Hey,
I™m a new member of the forum, although I™ve been reading the comments for a while now.
straight to the point: I have had really bad acne on my face all through my teens. Now I™m 20 and the acne on my face isn™t gone, but has drastically improved, I still break out quite often though. I also have back and chest acne. But that™s not the main problem. The problem are my arms. For about 10 years I have had acne on my arms and it looks really bad. I have it on my entire arm, including my forearms. I went to a dermatologist and he diagnosed me with keratosis pilaris. But the pictures that came up when I googled that didn™t look anything like what I had. The doctor prescribed me cortisone and I broke out horribly from that (steroid acne) and then Elidel cream, which made my skin look dead and that didn™t help either. He examined my skin again and then came to the conclusion that I didn™t only have KP, I also have actual acne on my arms. So he put me on low dose antibiotic (Oracea). He also suggested I could try Isotretinoin/Accutane but I decided to go with the antibiotic first. So far the antibiotic isn™t helping and I read a little about Iso and I am aware of the possibile side effects (the doctor even said he would prescribe me a low dose, so I will have little to no side effects) and I really like the sound of it! It seems like a miracle pill and if it will cure my arm acne I will accept every side effect on this planet! My arms really look terrible, I have A TON of post inflammatory hyperpigmentation and also a ton of whiteheads and blackheads and the occasional cyst. On my arms. I™ve never seen ANYONE who has the same problem.
so my question is: does anyone have the same type of acne? And do you think iso will help me? And how long do you think it will take for the medication to work since I heard iso takes longer with body acne? And does anyone have any experience with low dose isotretinoin?
I know... a lot of questions. But I™ll be more than happy if you could answer even one of them.
greetings from Germany!
Maria
If acne is your problem, then iso can be a good option. I took antibiotics for a month with no results and in only four moths on isotretinoin I was acne free. For some people, it can be a miracle pill. Just to put in perspective, I had bad acne when I was about 15yo with constant breakouts on my back and face. Not to mention the extremely oily skin and every so often a really bad one showed up on my face. I remember two particularly "bloody" episodes... It was incredibly annoying. I wish I had access to the treatment back then, it would make my teen years much more enjoyable :\