Hi,

Here's my history. I started getting acne early in high school (i'm 23 now). It wasn't bad, but I wanted it all gone. I went to a dermatologist, and he put me on doxycycline. I was on it for a while. Maybe 4 or 5 years :\ . I was off of it for about a year when my acne started getting bad again. My derm put me back on doxy, but it didnt really do much help. He then put me on sulfonamide, which worked pretty well for about 6 months. I went to a new derm about 8 months ago, and she put me on minocycline twice a day(and Retin-A 0.1%, which I love ) . During the past couple of months I tried tapering off of minocycline, and when I got to taking it a few times a week my face exploded, and I had the worse breakout of my life. I went back to my first derm, and he put me back on mino. I asked him if will ever be able to get off antibiotics, but he didn't really give me an answer.

I want to be off antibiotics because the short term gains aren't worth the long term pains. Does anyone know of anyone who has been able to stop the antibiotics for good? If so, what was the process like? It seems like my only options are life long sever acne or life long antibiotic use.

Sorry for the duplicate post. I thought I lost my first one. Can't figure our how to delete this one.