Hi everyone,

I am trying to figure out what is causing my mild adult acne and would appreciate any advice.

Context - clear skin until last November (2013) when woke up with 4 very inflamed cystic spots on chin - 2 on each side, which took ages to heal. That is more than I would usually get over a 2 year period. Since then, continue to get these inflamed cyst spots, usually one at a time, so only 1 or 2 active spots at any time and always on my chin - rest of my face is pretty much always clear and even if do get a spot it is tiny and disappears within 24 hours. On my chin they are large, red, inflamed and painful and take around 10 days to go down. Often they don't come to a head. They leave red marks which take approx 6 months to fade. They look very like this:

Things I have tried:

Diet

I eat very little to no dairy, have never particularly liked it and always only had it very rarely

Tried eliminating wheat/gluten for a month and had no difference

I eat very healthy anyway but have increased water consumption to 1.5-2l every day and cut out soft drinks completely

Products

BP - just makes my skin worse and makes the horrible red marks left over after spots take longer to disappear, plus get the dry and flaky skin on top. Have tried it as both prevention and as spot treatment, no noticeable difference

SA - no problems but again does nothing to improve

Jojoba oil - broke me out in other areas which are clear

Cortisone cream - little to no effect

Medication

6 months tetracycline - no improvement whilst on it, still getting these spots every 10 days or so

Fish oil supplements - broke me out in other places/made skin oil overall

vitamin d - no effect

Other

Diagnosed with PCOS 4/5 years ago, skin clear and had no facial hair etc. Diagnosed via scan and bloods - recent scan shows ovaries now normal and periods are regular so waiting on another blood test to see if PCOS still??

B12 deficiency - diagnosed about 2 months ago, weird as not veg/vegan and eat a lot of leafy greens and red meat twice per week - on tablets for this as tests show I am not pernicious anemia.

My GP and gynecologist are recommending I go on Yasmin to clear up skin but my concerns are it making my skin worse (at least only have 1 or 2 spots to deal with at a time at the moment) and/or it getting really bad when I come off the pill in a few years when trying to get pregnant.

I appreciate this is nothing compared to what some people are experiencing but it is frustrating to go from nice skin to this over night with apparently no changes to my lifestyle. It has been 12 months now and I thought this might have cleared itself up by now, but it continues to be just as much of an issue.

Advice very much appreciated!