I had another breakout from clogged pore and it would have been huge if i hadn't drained it. Anyway, Even though this is over and i picked a few clogged pores, i feel a little depressed. A friend is leaving and some people don't know what the word respect means, even if it's specifically requested. I guess that when i 'll be clear from clogged pores and breakouts after dairy consumption i 'll leave this site as well. A bunch of people is destroying it..

I had a very stubborn inflamed clogged pore but it's over now..

I have a papule on my forehead, not big but an annoying redness..

I tried a small amount of milk yesterday, that is 4-5 sips.. let's see what happens. I also think that this baby brush method has very good results for comedones but it may be too soon to be absolutely sure!

A papule that made my bf laugh when i showed him, maybe because it was barely visible

Not that good news today, i had to pick 2 comedones that i wish they won't inflame and a painful swollen papule next to my ear which hopefully has nothing to do with that delicious muffin.. I am going to perform an experiment, i will eat another one and see what happens. I am sacrificing myself for science

I broke out again next to my ears, but nowhere else for almost 2 weeks.. that's so strange...

So the combination of cheese, a little milk and chocolate is too much.. i have a small papule but not like the previous, this one is going to swell.. i have picked a clogged pore at this spot and i am not sure that it's the food that caused it and not the picking (or perhaps that food doesn't make picked pores inflame ) but it's almost certain.. and as i gain weight, riases the question of when 75 mg are going to be not enough for my weight..

edit: it came to a head and now it's gone (after my little intervention..)

So what day are you on now? And what percentage would you say your face has cleared up even though you r still getting pimples

It's been almost 3 months since my dose was lowered and 4 and a half since i started. If i avoid dairy and chocolate i am clear (or have a barely noticeable papule, even to my own eyes) unless a comedone inflames but i believe i found a way to treat that too. It's a vast improvement, i would break out every other day but now only if i eat a lot of dairy or chocolate, a small amount won't hurt but the previous time i was completely unaffected by diet triggers and that's what i am waiting to see..

Hi Maria! Good to see you are doing well Ive also been doing food tests on myself to see if I get any break outs, so far I tried chocolate to and nothing new has happened and I've also started taking my Minocycline every other day now instead of everyday. Hope all the foods your trying wont do anything ! Glad we are hanging in there but Its so hard!!!!

Hi Maria! Good to see you are doing well Ive also been doing food tests on myself to see if I get any break outs, so far I tried chocolate to and nothing new has happened and I've also started taking my Minocycline every other day now instead of everyday. Hope all the foods your trying wont do anything ! Glad we are hanging in there but Its so hard!!!!

I am so happy for your results! I made my own muffins a few days ago, with drops of dark chocolate and nothing happened- not the next day at least! And i ate a lot of them Now i want to try with milk chocolate but i am hesitant.. there is a ceremony i will have to attend in less than two weeks and i don't want to risk having a huge papule that won't be coverable,though when i am afraid that something huge is going to appear i use a costisone cream and it comes to a head the next day so it flattens immediately..

Alright, something has changed.. i looked into the mirror and i felt hope. For the first time after months! My cousin had her birthday and they ordered pizza.. with cheese of course. I ate without breaking out! I had one or two red patches after that but a few months ago i would have a breakout similar to the picture on top of this page.

Hi Valerie! Excited to hear about your progress tapering and weaning off Mino. I am only 5 weeks into Spiro and will wait until I am fully clear before I wean off the 200mg of Doxy. How have things been over the last few days?

Hi Maria! Good to see you are doing well Ive also been doing food tests on myself to see if I get any break outs, so far I tried chocolate to and nothing new has happened and I've also started taking my Minocycline every other day now instead of everyday. Hope all the foods your trying wont do anything ! Glad we are hanging in there but Its so hard!!!!

Hi CarpeMomentum! Everything here has been great! Started volunteer work at my local library and loving it!! As for skin wise I'm doing pretty good, I decided to switch back to Tazorac since I did love what it did for my skin a few years ago. I'm hoping I don't get an IB from it but my derm told me I shouldn't so I guess only time will tell

Have you noticed anything happening to your skin 5 weeks into Spiro? I like that its helping control some of the oily skin I had, I don't have to pat my face every 5 seconds anymore so that's a plus.

Yay Maria! You can now eat pizza I ate a whole hersey bar last week and nothing so I guess I can eat chocolate haha now watch me get a big pimple! That would be my luck.... So happy to here Spiro is starting to work again for you!!

Valerie! Yes, I have seen some definite changes. Yes, before I started I began in Oct/Nov to develop mild but persistent cysts and smaller breakout outs around hormonal area, neck, chin, jaw, mouth etc. I cut out all foods triggers, SLS, mouth products to stop any potential breakouts from that, but of course the hormonal area kept up. First 2 weeks seemed fine, 3rd and 4th week cyst breakout and then small bumps all over lower cheeks, sides of chin. Week 5 and now into week 6 have been a slow clearing of all the bumps that appeared. I have not had (knock on wood and pray to GOD and my poor soul and sanity) any deep cysts, nothing on my neck really since 3rd week. I had 2 appear on my jaw this weekend that I messed with but were not cysts. My oil production is def down from the first few weeks which was horrible. Next week is my period so these next two weeks will be telling. Im just trying to heal the damn red marks and get rid of these tiny bumps that I know need to come up. 50 mg spiro, yasmin and doxy is my arsenal and feel like they have been on my side for the last few weeks. Definitely ups and down about my feelings and really really want to be hopeful that this clearing is the road to recovery! Everyone on these boards has helped me through it. I wanted to give up, throw in the towel, I want to hide and stop life (even though it's not anywhere near what some people have to deal with in regards to acne or life) but I haven't. You all give my faith, inspiration and hope. Without that, I can't imagine. Reading over and over has soothed me in the worst times. Hopefully my story will do the same. Being a woman is hard enough, then add all this other crap into the mix. Peace and love all!

I have a new papule, not huge (yrt) but i feel it's going to be big.. it's not very swollen but i know it's going to be, if i leave it untreated. I drank a small amount of milk yesterday, about 50 ml, nothng else. And yet there it is. It's so annoying and i can't explain it, it's been 3 months! My last breakout of this type was 3 weeks ago and it's good but i want the previous result!

Hmm I wonder why its not working as good as before, the same thing happens to me when I stop a med and then start again. Maybe its just going to take a little longer to fully work. My spiro is working very well for me. I still get an occasional pimple around my cycle but at least I haven't had a cyst in 2 months. The last pic you posted your skin looked great so just keep going Maria, its working

Hmm I wonder why its not working as good as before, the same thing happens to me when I stop a med and then start again. Maybe its just going to take a little longer to fully work. My spiro is working very well for me. I still get an occasional pimple around my cycle but at least I haven't had a cyst in 2 months. The last pic you posted your skin looked great so just going Maria, its working

The good thing is that for 3 weeks there was nothing major and i know that it's the dairy so i can keep them away-but i don't want to

I feel i am so near and so far at the same time. I don't know, it could be a coincidence... I will try again in a few days, after this one is gone..

whatever i did, didn't work.. It's not very swollen yet but it's red as blood..that ceremony is tomorrow and there is no way i can avoid it.

I managed to control the swelling so with make up on it wasn't obvious! Unfortunately this doesn't change the fact that milk still breaks me out and that i seem to be unable to make it come to a head, leaving all the inflammatory material inside my skin..

Hey Maria,

It could be that 100mg is too much. I feel like what we should be doing with the Spiro is using it to BALANCE our hormones. So imagine taking too much and you're only causing further imbalance and causing your body to go even more out of wack. I have actually been on Spiro since the end of December and took it mostly all through January. My prescription finished 10 days ago so I haven't taken a pill since then (well I got it refilled today so just took my first pill in ten days a few hours ago). I started on 25mg and noticed an improvement (I think lol...even my derm said it did good things for me when she saw me today!) and today we both agreed to bump it up to 50 mg. I'm 5'4 about 105-107 pounds more or less. I feel like for my weight and body this is perfect and anything more would do more harm than good. I know there's a lot of talk on this forum how women think they will only see results on 100-200 mg but this doesn't have to true. Everyone's body is different!

I will keep you posted on how my skin looks with continued spiro...my acne is more on the mild side and with makeup i can get away with pretty good looking skin...so my heart goes out to those who are truly struggling! As for skincare, i was using a facewash called ZENCIA and looooved it. my insurance is being mean lol and with the new year my deductible went up so the bottle is now costing me 70$ so i decided to pass :'( i got a BPO creamy wash 4% instead. my skin has always been sensitive to benzoyl but this could be b/c i've used stronger face washes in 7-10% and have tried leaving it on overnight w/gels or moisturizers. so im hoping the 4% WASH won't irritate me. keeping fingers crossed!

Hey Maria,

It could be that 100mg is too much. I feel like what we should be doing with the Spiro is using it to BALANCE our hormones. So imagine taking too much and you're only causing further imbalance and causing your body to go even more out of wack. I have actually been on Spiro since the end of December and took it mostly all through January. My prescription finished 10 days ago so I haven't taken a pill since then (well I got it refilled today so just took my first pill in ten days a few hours ago). I started on 25mg and noticed an improvement (I think lol...even my derm said it did good things for me when she saw me today!) and today we both agreed to bump it up to 50 mg. I'm 5'4 about 105-107 pounds more or less. I feel like for my weight and body this is perfect and anything more would do more harm than good. I know there's a lot of talk on this forum how women think they will only see results on 100-200 mg but this doesn't have to true. Everyone's body is different!

I will keep you posted on how my skin looks with continued spiro...my acne is more on the mild side and with makeup i can get away with pretty good looking skin...so my heart goes out to those who are truly struggling! As for skincare, i was using a facewash called ZENCIA and looooved it. my insurance is being mean lol and with the new year my deductible went up so the bottle is now costing me 70$ so i decided to pass :'( i got a BPO creamy wash 4% instead. my skin has always been sensitive to benzoyl but this could be b/c i've used stronger face washes in 7-10% and have tried leaving it on overnight w/gels or moisturizers. so im hoping the 4% WASH won't irritate me. keeping fingers crossed!

The face wash is by prescription only and was actually recommended by a friend of mine who, if you saw, would laugh if you ever heard her say she suffered from acne--so it needs to be something you ask your doctor for. Basically, it is Sodium Sulfacetamide + Sulfur. What I love about is it's sooo gentle yet so effective and it actually IMRPOVES the texture of your skin, not just your acne. This face wash has many brands/generics and is made in several labs. Some off the top of my head: Plexion, Rosanil, Zencia, Clarifoam EF, Sumaxin. I am dying to get my hands on the Clarifoam EF because I found raving reviews and I actually love using foam face washes! Unfortunately, my insurance is different now since the past few years and my deductible is insanely high. These washes are coming up no less then $65-70 for me. Clairifoam EF probably $200-300. I got a BPO 4% creamy wash yesterday instead for $38 and this was A HUGE MISTAKE! I should know by now my skin curses benzoyl. It was only 4% and I was fine using it last night but now the next morning, my skin feels irritated and is a bit red around the sides of my face. Just dumped $40 bucks in the garbage. See if you can get your hands on this face wash. Talk to your derm. Maybe your insurance will be kinder than mine!

The face wash is by prescription only and was actually recommended by a friend of mine who, if you saw, would laugh if you ever heard her say she suffered from acne--so it needs to be something you ask your doctor for. Basically, it is Sodium Sulfacetamide + Sulfur. What I love about is it's sooo gentle yet so effective and it actually IMRPOVES the texture of your skin, not just your acne. This face wash has many brands/generics and is made in several labs. Some off the top of my head: Plexion, Rosanil, Zencia, Clarifoam EF, Sumaxin. I am dying to get my hands on the Clarifoam EF because I found raving reviews and I actually love using foam face washes! Unfortunately, my insurance is different now since the past few years and my deductible is insanely high. These washes are coming up no less then $65-70 for me. Clairifoam EF probably $200-300. I got a BPO 4% creamy wash yesterday instead for $38 and this was A HUGE MISTAKE! I should know by now my skin curses benzoyl. It was only 4% and I was fine using it last night but now the next morning, my skin feels irritated and is a bit red around the sides of my face. Just dumped $40 bucks in the garbage. See if you can get your hands on this face wash. Talk to your derm. Maybe your insurance will be kinder than mine!

I believe it isn't available here or i would be able to find it, at least their active ingredients on the list of prescription drugs currently on market. I am sure it's good, especially sulfur was used against acne since the ancient years.. I don't want to talk with derms anymore.. my acne is clearly hormonal and the last derm told me to try accutane instead of spiro. The only problem is that usually when you don't treat the root of the problem, it will come back.. and i don't want 6 months of dry like desert skin (at best) only to relapse a few months later. After all there are things that won't be comfortable at all and he just dismissed them.. i had a friend that couldn't shave her legs, it was summer and she had to wear long jeans. I use contact lenses and i doubt i would tolerate them.. A girl here said that she couldn't remove her eyebrows-sorry but i can't afford being a female Thranduil for 6 months. Thanks for the advice though...

my time is very limited these days but i definitely have to update... I have been trying with 50 mg again, some quite small papules appeared as expected but nothing really bad.. And then i cooked something that i have tried before without problems but i used a small quantity of the milk that broke me out 10 days ago. I have a swollen papule on my eyebrow, but i feel it's superficial, not in the deeper layers of skin i believe. Then i thought that this would be a good chance to see what happens if i go for 75 again. After a few hours i had the same break out as 10 days ago, growing in the skin but just a redness on the surface. As if this wasn't confusing enough, later that day i broke out on my forehead and it wasn't a new break out but one of the small papules from the 50 mg test, healing. Now it's the biggest of them, swollen and not looking superficial. I have no idea what to think about it. An obvious but superficial, a deep but not that visible and one where an old was. I am deeply confused but there's one thing i am certain: this milk must be filled with hormones... I made a picture of my progress from the date i started this till a few days ago, my new break out isn't there. Just for the shake of accuracy i used my mobile phone since the first was taken from it.