Hi! I am new to Acne.org despite having acne for five years now. My acne started when I was 13 and I immediately started using salycylic acid and benzoyl peroxide on it. It worked to control my acne in the beginning but lost its touch after a couple years. Every year my acne got worse and I tried many natural treatments that I've pretty much exhausted. I didn't have good health insurance so it was hard for me to see a dermatologist. This year I saw one and he prescribed me Retin-A 0.05. I wear a heavy amount of makeup and when I went I tried to keep it light but I think maybe he didn't gage how bad my acne was.
I'm on my 10th week of Retin-A and haven't really seen any results. I experienced a terrible terrible flare-up from the Retin-A - a horrid amount of uncontrollable whiteheads and large, painful cysts. It was so bad that I had trouble covering it up. After 8 weeks, I noticed I was no longer purging but I had severe hyperpigmentation - worse than I've ever had before.
Now, in my 10th week, I have severe, deep, acne scars and hyperpigmentation; and still am getting strings of whiteheads on my face, including one or two cysts. I've read to wait at least 12 weeks, but I would think that if I still have terrible acne at 10 weeks, Retin-A is probably not doing anything to my skin, or is not strong enough for my acne? I didn't really experience the dryness and irritation most people get from Retin-A because my skin is used to chemicals, so I have no problem in using it every day. I've gotten to that point in my life where I've exhausted just about every over-the-counter treatment that I can afford and I had high hopes for Retin-A, but even that failed me, so I'm wondering if my acne will ever really go away.
If Retin-A worked for you, could you describe what kind of acne you had and how long it took to work? I have constant acne but it flares up due to hormones as well.
Hi Maheen, the 12 week thing is a soft deadline. I have experienced the same flare up as you, cysts included. I'm in my 13th week now and my last breakout was less than 2 weeks ago and I still have the deep red mark from this one (and others too). And I also have smaller whiteheads that are the least of my worries. Many people on this board say that it can take up to a year to really see the full effect of Retin-A so hang in there! I read in another post that using vising red eye helps with the redness and I think it actually works so give it a try and see if that helps the redness at least.
I used retin A along with antibiotics two seperate times without much luck, which is why i recently started accutane.
However, a friend of mine had moderate acne and has pretty much gotten rid of all of it using retin a for a year or so. I am not sure at what point it started working for him or if he might have simply grown out of it during the same time frame.
It took me 6 months to see any noticeable improvement, albeit certain weeks where there was nothing. Keep with it for a month or so longer, and make sure you're really following the instructions! As soon as I started waiting longer to apply it and using a bit less than recommended, it started working for me, but that may have coincided with my skin just deciding that it was going to stop these shenanigans and behave. Are you moisturising a lot? It sounds counterproductive, but it's so necessary!