From personal experience, i find that less is more when it comes to treating acne. One derm had me on 4 prescriptions at the same time and damn my face was a mess. It think you should stick to your current regimen for 3 months before adding or changing things around. Also antibiotics are terrible for your system so use them only as a last resort

Good Luck

An antibiotic would help with the initial breakout from the topicals. What you can do instead of using antibiotics is eat healthy and drink lots of water.

Eat lots if fresh uncooked vegetables. Making salads is a great way to get all your fresh veggies. You can even add fruit, nuts, chicken and boiled eggs to your salad. Adding a probiotic will help too. You can eat yogurt or buy probiotic drinks and supplements. Only buy refrigerated probiotics as they are the best. Taking vitamin c will help out a lot too. You can drink lemon water or buy a vitamin c powder or capsule supplement.

If you keep your immune system in good shape you should be able to fight of inflammation from acne. Your topical clindamycin will fight off the bacteria. Witch hazel has known anti inflammatory properties and could help. Thayers witch hazel toner is a good one to start out with. Dickinsons witch hazel will work too but contains a small amount of alcohol which some dont like. The Thayers witch hazel toner is alcohol free.

I've found the best thing is to tell my derm exactly what is happening --- to keep in touch on how I'm progressing. If I were you I'd ask the question..."Is there anything I can do or take that will help with this flare-up?" I think taking an oral antibiotic when first starting a new regime can make it so much more tolerable. Plus you'll have less scarring. And it really doesn't hurt your body to take an antibiotic in this way. What is bad is taking an antibiotic for years as your only way of dealing with acne.

The regime your derm has you on sounds reasonable for the kind of acne you have. You may have to experiment with what kind of retin-a works for you. For example I was using generic tretinoin cream for years but then started getting more irritation and my derm just recently switched me over to retin-a micro because it is supposedly less irritating and it now comes in generic form which is less expensive.

If you can control your acne with topicals that works best. Another thing you can look into is spironolactone but that is usually for more resistant acne and if topicals don't work. You can google info on spiro. It isn't a hormone but it moderates androgen receptor sites which in turn helps with acne.

I have really resistant cystic acne and even I have been able to get almost clear skin (miracle) so I know you will. Just work with your derm. Another word of advice is to do exactly what the derm says. Ask for recommendations for cleansers and lotions, etc. For example my derm recommended DML lotion as being a very mild and truly non-comedogenic lotion. Now I would never have known that on my own...and surely never had heard of DML lotion before. But it is used and recommended by plastic surgeons and for people after laser work so you know it is mild.

thanks for the response ...i guess what is just bothering me is that now my whole entire face is covered in whiteheads and my cheeks and chin is getting larger acne bumps. i dont want to even leave the house. my face didint look like this to begin with..so im just praying this is part of the purging process and that it wont last for too long a period. i feel like my face is ruined from the initial breakout