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Hi everyone, first post here so bear with me 
. I am in desperate need of advice on what to do because I feel I have tried everything multiple times yet nothing is working. I have moderate acne (mostly white heads) with occasional (once a month perhaps?) massive cysts. My acne is on my forehead and right over the cheek bones with the occasional bad break out over the rest of the cheeks and chin. Let me share my story first, i'll try to keep it short:
So I started my battle with acne around age 15 (im a guy) and went through every otc drug out there, but nothing worked. I went to a dermatologist and started on differin, then progressed through the various strengths of tazorac along with benzaclin and monocycline. Nothing seemed to work. The derm even convinced me to buy one of the 100$ face washer things, and guess what? it didnt do anything. I used the treatments properly, and for the appropriate amount of time the derm told me. Eventually after going back to her and refilling my prescriptions multiple times i let my last prescription run out and just switched back to otc products since i couldnt really tell the difference between the treatments (around age 18) and figured the acne would just go away as i get older.
Fastforward to me now 20 yrs old, still getting acne!! Now, it seems as if the quantity of pimples has slightly decreased but the size of them has increased a bit. Upset that I am still getting acne, I went back to my dermatologist 10 weeks ago and got prescribed tazorac and doxycycline. I have been on both for 20 weeks now, and still no improvement. My 10 week appointment is coming up next week and I don't know what to do. I am pissed of that I still have acne at age 20 and it's just not going away. I don't want to go through the whole process of amping up the strength of the tazorac,etc. again because I feel like it would just be a waste of time.
So, are there any alternative treatments the dermatologist could provide me or that I should ask about? should i change dermatologists? I feel totally helpless at this point and just don't know what to do. Any ideas or help on how to approach my upcoming appointment with the derm and any questions I should ask would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks guys!
Hi HeftyMug, thanks so much for the response! I've heard about accutane and read a bit about it, but my derm never brought it up. I also have read that it's currently very heavily regulated by the gov and deems rarely prescribe it anymore.
I would be more than happy to try anything at this point though, so maybe I'll ask my derm about it and see what she says?
There's people here that are wayyyy more knowledgable about accutane than I am but from what I've read on here people still get prescribed accutane even if their acne isn't severe. It's used as a last resort for people like yourself who have tried everything else and haven't gotten results.
Definitely ask your derm about it as they would have the most info. It's a serious drug but that's why you get monthly blood work done and see your derm for monthly check ups to make sure everything is going well. It can be a real life saver for some people.
Good luck!
