. i'm on 200 mg doxy a day. i got a new tube of differin today, and it was $142.52!!! it goes towards my insurance deductable but still, that is soooo much!! i was like WHOAH. that's more than $3 per GRAM of the stuff!

my cheeks get a wee bit dry after showers sometimes... my skin is still very very oilly though
my acne... eh... my chest is mostly clear, i still have some random stuff going on on my shoulders/ back though... and my face has less active acne than it did a couple months ago but it still has a lot going on, plus tons of hyper-pigmentation yuck!

Is your skin very very oily during the day when you apply Differin at night? If so, it's similar to mine. I just switched to the cream from the gel and supposedly that's suppose to help with the oiliness.. did anyone have success with that? Sorry for hijacking your thread