Well I totally jinxed myself by saying I didn't have any cysts on my chin. Got up this morning and BAM, massive eruption the size of my entire chin. It's red, it hurts and the skin in shiny it's so stretched out. I don't think this one's going down without a fight Ugh.....

4 days later, the cyst on my chin is pretty much gone, there is still some redness left but I can cover that with makeup. So far so good, I don't see any other cysts forming. I read on this site that bp 2.5% is a good combo with stieva-a and I just happen to have some leftover proactiv products so I'm going to keep doing my proactiv routine in the morning (plus Cera Ve moisturizing cleanser) and wash my face with Cera Ve at night. I also have clyndoxyl gel and over the counter hydrocortisone cream (and polysporin antibacterial ointment) to help the skin heal once the cyst is drained. I'm terrified of increasing the frequency of my stieva-a cream to every night because it made me break out so badly, but I know it's part of the process and if I want results I have to stick with it. Anyways I'll play it by ear and if I see I'm breaking out again I'll slow to every couple of days. I really honestly can't wait to stop worrying about my face

Oh my god please god please dont let me breakout any more. From what I can see tonight, there might be a cyst growing right where the other one on my chin just healed AND another one on the left side of my chin where I had one weeks back but the redness never totally went away and now it's enflamed again. OMG I can't deal with this any longer I have a dentist appointment on Tuesday and I know they're gonna wear latex gloves a screw my skin even worst

Well, two days later and the cyst (I call them cysts but they could just be deep zits) became super inflamed and throbbing. I went to work but skipped the gym - again. By end of work day I got home, washed my face and that bugger had come to a head so I pricked it with a needle and drained it (I was careful not to squeeze too much). It kept draining for a while, pretty much all evening (husband was out partying with his buddies for his birthday so I wasn't so embarrassed to walk around bare face). Waited half an hour after washing my face, applied my stevia-a cream and waited another half hour/45 minutes. At that point I put hydrocortizone ointment on it, thick and I kept refreshing it every half hour or so. I have to say this morning is much better - not perfect but it's healing.

Now I'm not sure exactly if it helped (or could it be that at week 7 I'm finally over the retin-a IB) but I had 2 soy protein shakes yesterday for am snack and pm snack. Apparently soy helps boost your estrogen levels because when your levels are down, that could be what causes hormonal acne in women (think the week before your cycle). I'm going to stick with this for a while to see if it helps. I also take Evening Primerose to help level my dang hormones, vitamin D in the morning, omega oil, 5-HTP for stress and zinc at night. I know it sounds like a lot but I'm so desperate to clear my skin up. Fingers crossed!

Oh and I forgot to mention, last year I ordered a tooth whitening kit that came with this little apparatus you put in your mouth and it emits blue light. So I am trying it on my skin, I just hold the little blue light mouth piece up to my blemishes for about half an hour at a time. Apparently blue light penetrates your skin and kills the acne bacteria. Hey what do I have to lose anyways...

Ok, ok, ok deep breath. The stupid cyst on the side of my chin is healing. Still visible bump under my makeup but at least it doesn't hurt anymore and is not infected. I went to the gym today (yay!). I'm still convinced people are staring but I just avoid eye contact so whatever. There is another tiny one that is threatening to come out on the front of my chin below the previous one. It's barely a red bump but it hurts to touch so I really don't know how this one's gonna turn out. I went to Walmart yesterday and bought a couple of things - one of them is a Neutrogena vibrating brush to exfoliate dead skin. I never realized that the little pads you attach to the brush have products on it... I know, I should have read the instructions - dumb @$$. The first ingredient (which I assume is the highest concentration) is glycerin so I really have no idea how this is going to interact with my stiev-a. Clearly I didn't use both at the same time, but still I wonder if that's too much products on my face. So far so good, not too much redness or dryness - or other major breakouts for that matter.

Oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooood! Today the tiny bump on the front of my chin turned into a big red cyst. I look like Rudolph except it's on my chin! But I am hopeful that this is the very last breakout of my IB, right? Right??? Ugh!!

The rest of my face is "ok" although my skin tone is definitely redder than usual (probably due to the bp in Proactive which I only use in the am). It looks like I'm using makeup that is too dark for me - it doesn't match my vampire white neck (on which I stopped using my stieva-a cream 'cause I'm choosing my battles...), but it's not makeup - it's my skin colour! I was standing next to my daughter today and she's got milky smooth skin (well she's 12 so...) and I am patchy red. Anyways, I'd take redness, flakyness and big pores any day over cyststic acne. A couple of more days and this bugger should be gone...

Well today my little cystic friend is not better at all. Actually if anything it's worst. I tried pricking it with a needle when I got home from work yesterday but that didn't have the effect I expected. It just kept draining all night and although I slapped tons of cortisone cream on it, somehow today it's still throbbing and infected and RED. It's now a huge bump clumbsily covered in makeup, I look like a total joke. I have spent the entire day at work feeling sorry for myself and trying not to tear up. I'm taking the last ferry home in the hopes that it will be empty so I don't have to see anyone (and mostly they don't have to look at me!). I hope I'm able to pop it tonight and be done with it so it starts healing. I will apply my stieva-a cream tonight, and before I go to bed I will dab a bit of sulfur mask on it to see if it dries up.

Today is Sunday and my cyst is healing but still a huge red spot right in the middle of my chin. I think dabbing sulfur mask on in for a couple of hours Friday evening might have helped with the infection. I also slept with cortisone cream on it covered by a band aid and Saturday It was better. Nowhere near "normal" but on it's way down at least. Tomorrow I'm starting week 8 and from what I read, I can expect a little more breaking out until week 10-12 but nothing as bad as week 5-7. I only used my cream a couple of times last week because my breakouts freaked me out so bad, so today I'm trying it during the day. I know we're supposed to do that because it makes us more sensitive to sunlight but I'm not going outside - it's snow storming once again. If anything it might make the cream a little less potent but at least I have it on. I don't want to jinx anything but other than the chin pimple, I don't see any other ones coming out. I started last week drinking soy protein powder shakes which is supposed to help boost my estrogen. It's already helping me sleep much better so hopefully it will also help my skin. We'll see! If I learned anything from this process, it's that most of the time less is more! When I wash my face or get out of the shower and my face is super red, I just want to slap moisturizer or bp lotion or cortisone cream, anything to "help" my skin. But if I wait 30 minutes and leave my face alone, I always find the redness goes down and things look much better. Strange but it soooo hard for me not to put some kind of product on my face, but in the end I wonder if it's not that exact "bad habit" that's making things much worse for me. Food for thoughts...

Today is Tuesday and that annoying little scar is still there on my chin. It's the same cycle over and over: it scabs over and the scab falls and it's a "wet" spot I can't conceal with makeup until it scabs over again and then the scab falls over... you get the drift. The redness has gone down and the bump is barely still there but now I'm dealing with the healing process. I don't see anything else coming out but I'm so terrified of getting another breakout, I'm just constantly looking in the mirror, trying to spot little red bumps (before they turn into big red bumps!) and each little tickle or tingle on my face makes me panic and run to the mirror. Apparently I'm not only scarred on the outside! I used my retin-a cream 2 days in a row and tonight will be the third in a row so fingers crossed my face holds on and it doesn't trigger any more breakouts.

Ok this is Wednesday and after 3 straight days (well nights really) of retin-a, my skin is a little pinker than usual but no peeling. I have a blemish on my forehead, above my left eye but it's up in my hairline so I don't care at all. It's just a pimple, not a cyst. I thought I might have one growing above my other eye cause when I washed my face I felt a little bit of pain but nothing came out. I had anoter pimple in my left eyebrow, again don't care cause it's not visible - but it's already gone. I also thought my right cheek might break out cause I felt some pain there too but I think it's already gone as well. Still monitoring my chin closely for redness or bumps. Still have a little bit of a scab and some redness where the last cyst was on my chin but it's healing and with the rest of my face being pink, it sort of blends in. Not wearing makeup today as I'm home cause of yet another storm. 50 cm and still snowing!

Today is Friday and I'm finishing week 8. I used my retin-a cream 4 nights in a row this week - tonight will be the 5th. So far so good, no new breakouts. Still have hyper pigmentation on my chin and a bit of a scab/dry skin left where my last cyst was. I also still have that little pimple in my hairline but it's not red or white for that matter, it's just a little bump. Maybe it will go away on its own. I'm wearing my hair up today - that is a huge step for me - I feel naked!! (as if my hair actually hid anything when it's down). My skin is still oily during the day and I am wondering if it's the BB cream so I will try to only use my moisturizer with SPF 15 and concealer where I need it. I have to swing by the drugstore today so I will see if I can fin oil blotting rice paper. I used to buy it all the time but they stopped carrying it where I usually buy it from. I hear people talking about how their skin glows on retin-a and I don't really see that just yet. I also don't really see a difference in wrinkles or plumpness so I'm not sure if next time I go to the doc's I should ask for a stronger prescription or if I should just hang in there with this one. I don't really want to go through the IB process over again, and I have no dryness or peeling issues either so maybe I should just stick with this one.

Monday: start of week 9. Still using my cream every day. I had washed my face randomly yesterday afternoon and so I didn't want to wash it again after supper 'cause I thought it would be too drying. So I just applied my cream on non-clean skin and today - coincidence or not - the bump on my upper lip seems to want to get infected again. I could feel it being a little itchy this morning and I was wondering if it would come back to life but now, after going to the gym, I can definitely tell it's angry. I dabbed some Clindoxyl gel on it (combo BP and topical antibiotic) and I can cover it with makeup. It's in a spot that's not too obvious but still, I'm disappointed 'cause I was hoping the breakouts would be over and done with and also because I have a job interview on Thursday - isn't this always the case...

I did buy some oil blotting squares from the drugstore but it wasn't rice paper. It was form Clean and Clear, kind of looks like latex or somehting. Used in on Saturday and wow, it does absorb excess sebum way better than rice paper. The thing turned completely see-through! Anyways, not wearing BB cream today and my face seems a bit less oily so I think I'm going to see if it's better not to use it. Another $10 out the window!

Tuesday: not much change. I still have this enormous painful zit right between my nose and upper lip and I have some smaller ones all over my chin. I can feel some sensitivity on the right side of my chin which is never good news. I sure hope it's not another cyst trying to grow. I will try to use BP after my retin-a tonight (like wait an hour or so and put some BP on before bed) to see if it helps. I'm getting a little tired of this to say the least...

Wednesday, halfway through week 9. Got home from work and that sucker above my lip was ripe and ready to pop. And when I say pop, it mean it actually made a friggin popping noise when I squeezed it and it splattered all over the mirror. Gross but wow the relief from the pressure and pain was so worth it. Plus tomorrow is my big job interview so I really hope it will be flat so I can put makeup on it. Please God let this be the last one!!!!

Sunday, end of week 9. The cyst on my upper lip was super manageable for my interview Thursday so I was really happy about that. I could feel a plug trying to work its way out on the side of my chin (where I felt a little bit of sensitivity last week). It was tiny like a pin head and hard so I "helped" it out. They're serious when they say DON'T PICK AT IT! But I did and it left a little bit of a scab. At least it didn't turn out into a bit infected bump! I still have some redness today, seems like the ghosts of evey zit I had over the past 9 weeks is coming back to haunt me! But apparently it's part of the process. Another couple of weeks and I should be better. Meantime, if I only have to deal with redness I'm not unhappy. Here's to hoping!

Monday, start of week 10. I got a little bit of sun while shovelling yesterday which is great because it sort of blends the acne scars a bit. I was wearing sunscreen and was mindful of not frying myself. My chin seems to be ok for now (knock on wood!) but I'm getting another zit right smack between my eyes. It's sort of like the one above my lip last week, it's one I got very early on as part of my initial breakout, and the red scar never completely went away. Now it wants to get angry again. It's probably going to be a tiny one that heals in no time but still it's annoying, right there between my eyes! Anyways, we'll see if this turns into anything. Other than that, I can see my skin starting to look more smooth and there are less lines on my forehead so I look less angry.

Wednesday April 1st. The good: you can barely tell I even has a blemish on my upper lip a week ago. The bad: the stupid zit between my eyes came to a head and popped yesterday. Still dealing with trying to conceal the mess. Not only that but last night I could feel a little hard bump on my chin. Didn't hurt, wasn't red but just hard to the touch. I used my retin-a cream just like every night and about half an hour later I used Clindoxyl gel on it. Then before bed time I dabbed a bit of sulfur mask on it too. This morning it hadn't progressed but was still a hard bump. So I've been putting more Clindoxyl gel on and off today in the hopes that this will kill it in the womb. I am soooooo tired of this. I really thought at 10 weeks I'd start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I'm starting to panic. Should I reduce my use to every second night? Should I go for an even stronger percentage? I just really want this to stop. I'm having my sister and her family over for the long weekend and I so don't want to have to worry about my skin.

I am 14 weeks in and still breaking out on Differin so what you are experiencing is not unusual. I think retinoids peak from 6 months to a year

Wednesday April 8, I'm halfway through week 11. So far this week things are okay - I only have a small blemish underneath my chin so it's not a big deal and it's on its way out already. I've had increased redness on my cheek, close to my nose where I had a breakout a couple of months ago (and the red mark never went away), so to avoid the old breakout coming back I used a little bit of my proactiv facewash in the shower this morning. I also used their repairing moisturiser and a dab of clindoxyl gel on it. All tha BP seems to have helped keep the bugger at bay. This week I am able to just use my concealer on the red spots and a bit of powder when I get too shiny but that's it, no heavy foundation and no hiding under a rock

End of week 11, the zit under my chin didn't amount to anything and went away in like 2 days. I'm still dealing with red spots here and there but nothing a little bit of BP or clindoxyl gel can't take care of. Happened a couple of times that I though my skin was peeling a little so I used pluckers to take the dry skin off and turns out it was actually a plug working its way out! Left a tiny hole which plumped up in a day. Gross I know but proved that the cream works. It could have turned out to be a huge infected blockage but it didn't! I also read a couple of other posts about enlarged pores and as I mentioned before I always had big pores (one rude dermatologist even told me he can see them from across the room!) so I'm not sure if it's making it worse or better. But I'm going to try to moisturise the crap out of my face this weekend to see if it plumps my skin up thus making my pores less visible. I'll let you know how that goes!

Today marks the mid 12 week mark. I had 2 smaller pimples above my eyebrow over the weekend and earlier this week but that disappeared really quickly. But on Monday I felt a bit of a sensitive spot on the side of my chin and I didn't really treat it that night with sulfur mask of Clindoxyl gel so when I got up Tuesday morning it turned into the beginning of a cyst. I put some Cyndoxyl gel on it that morning then makeup over but I think I missed the window of opportunity to nip this one in the bud. Today it's a huge bump on the side of my chin and even though I can cover it with makeup (so at least it's not a red bump), you can still totally tell it's there and I feel people are staring at me with wild eyes

I stayed home from work yesterday because of that stupid cyst on my chin. Awful. Today I had no choice but to come to work and it's now pretty much the end of the work day. The bump has gone down I'd say 80% since yesterday, it's amazing as bad as it was for 2 days, it totally deflated right in front of my eyes in like 8 hours. I'm left with mostly a scab which is impossible to hide with makeup. It was really throbbing and red yesterday and this morning as well, but I read another post talking about visine to reduce redness of your zits so I tried it and it seems to want to work all right. I will see when I get home tonight how bad it is and I will apply my Stieva cream, probably some visine and antibiotic cream on it and a tad of suflur mask at bedtime. Hoping that tomorrow it will just be a red spot and a bad memory. I have tiny red marks on my cheeks, small like pin heads and three of them. And still have the red scar from the huge one on my chin from a couple weeks ago that just won't go away. I had hoped that by the end of week 12, I would be doing better than this.

Hi everyone, it's been a long long time since I blogged and I just wanted to update you all. I have stopped the retin-a treatment. It did get better after a while, it took about 16-18 weeks. My skin was really greasy the whole time though - not sure if it was the cream or the hormones or the hot sticky summer we had. I was also using (and still am!) those Clean and Clear oil blotting sheets. They're blue and they feel like rubber, but they do work really well at absorbing the oil while leaving your makeup intact. When the summer came around I kind of slacked off on using my retin-a cream. When I started using it every night again, I started breaking out again, so I decided to stop the insanity - I had just gone through 16 weeks of bad skin and I was not going to start that over again. To this day I still have some scars on my chin that I don't think will ever go away.
So I started using the eye drops hack that I mentioned in my previous post (the Visine red irritated eye kind, not the pink eye antibiotic) I find it does work at reducing the redness and swelling. It turns those nasty cysts into little poppable whiteheads overnight. Just carry the bottle in your pocket and reapply throughout the day like you would a chap stick for example. 
I also started taking 2 supplements "for the ladies". Both are made by Lorne Vanderhaeghe: one is MenoSmart (for hot flashes, night sweats and symptoms of menopause) and the other one is EstroSmart (to balance hormones and help with PMS). The second one really really helps with my hormonal acne and to reduces the oiliness. They're available online and not that expensive.
So basically my routine is wash with a gentle cleanser twice a day (like spectro gel) and use the eye drops generously on every little red spot I can detect (I think it's the only thing that helped get rid of the three little red pinhead spots on my cheek!) - and of course the supplements religiously morning and night. I would use my Clyndoxyl gel as needed and a dab of proactive sulfur mask on the cysts that I can catch early enough.
I would never use retin-a all over my face again, but as a spot treatment to help my zits heal faster maybe. I'm not saying I have perfect skin but I think it's much more manageable than before. There is hope  

If theres anyone still here how do you deal with skin flaking whilst using stieva a, ive been told not to exfoliate but won't the dead skin cells result in clogged pores and breakouts etc...
please help thanks everyone