Hey rebecca. I'm right there with you. I started the regime in college and just overused BP morning and night every single day religiously for 4 or 5 years. I have been off of it for about 2 years. My skin is as you have described. Very dry looking. Skin looks like a nest of clogged pores under certain light. Acne marks seem like they will be there forever. I get scared everytime a new pimple pops up because I know it will leave a mark that will take about a month or more to fade. Now I think back and punish myself mentally for getting on the regime. I ask myself how was I so stupid to lather my face with a bleaching agent. And that's exactly what my face looks like. Bleached. The only normal skin on my face seems to be right around my eyes. It's not horribly noticeable. But if I look up close to a mirror in the bathroom mirror I can see the difference.

I have figured out what breaks me out so I do not get acne anymore. Just those occasional pimples. But as to the color of my face, I have been tanning (I know I know. Sun is horrible for your skin). But for now that is all I can think of to look normal. It's really depressing lol. But I tell myself you did this to yourself and now you have to deal with it. I am researching fraxel laser surgery and stuff like that but it doesn't seem like it will produce desirable results. And it's such a high risk...

I apologize for the depressing response but this is my life right now. Hey atleast in the sunlight I look alright lol. Almost normal.

Hi guys,

I also want to know more about this.

The first thing I ever used (when I was 17....10 years ago!) was erythromycin and it cleared me completely (I know, I got pretty lucky) and I had about 18 months of completely clear, babysoft skin, which was huge when considering I had a face full of acne before, you know, the areas that weren't covered in big red spots, which were few, were just areas of bumpy clogged pores, waiting to turn into spots.

At the end of a long and incredible 18 months, the effects started to wear off. and I looked for something else. After a number of failures, I was put on a low dose of Minocycline, which I paired with the regimen, leading me to around 7 years of okayish/alright, pretty damn good, skin.

However, during those 7 years, my skin has also been going the same way. It seems like it just needs a break. But every time I try to wean myself off from either of the above (regimen or mino) I start to break out again.

The reason I'm back here is because it's looking like the mino is starting to lose effectiveness. This has meant I've had to ramp up my regimen use to counter act it. I'm a 27, almost 28 year old guy and thought that this stuff would have been behind me a long time ago. It feels like I've just been hiding from it.

10 years with relatively few issues is a long time to go, life changes, jobs etc, (I have a fairly customer facing job that means I need to be confident and wouldn't know how to deal with it if my skin goes truly awol).

What I really want to know is, is there ever a time when you can just stop the regimen? Dan is still using it? Are there others like us? Longer term regimen users? Where am I going? When does it stop? There's absolutely no history of adult acne in my family so to all intents and purposes, I should have gotten over it by now (I know adult acne can happen to anyone but I can't believe I'd just be unlucky out of nowehere). I agree completely that my face looks tired and almost grey. I saw some photos of myself and my skin looks older and I can't tell whether this is how it would look because I am older, or my skin is just getting nuked on the daily. Am I going to have to nuke my skin for the rest of my life? Avoid bleaching bed clothes etc? Spend 20 mins in the morning, 20 mins at night applying this stuff forever? I spoke to my Dad years ago about it, and he said it he was fine by 23/24. My big worry is that your skin has to naturally balance itself out over a number of years. I've skipped that process and now I'm terrified of it.

Sorry for rambling, it's not something that i talk about much.