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Another beard-related spot appeared yesterday. A few days ago, it was just a slightly irritated pore, but it got inflamed yesterday while I was at work. I wanted just to leave it alone, but I couldn't take knowing that it was growing on my face. So after I bathed last night, I took a pair of tweezers and grabbed a good hunk of skin on either side of it and squeezed. That way, I could apply more pressure than my fingers could, all without damaging my skin. It really works well. So the hair came out from being embedded, along with some other nice gunk. Lovely. It's a little red today but it's no longer active and it's less inflamed.
Well, at least I'm getting only beard-related spots nowadays. It takes a while for these kinds of spots to surface so I'm hoping that my recent change to a new kind of blade will help prevent them in the future.
Cam >B)
Another small, shaving-related spot. It's not particularly swollen. It's not acne, but it's not like anyone would know that. At least these are the only kinds of spots I'm getting. So I technically have no acne, but I do have that one small, very coverable spot on my left sideburn.
I changed my razor blade. I guess I'll have to do that more regularly than every couple of weeks. Small price to pay.
Cam >B)
That shaving-related spot got swollen yesterday. I hate leaving things well enough alone; call it a personality flaw. So I ungunkified it and drowned it in hydrogen peroxide. I abraded the skin a tiny bit so that a hair could poke its little head out if it wanted to.
Luckily, all this business is somewhere under my (relatively sparse) sideburns so it's easily concealable. The rest of my skin is clear and smooth.
Cam >B)
I got a bit of a spot on my upper left lip. As my boyfriend and I were out for dinner last night, he was examining my face. I took it to mean that he noticed the spot. He said, "Your skin looks perfect." That made my day, but I had totally jinxed it a couple of days ago when I mentioned to him how well my skin was behaving.
We're heading on a trip to NYC, then MontrAal, then Toronto, starting on Sunday. I'm hoping that the travel doesn't mess up my skin.
Cam >B)
I got a bit of a spot on my upper left lip. As my boyfriend and I were out for dinner last night, he was examining my face. I took it to mean that he noticed the spot. He said, "Your skin looks perfect." That made my day, but I had totally jinxed it a couple of days ago when I mentioned to him how well my skin was behaving.We're heading on a trip to NYC, then Montreal, then Toronto, starting on Sunday. I'm hoping that the travel doesn't mess up my skin.
Cam >B)
Woo, have a great time! Try to enjoy yourself and not worry about your skin much.
btw, are you still using the Cetaphil Facial Lotion with spf?
I guess I need to find a lotion with spf since summer is on the way.....
Thanks, Brandy.
I'm patiently waiting for the spot to "ripen" so that I can deal with it. The spot is occasionally itchy and sometimes a bit painful when I move my mouth a certain way. It's not particularly swollen, and it's just starting to form a head. Maybe tonight with some warm compresses, we'll have something deal-with-able. Or maybe it will shrink back down into nothingness without incident.
Not very likely.
Cam >B)
I got a bit of a spot on my upper left lip. As my boyfriend and I were out for dinner last night, he was examining my face. I took it to mean that he noticed the spot. He said, "Your skin looks perfect." That made my day, but I had totally jinxed it a couple of days ago when I mentioned to him how well my skin was behaving.
We're heading on a trip to NYC, then MontrAal, then Toronto, starting on Sunday. I'm hoping that the travel doesn't mess up my skin.
Cam >B)
Woo, have a great time! Try to enjoy yourself and not worry about your skin much.
btw, are you still using the Cetaphil Facial Lotion with spf?
I guess I need to find a lotion with spf since summer is on the way.....
Well, the spot was ripe enough to deal with last night. So I did, but it's a bit swollen. I slathered BP on it last night and this morning so it's drying up. And, of course, it was joined by another smaller spot under my nose. That one is totally concealed by my facial hair, but it's still a little aggravating. I'm hoping that this break-out is the end of it for another few weeks. Do you hear me, face? No spots on my vacation.
Cam >B)
Hi There
I've been following your progress and you seem to be having good results 
I'm not much of a poster on this site yet more of a reader! I was just wondering if Diacneal helped with skin tone and faded old spot marks. I'm 39 so need something for lines as well as spots! I have very mild acne and am thinking of purhcasing Dianeal, I've found it for ‚£6.00 on a UK site, which seems really cheap?!
Thanks
Spots and wrinkles. It's just not fair. 
I've never really had a problem with skin tone or red marks. Even when I had really (really, really) bad acne, my red marks faded pretty quickly. So I can't really say whether it helps with that. If you have very mild acne, then be prepared for it to get a little worse for a while during the initial break-out. Personally, I'm really happy with Diacneal. Just remember to use a very small amount, about the size of a green pea. I've found that using much more than that can be irritating and make me break out more.
Good luck.
Cam >B)
The trip was great. My skin misbehaved, but the trip was still great.
I'm thinking that I'm experiencing a bit of an IB from the vitamin A. The spots I'm getting are in the same area as when I started with the Diacneal, and they're of a similar type. They're not really inflamed, and I never usually get spots there. I'm thinking of continuing the vitamin A and riding out the IB. It's not very severe, and on the other side will be more consistently clear skin.
It's nice to be back.
Cam >B)
I'm re-considering going back on the vitamin A. I'm already doing a topical retinoid so I think I'll just ditch it and stick with the zinc, vitamin C, and multi-vitamin. I'm sick of riding things out. I just want my clear skin back.
My skin has calmed down a bit in the last day. I have no active spots, just some fading red marks from the stupid IB. Luckily, they're ALL under my beard. I'm considering shaving it off for the summer, and I'll probably do that next week, so I'm hoping that the red marks fade quickly.
Happy warmer weather, everyone (in the northern hemisphere).
Cam >B)
My skin hasn't been the same for the past month. I'm staying on my tried-and-true topical regimen, and it's getting better, though. I'm just waiting until the fat-soluble vitamin a works its way out of my system. I'm still getting a few shallow, noninflammatory spots around my nose, but they're just more of an unsightly annoyance. I still hate them and can't wait for them to be gone.
Be gone!
Cam >B)
What a difference a day makes. Those small spots have either resolved themselves or reponded well to my dealing with them. And I'm not getting spots to replace them like I have for the past few weeks. Things are looking up.
Despite what I said about not changing my regimen, I've started using a more generous amount of BP during the day, and I've been dotting the Diacneal on my face and spreading it around, instead of rubbing it into my palms then onto my face. I think that's making more Diacneal end up on my face instead of absorbing into my hands. Hey, whatever works.
Cam >B)
This break-out is lasting much longer than I hoped. I don't have any big spots, but I have a bunch of tiny red marks around my nose from quick-healing microzits. They're not terrible, but they're annoying and persistent. So I did some research about B5. While I'm not convinced that it's great in the long-term (even though the evidence is pretty clear that it's fine), I think that it's fine to take a therapeutic amount (3 grams daily) until my skin calms down. Since my skin is relatively calm most of the time, I don't expect to be on that much for more than a couple of weeks at a time, hardly enough time to have a toxic amount, even if that's possible.
So I started on Sunday, and it appears that the oiliness around my nose is diminishing. Another weapon in the arsenal.
I've been on the B5 for about a week, and it's making my skin a little dry. I don't mind that because it's easy enough to alleviate with a bit of moisturizer. The micro-irritation spots around my nose are going away, and the others are clearing up nicely. I'll stay on the vitamin for a few more days, just to kick their butts for a while. Then I think that I'll go on a B-complex multivitamin for maintenance. And if the spots come back in force (which they rarely do), I'll kick their butts again.
On a totally different note, I shaved off my scruffy facial hair, and no one noticed. Summer's too hot for facial hair, especially since I'm growing out the hair on my head. The lack of noticing really speaks to my complete inability to grow a convincing beard.
Cam >B)
Well, I think that too-long, pesky break-out is under control. The B5 definitely helped, I believe, drying up my skin a bit. I don't want to be on it for more than a couple of weeks so I stopped it at the two-week mark. However, I have added a low-dose vitamin B-complex to my vitamin regimen. Hopefully that will help keep things at bay.
I'm still keeping the same external regimen: BP in the morning and Diacneal at night. They seem to work well in combination, keeping the inflammatory acne to a minimum and smoothing out my skin.
Cam >B)
I suspect that I am very stupid. When most of my skin responds to acne treatments very well, occasionally, I'll get these small, itchy bumps around my hairline. They are not like the rest of the acne that I get. Well, I researched the symptoms, and it looks like it might be folliculitis. And, in addition to being just around my hairline, just like folliculitis, it tends to flare up when it's hot and humid out.
So I might just have to go out and treat the small affected areas with some triclosan-containing wash (Tersaseptic, probably) for a week or so and see whether that clears up. I was wondering why it wasn't responding to my acne regimen. Duh, it likely isn't acne.
In other news, the rest of my skin is looking excellent. And the spots on my hairline are easily covered by my hair.
It's a relief to think I might have figured out another intermittent problem I get. To think that I'm still learning about what works for my skin when I've been battling skin problems since 1988. Yes, that's eighty-eight, nearly 20 years. Thanks, dad, for your blessed skin.
Cam >B)
I got the Tersaseptic last night. It has a nice rich lather, rinses clean, and doesn't seem to be very drying. I'm just using it on my forehead and into my hairline, both in the morning and at night. Obviously, I won't be seeing any results in the first couple of washes, but I expect that I should see whether it's working within a week or so.
Cam >B)
I guess that the diagnosis of folliculitis was right. It's responding very well to the Tersaseptic (triclosan). For me, this is very good news because I have gotten these flare-ups in the past, and I've always assumed that they were just a stubborn acne break-out. They spread quickly and are hard to get rid of. But now that I know what they are and how to treat them, I can catch them early. I am very, very relieved to say the least.
I read that people get folliculitis more often if they've been on systemic antibiotics for their acne. Wouldn't you just know it that the treatment for one skin condition predisposes me for another skin condition. Lovely.
I can't believe that I have been battling my skin condition(s) for twenty years and haven't heard anything about folliculitis (except for from a general practitioner about ten years ago...and he prescribed a zinc shampoo, which isn't even an effective treatment). Let's spread the word that, if you have strange acne that tends to start around your hairline spreads quickly, it might be folliculitis!
Cam >B)
The active folliculitis is pretty well gone, and in about a week, just like I read online. I'm only left with a few flaky red marks where these awful blistery-type things used to be. Now don't come back. I think I'll keep washing with the Tersaseptic for a little while longer, just in case.
The spot above my lip is now totally gone, but the spot that was dying on my cheek got a little oozy last night. Lovely. So today it looks a little scabby, but it's not active any more. It sure is unsightly, though.
In totally different news, I got this strange, non-itchy, non-inflamed patch of irregularly shaped rash things on my torso, legs, and arms. I'm going to a doctor to see what they are (since I've had them for a week and a half), but they seem like they might be pityriasis rosea. Golly, if it isn't one thing, it's another. Well, let's get this dealt with, too.
Cam >B)
Thanks for stopping by, femme25.
Oh, and I got back from the doctor. It is in fact pityriasis rosea. No known cause. No known cure, except for time. It's only unsightly so I'm not worried about it. It's only my boyfriend who sees me with my shirt off.
On another totally different note, don't use L'Oreal hair colouring. I used a light ash blonde (which, in other brands gives me a nice cool blonde colour), and it turned my hair yellow. I had to drop over $100 bucks at a colourist to tone it, then bleach it, then colour it a medium-light ash blonde to turn it somewhere near strawberry blonde, which isn't what I wanted, but it's the best I could do. I'll live with it for a while and see how it grows on me. But I think I'll be streaking some light brown into it at my next trip to a hair professional. Glowing yellow hair is not very flattering on any skin tone. I'm surprised that, with all that processing, my hair didn't fall out. It's a little stiff now, but it's still attached to my head.
Cam >B)
The pityriasis rosea is pretty well the same as it used to be. Since there's nothing that I can do to get rid of it, I've decided to disguise it with some sunless tanner. It makes it pretty near undetectable.
My recent break-out (which has been going on since the last time I said, "Hey, my skin's been looking great!" Jinx!) is being pretty well managed. I'm not going to say much about it so as not to jinx it. I'm still washing my forehead with the Tersaseptic because I'm still seeing some tiny bumps appear (and disappear pretty quickly). And instead of using the Cetaphil moisturizer during the day, I'm using the NeutrogenaA Build-a-Tana Gradual Sunless Tanning Face SPF 15. I really like the Neutrogena tanning products. It's only in the summer that I can handle all this preening. It's fun to switch things up a bit.
Cam >B)