I have recently acquired a nasty poison ivy reaction, and it's infected. One of the worst cases my doctor has ever seen, apparently.

I started taking Prednisone yesterday, 10 mg four times daily.

But today I convinced him to give me antibiotics, for the infection, but also because I saw this thread a few days ago. I was given Cephalexin, 500 mg, to take four times daily for a week.

I think the Prednisone was actually already helping my acne, as my face looks a bit clearer... it helps with inflammation.

I'll let you know how I'm looking in a week!

How's your skin treating you right now, by the way?

Absolutely terrible. I was on vacation and gave in to the request to put on sunscreen; I've never broken out so horribly as that before. Avoiding sunscreen afterwords the salt water and Sun helped me in some ways, but I still look hideous. I am doing nothing at the moment to treat my skin, i.e. caveman regimen. I'll have an appointment with a dermatologist soon and hopefully I can acquire antibiotics similar to penicillin, for almost immediately that was able to clear me up a few months ago. If antibiotics are your salvation then I hope they work well for you; I only hope that: I've not become immune to antibiotics. That antibiotics which aren't penicillin can still bring about the same effect as penicillin. That my penicillin usage wasn't just a fluke. if my hopes align with how things really are I would be most pleased.

I should add that I'm planning on taking probiotics as well. I did research about this and apparently antibiotics seek to destroy bacteria, I mean both good and bad. Probiotics cultivate the good bacteria and I could slowly normalize my body and ween myself off the temporary antibiotics.

Most people who have been on antibiotics note that once they stop their acne returns (I've never tried antibiotics for this reasons as I realize how damanging antibiotics can be and for me personally it's not worth risking more body damage for a result that doesn't last).

I'm curious your thoughts on what you will do if your acne comes back once your antibiotic course is finished as a large deal of people note this

Have you considered natural means to cleanse the body/kill bacteria? Curious if perhaps you eat a lot of sugar?

Acne is rarely just a case of bacteria (when talking about the face surface that is) and if you suggest it's bad bacteria within you perhaps it's worth taking a fair amount of probiotics/fermented food/making kefir first before using antibiotics? If you have an overgrowth of bacteria in your body antibiotics won't fix the problems only mask it you have to get down to the root cause why it is you even have a bacteria overgrowth. perhaps you have leaky gut? have you taken antibiotics in the past?

I also had my wisdom teeth removed, the meds after were only used for a little bit but i noted no difference in my face. (but i know my acne is very hormonal).

In fact the clearest my face had been was straight after from waking from the anesthetic - I guess my body enjoyed a bit of a break haha.

What I know is that penicillin caused the redness in my face to entirely dissipate, and essentially all acne stopped, i.e. I was triumphantly clear. No changes to me were brought about except for the obvious having my wisdom teeth removed and placing gauze on the sockets. Additionally my face swelled, though that follows naturally. From all of this I can only really deduce that the penicillin, an antibiotic, simply removed the bacterial infection.

I know that I am inflamed. My acne is only whiteheads and nothing else, and I can see the redness beneath the surface of my skin. It is rather apparent to me therefore that I have a bacterial infection. My intent then is to acquire antibiotics to rework the same effect the penicillin did.

I am not planning for antibiotics to be anything other than temporary, for indeed they are compounded with two problems, namely that they also remove the necessary good bacteria & that they are eventually rendered ineffective through the development of an immunity pertaining to the inflammatory-causing bacteria. Indeed as you suggested I am planning to augment the antibiotics with probiotics: I posit the root cause of my problems to be a bacterial imbalance, I mean that there is more bad bacteria than there is good, due to genetics environment diet etc. Whatever is causing these present circumstances, I am at a loss to understand how the effective destruction of my inflammation, and the cultivation of good bacteria, could, in the end, relapse.

At that point it is a matter of mathematics. The rate of the growth of bad bacteria, having been destroyed, having been in no way augmented by anything other than what is naturally causing it to exist, should be not only inferior to the rate of growth of good bacteria but also checked by the abundant supply of that latter substance. In the end, I believe that if I have for quite a while strongly promoted the existence of good bacteria in my body and killed off the bad, the presence of the good in their abundance simply wouldn't allow the bad to grow to the extent that I would be inflamed again.

I conclude that my body is damaged: there are more bad bacteria than there are good, and they are wreaking havoc, i.e. my body is in an abnormal state. I therefore must take antibiotics in order to repair the damage, which process antibiotics are specifically designed to aid. I suppose I should say, if it were the case that the Earth possessed one nuclear missle powerful enough to destroy the type of asteroid that could cause mass extinction of species, and a moderate asteroid of that type -- not, mind you, the largest or most threatening asteroid which exists, but one which could level our cities and significantly damage the concord and tranquility of humanity -- it would be expedient to use that missle, for it is the very tool that exists to avert such a crisis, even given the harmful effects such a weapon possess otherwise; even if the asteroid isn't powerful enough to bring about total extinction. It would simply be a foolish measure to not avert suffering which it is in our ability to avert.

I had my wisdom teeth out not too long ago, and My acne cleared up aswell. The funny thing is, I didn't event take my pills... LOL.

But anyways, I take minocycline which is pretty much a low-dosable anti-biotic, and it REALLY helps with those pustules. Unfortunately, most of my acne now I black-heads and Clogged poors (crap... That means I need something topical.. *SIGH!*)

im getting my wisdom teeth out in a couple weeks... hope my skin clears up too haha

Hi, I am on antibiotics for acne, I was on oxytetracline for almost 3 months and had to switch because I thought I was having an alergic reaction to it, but it turned out that was caused by something else.

The oxy did seem like it was working, however they put me on Tetralysal 300 (lymecycline) which is tedius as I have to wait to see if it works, I do hope it does, and it doesn't contain penacillin, which I hope won't prove to be unhelpful as you seem to have been very victorious with it, however the oxy did contain it, but the results or helping acne were really mild.

I just got my molar extracted last week. I was given Amoxicillin(500mg) and my acne has cleared up so well. I had been using 50mg of doxycycline for nearly two years but since i needed to take four big capsules a day of Amoxicillin i stopped taking doxy and kept on taking Amoxicillin. I am seeing a huge improvement on my skin. I had huge pores on my cheeks and a lot of redness and now my pores are pretty much invisible and all my redness has gone, just hopes it stays that way

- Think it is frowned upon too post in old topics, if so my bad.

Same with me.

I cleared up my skin 90-95% to be honest with chemical peels at the office, extractions, and my topicals along with a healthy diet.

But the acne that remains cannot be diminished. I was on antibiotics about 2 weeks ago, and noticed that my skin became flawless in the midst.

If you get a good quality brand of probiotics, with multiple strains...or an organic yoghurt/kefir...or start fermenting vegetables...

The good bacteria can actually kill of the bad stuff. So in a way, it's like you'd be taking antibiotics, but without lightning fast results. Like you said, once the ratio reverses, and the good bacteria outnumber the bad, you should be in good shape. And there are many foods/teas that are antibacterial/antimicrobial. Raw honey, green tea, cinnamon, garlic, ...the list goes on and on. Vitamin C is a huge antibacterial/antimicrobial. And these foods, as i understand it, are generally friendly to good bacteria

I think you are going to screw yourself even worse if you start any antibiotics. I've read too many stories of this happening to people, which is why i would never advise anyone taking them. Have you ever tried green smoothies? As in loading a butt ton of spinach into a blender with some fruit and making a paste out of it? This has made a world of difference in my skin. And many other members as well.

Probiotics, if they are good strains and live, along with a healthy diet, are such great weapons against acne. I'd venture a guess that most people in the U.S. have the reverse of good bacteria vs bad. And whether or not it shows itself in acne form, it's going to show itself further down the road with more severe health issues

The only flaw in this probiotic plan, is there's only so much room in your gut / intestines for them, and you have anywhere from 200-1000 different strain you've been acquiring since birth. We can only culture a few, maybe 30. So common sense dictates to me, that if you over populate with the same strain, that this would have an overall negative effect, as there would be less space for diversity. IMO, im not a doctor. Which is like to add are frigging useless anyway (if they can't prescribe a potentially harmful pill, or recommend younto get cut open, what good are they?? Fuck the medical community).

If you get a good quality brand of probiotics, with multiple strains...or an organic yoghurt/kefir...or start fermenting vegetables...

The good bacteria can actually kill of the bad stuff. So in a way, it's like you'd be taking antibiotics, but without lightning fast results. Like you said, once the ratio reverses, and the good bacteria outnumber the bad, you should be in good shape. And there are many foods/teas that are antibacterial/antimicrobial. Raw honey, green tea, cinnamon, garlic, ...the list goes on and on. Vitamin C is a huge antibacterial/antimicrobial. And these foods, as i understand it, are generally friendly to good bacteria

I think you are going to screw yourself even worse if you start any antibiotics. I've read too many stories of this happening to people, which is why i would never advise anyone taking them. Have you ever tried green smoothies? As in loading a butt ton of spinach into a blender with some fruit and making a paste out of it? This has made a world of difference in my skin. And many other members as well.

Probiotics, if they are good strains and live, along with a healthy diet, are such great weapons against acne. I'd venture a guess that most people in the U.S. have the reverse of good bacteria vs bad. And whether or not it shows itself in acne form, it's going to show itself further down the road with more severe health issues

Listen to this man!