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I got inflammatory acne starting probably around the age of 16. Was prescribed the usual by derms, and nothing worked. Face just slowly got worse. Just some context, and this kind of sucks to admit, but I have no one to blame but myself for not treating my face right from age 15 to 18. I never washed my face once during those years; I didn't think guys did that sort of thing with cleanser and whatnot. Water hits your face in the shower, doesn't it? Yeah, a bunch of inflammatory acne proved me wrong over the years. It's funny to think about how my "prime years" could have turned out if I had just washed my face every night. Anyway.
Finally go on accutane around the age of 19, and stay on it like I'm told for about 11 months. When I start accutane I'm treating my face as well as possible and washing twice a day now fyi. The accutane clears me of active acne but as most of us know it also makes/keeps our face really red. And I'm no exception, I had a blotchy redness and discoloration all over my face. My derm says it's not scarring, and the best/only thing to really heal it is time. I say alright, if you say so.
About four months pass, and personally I don't see any progress. She prescribes me finacea, which I try for a few months, but end up deciding that it doesn't do anything for me. She also says she doesn't think it's rosacea, namely because I'm too young.
About four more months pass as I recall, and I still don't see any improvement in the redness. She says get a laser. So I do, and try the gemini laser for 300 bucks which is supposed to help after a month. A month passes, and I don't see any improvement.
It's now 3 months later, 11 months after getting off accutane total. Personally I don't see how my redness looks any different than from when I was on my 8th or so month of accutane. There probably is a slight, slight improvement, but I really don't see it. Part of that could be psychological, but it really doesn't seem like it's fading at all. I wish I had taken pictures along the way. I've read that post-accutane redness usually fades in 6 months, and wow that's not the case for me.
Side note about the redness: it's not totally awful in normal lighting, but under brighter lights it looks like somebody just took a red paint brush and went to work all over my face... there's no flushing it's just a constant red discolored pigment.
So at this rate, I estimate that my redness will be gone when I'm like 24 or 25. I'm almost 21 now... so yeah you see the problem. Lately I've just been exfoliating once a day with Clean & Clear skin brightener and taking a multi-vitamin while researching which acid peel is better than which. I drink a lot of water. Also just saw the oatmeal cleanser video and was thinking of exfoliating with that for now on...
So any suggestions for my situation? I'm beginning to re-think the main cause of my redness; it's not necessarily the accutane now as far as I know. I have no idea whether it's rosacea or not.
I'm also realizing now that it would probably help to post pics; I'll try and get access to a camera. Thanks for your time, and feel free to ask me anything.
Edited by idunnoeither, 01 December 2011 - 03:13 AM.
