Hello, I would like to share my story of acne with everyone, and maybe someone that was in a similar situation as me can try and help. First I would like to give everyone a background of me, I am an athlete, play ice hockey for my high school and am also the football teams kicker. Freshman year I was somewhat popular had a lot of friends got along really well with everyone went to parties and everything your average high school kid. I am posting this here because I can't talk about this with anyone in my real life, I am to embarrassed.

I first got acne the summer after freshman year of high school. Like some people where it moderately starts and gets worse as time progresses, it hit me like a train. I was getting constant whiteheads and cysts everywhere.

That summer I went on vacation to the with a few friends and our parents for a week, and I don't know what happened but it basically all went away over that vacation, and I didn't use anything to wash my face with for that whole week. After the vacation it all came back again as quickly as it went away. During my Sophomore year of high school I tried proactive/clearasil/etc. anything you could think of to get rid of my acne. I even tried what I did on vacation and just not wash my face with anything but water for awhile, but that didn't work. During sophomore year I was beginning to grow farther and farther apart from my friends, and to make matters worse my 3 best friends moved out of town. I started staying in on the weekends and not going out anymore with people because I started to become embarrassed.

The summer of Sophomore year into Junior year of high school I tried several different approaches to my acne. I begin to think that maybe salt water could of gotten rid of my acne, due to it's exfoliating ability. So over summer break I taught myself how to surf (not very well lol) and spent most of my summer at the beach and in the ocean. That of course, did not work at all, but at least I learned something new. During junior year I began to try more hollistic approaches to getting rid of my acne. I cut milk out of my diet, started eating healthier and doing weekly detox' every so often. I started going to the gym five days a week. Doing everything I could possibly do to try and get rid of my acne. During junior year I tried all the over the counter stuff, proactive etc. I tried Dry-lo for whiteheads (my Mom told me this is how she got rid of her acne in high school) it did help my whiteheads but is completely useless when it comes to cysts. I kept waiting for summer break in school before senior year, hoping that my acne would go away over the summer and I can come back as a new person. But that didn't work one bit.

In August right before my senior year started, I said f**k it I am getting Accutane. I completed three months of Accutane before my Derm told me that my liver was acting up and I had to be taken off of it for a month. And this is where I am now. During Accutane I saw no improvement whatsoever (30mg/d for months 1-2, 60mg/d month 3). During Accutane I had no side effects whatsoever (except the occasional back-ache and chapped lips) to be honest my skin wasn't even that dry. I figured I'd get an upped dosage for the fourth month but I guess I was completely wrong. I started praying every night since September asking God to help, (gone to catholic school since Kindergarten but pretty much stopped going to church in 9th grade).

So now that you have (hopefully) read my great wall of text, what do you guys think? Should I just throw in the towel and give up? I honestly have no clue what to do at this point...I just don't want to have this for the rest of my life.. I can't take it!