Hey everyone:

I am 25 and I've had moderate to severe breakouts since I was 14. I've tried everything (tazorac, differin, bp, ocm, aha, acv) and visited multiple dermatologists with no success. I'm wondering if I even have acne or if its some other skin condition that is causing my breakouts.

My skin is very flaky and dry, yet if I use any type of moisturizer my skin gets extremely shiny and oily. My skin is clearly damaged from all the different treatments over the years, plus my habit of constantly picking at and worrying about my skin has not helped with the physical and emotional scarring.

Right now I'm feeling pretty helpless and have decided, for now, to quit putting anything on my skin whatsoever. I'm sick of masking the issue and causing more harm than good.

Something I've noticed recently is that I have a large amount of dead skin build up on my face. This doesn't happen anywhere else on my body, not even on my back where I still get moderate acne at. This build up causes me to have flakes on my face, scalp, and sideburn area. I've tried combating this issue with AHA, acv and OCM to help exfoliate but the flake build up always returns along with the acne. Also, head and shoulders hasn't helped with the scalp issue.

Can all this dead skin be contributing to my problem with acne and flaking? I've briefly researched seborrhoeic dermatitis which somewhat resembles my symptoms; however, I'm still not sure because I've always been told I simply have acne. I'd appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on my situation and provide any recommendations for how to move forward with this.