I'm just going to use this as a way to vent frustrations or hopefully more often get excited about progress.

I (21F) have always struggled with acne, but it didn't get horrible until the last six months. After getting the Mirena IUD, I broke out with cystic acne on my cheeks that really shattered my confidence. I tried a ton of OTC treatments since then, since it's always worked in the past. However, a couple weeks ago I had the worst breakout of my life and decided I've had enough.

I went to the dermatologist yesterday morning. She was really nice and didn't seem to mind that I teared up when talking about my acne (it seriously ruined my self-confidence). We discussed my options and since I don't want to remove my IUD because it's a reliable and convenient form of birth control I just can't give up, we decided to go with accutane. I'm really nervous to start because of the side effects, but I would much rather go through 4-6 months of bad/dry skin and have beautiful skin after. Hopefully I'll be all clear by summer, which would be absolutely amazing. I work at a summer camp so make up is pretty much a no-go. Being confident in my skin would be absolutely amazing. Ugh. I'm so excited just thinking about it. So I got my blood checked yesterday and I'm going back next week to register. After that it'll be another four weeks until I can start. I'm really looking forward to it.

We still took a few steps to help my acne right now because I have a trip coming up that I'd like to have better skin for. She drained all the active stuff on my face (gross) and injected cortisone to help them heal. Right now, they are much smaller and less noticeable but still feel hard under my skin. Hopefully they'll go down a little more by tomorrow. She also prescribed me cephalexin, which I'll take for the next month until I can start. She also gave me a bunch of samples of Acanya to use in the morning, and I'll continue using 0.1% tretinioin cream at night.

Overall, I'm just sad I didn't go to the dermatologist sooner. I'm really excited to start my journey towards clear skin!