Hey everybody, I'm a new member and I'd like to introduce myself and maybe share some things that have worked for me recently. I'm in my 30's, and I've suffered from various stages of acne since I was 14. When I first started getting acne as a teenager it started out as the occasional pimple, by the time I reached 15 it was full blown cystic acne on my face and back. I tried all the over the counter stuff that I'm sure we've all tried, with no results at all. I went to a dermatologist at age 16, and was put on antibiotics, as well as various strengths of benzac and retin A. My condition did improve, but it still wasn't normal. After about a year of treatment I asked my dermatologist if I was a candidate for accutane. He said that I was, but started going over all the side effects, and I decided against it. Fast forward to now. Over all those years I stopped going to the dermatologist, my cystic acne went away, but I still had breakouts and extremely red skin. I continued to find my own ways to fight it. I took all the vitamins I heard would help me, tried proactiv, tried other over the counter things with varying stages of success. I would have times when my face would look very bad, and times when my face didn't look so bad, but the redness would be there all the time. To combat this I used concealer. Being male I was very self conscious about this and worried like crazy that people would be able to tell that I had it on, but the redness was so bad that I didn't want to leave the house without it.

Over the past 5 or 6 months I decided to try something different, just to see how things would work. First off, let me say that my diet isn't the greatest for combating acne. I drink a lot more sugary drinks than I do water and I don't eat tons of fast food, but I do from time to time. The things I've tried is that I threw out my store bought 3 razor blade razors that seem to be popular these days. I bought a double edge safety razor, and I made sure I bought a good one. I change the blade out every week to two weeks. It just depends on how it feels. I use shaving soap mostly, but from time to time I will use edge gel. After I shave I wash my face with safeguard antibacterial soap (which I started using when I got the new razor), then I put a little bit of witch hazel on my face to act as a toner and after shave. Then I put the wal mart equivalent of cetaphil moisturizer on. I do this in the morning. At night I wash my face prior to going to bed, and I use Acne Free Terminator 10 for severe acne. Then I use the moisturizer. I gotta say, that after a few weeks of doing this my face has cleared up and the redness is pretty much gone, and 6 months later it's remained this way. Don't get me wrong, I get a pimple here and there, but compared to how I was right before I started doing this is like night and day. I can get away from using concealer for the most part and it feels great to not have to rely on it after all these years. Like I said, I didn't change anything diet wise. The only thing I'm doing differently is using those things that I just talked about.

I just wanted to share this with everyone and hopefully someone else finds it useful!