Hey! so I'm in a little different situation but maybe i can help you out. My acne is only on my face, but my sisters was all on her body so I'm pretty well versed in both! Firstly, totally normal for it to become painful as much as it really sucks..i started with mild/moderate persistent surface acne but the first three months I broke out in deep painful cystic acne that I didnt even know was possible for my skin. First recommendation i would make is do not scrub at any large areas where you have acne. Even if its much less than you started with, the scrubbing motion can cause bacteria to spread. Don't scrub until after you're completely clear. What I do is just get a really warm cloth or larger towel maybe in your case for chest/back and just do a hot compress for as long as you have time. Usually every four days I will soak it in warm salt water instead of just normal water and that helps dry anything active, and heal up anything and prevent bacteria spread..however this might sting a little if you're raw right now so maybe wait a little to try the sea salt. Warm soaks will loosen up dead skin and soothe without spreading bacteria....ever since i started soaking vs. scrubbing I've seen a big improvement especially in irritation and rawness. At about month 3 my face became so raw that I was almost brought to the hospital so I had to go into combat mode and figure out what to do.

Probably the best advice I can give you is the following. I tend to have acne that scabs and gets gross and painful pretty much no matter what...ive tried just about everything...neosporin...oils...aquaphor...cetaphil lotions....shea butter..calamine lotion... the whole lot. Nothing has ever really healed or soothed in a really remarkable way. Neosporin and aquaphor are made for healing but honestly how practical is it to have globs of it all around your body? not very....since my derm only says cetaphil and aquaphor no matter how many times I complain about it (she finally came clean and said its because the companies make deals with derm offices to sell and only promote their products) I tried to just use it....I had to change my sheets and ruined clothes just from getting all the goop all over the place and since it kept rubbing of it wasn't healing anything....that was ENOUGH! after my whole raw burnt face hospital deal I treat my face more as a burn/bad sunburn than something you'd use neosporin on. Aloe!!! my good ol pal that i used to lather myself in before i ever had acne. So aloe healed up my raw face really well. I have a plant in my house but i got so sick of cutting off leaves it was so messy and you have to be careful to only use the center part of the leave and not the outside and i just got too annoyed with that....so I went to amazon (BLESS amazon prime 2 day shipping) and i ordered Amara Organics aloe vera gel. It was the most pure out there and has been amazing amazing at healing and fading red marks too. With aloe you gotta be careful about buying gels because yes, all of them will have some sort of other ingredient as a preservative. The ones like Fruit of the Earth or Banana boat are just a no go...i wouldn't recommend them at all they stung my skin so bad and made it worse actually so thats how i knew amara was legit because it didnt burn or sting me and actually did what it was supposed to.

SO i healed ok from that incident and was pretty happy with the aloe. Then I got some scabs again and I found my ultimate healing/soothing elixir. I don't even remember how I came across it, but ZINC OXIDE. You can look on here or other websites, but I've read several stories of people who cleared up their acne and healed scabs and wounds with diaper cream or calamine lotion which both have zinc oxide. My problem was when I looked at ingredients in both of those, they just had too much additives and pore clogging ingredients. So i turned to amazon once again and i found 100% zinc oxide powder (la lune naturals). The powder is used for all sorts of things, homemade deodorant, sunscreen, acne and wound healing etc. It comes with a recipe book and its online as well with all sorts of things you can make wit the powder. I found one of the recipes that I SWEAR BY now.. best thing I've ever used. Its Aloe vera gel and the zinc oxide powder mixed together...simple as that. I spread this all over any affected areas that need healing and soothing or reducing inflammation from pimples and i can see myself using this forever. It speeds up my healing time and soothes at the same time. It has faded my red marks so fast way faster than just aloe, and has blown me away. Plus, no getting neosporin all over my clothes and bed because you apply this, give it 10 mins to fully dry, and then you're good. If you're super super raw, you can use a base moisturizer before putting this mixture on. I hope any part of this helps!