Hello acne.org family.

My name is Franco,i'm 17 years old (2 months for 18) and i am from Argentina.

During my early teen stages i used to have a really mild acne. Mostly comedonal. Maybe a pimple there and there. No cysts at all.

Almost three months ago,after my high school graduation,during summer,i started to get more serious acne. Closed comedones were in my face for years,but they started to transform into zits with pus. Anyways it still was really light and otc products were able to control it,and most of the pimples were due to no proper picking habits. I broke out really bad in new years eve since i used an corticosteroid topical cream as a mask on my nose to help pimple's scabs to heal. Really bad mistake since it made my skin to peel off and infect it with little pimples all around it (an normal side effect when you use a corticosteroid cream in the bad way).

So,Being sick of this closed comedones and the minor pimples (maybe my face worsened due to the corticosteroid cream?),i decided to visit an dermatologist. She prescribed me 0,01% differin,nothing else. Used it for 6 weeks. BIGGEST MISTAKE IN MY LIFE. Through these weeks i started to develop cystic acne on my cheek,small bumps on my forehead,SUPER OILY SKIN. And guess what,closed comedones were still there. No improvement at all

On the 6th week i visited another derm again. This one told me that i could give another week to differin or prescribe me something else. I went to the second option since,i would already seen and improvement since my acne was super light before shiterrin. So i got Benzoyl Peroxide + Erythromycin 4%. Second biggest mistake in my life. Used it for two weeks. Yes it was clearing the acne differin caused. BUT IT WAS BRINGING OLD ACNE MARKS AND MAKING NEW ONES FROM EXISTING PIMPLES. Disgusting at all. Besides that the antibiotic was super drying my face. No moisturize would help. So for the happy ending,after 2 weeks i developed an allergy reaction to the bp. Face all red,itchy,dry and swollen for 4 days. And guess what,after these 4 days all the acne came back. So for me using benzoyl peroxide is utter shit. A chemical to harsh for skin and if u don't use it,acne comes back and worse...really nice.

Days ago,i visited again the derm. Prescribed me antibiotics,what i refused to take. I won't take antibiotics for an aesthetic reason. I will take them for a health reason. They are an temporal fix,worthless.

And now i am here,im back to the otc products that used to clear my old mild acne and i do have hope in them to clear my fucked up skin caused by the dermatologists prescriptions.

It is normal for an -almost- 18 years guy to get progressively worse acne ? I think that i already went trough puberty so i don't get it. It will get at least mild again with the otc products?. It seems that the old shitty prescribed products worsened my face forever,it's so sad.