I have been on the acne.org regimen since July 2011 with very good results, about 90-100% clear most of the time. I have been having severe whitehead problems the past 6 months while on the regimen and I'm really frustrated over this.. Some days I wake up to dozens of new whiteheads all around my chin, above my lip, and next to my nose. Of course being whiteheads I feel the need to pop them as they look so nasty. I can't go out in public with dozens of whiteheads. I've tried BHA(salicylic acid) and AHA in place of the BP and it just doesn't seem to help. The regimen works great everywhere except this one area!
After some discussion I am going to just increase my BP dosage. I have been using about 3/4 to 1 pump for my whole face which feels like a ton already while the regimen actually recommends 2. We will see what happens using 2 pumps.
Other info:
I'm also taking a 50mg Zinc supplement which I started taking almost a week ago.
If its kept you 90% clear for so long then whats the point in coming off it? Perhaps the breakouts youve had are from slacking off the regimen a bit - not waiting 10 minutes after washing your face to treat, not using enough bp, not being gentle enough - I dont understand why you think your skins going to magically clear itself up if you dont use the BP?
Well I plan to use the BP in the spots I don't have these issues. I just want to stop using BP in the area where these whiteheads never stop forming to see if I'm having a bad reaction to it. I set aside an hour every morning and always have time at night to get the regimen done so I have followed it consistently.
Umm... You may want to double back and check where you may be going wrong with the regimen. Do the acne.org questionnaire to see if there are any possible missteps with the regimen. I agree with XXYY, you may be waiting too long between your wash and BP application (should only be about 5 mins) and/or you aren't applying enough BP, and/or you are being too rough with your application steps. Good luck and keep us up to date on your progress...
The BP should in theory prevent whiteheads. I suffer from solely whiteheads and when I was on the regimen I rarely got a single one. BP kills the p.acne bacteria's which is present within a whitehead.
Definitely try being as strict as possible with the steps and if in doubt, use more BP. Spot treating won't prevent them, so it's important you cover all problematic areas, if not your whole face.
I only quit the regimen due to price (I live in the UK) and flakiness which I never managed to get to subside. You should stick it out. I'd definitely give it another shot if I could afford to.
Well thanks guys. I updated my thread. I'll increase the amount of BP I use. I was getting away with 3/4 to 1 pump just fine for more than a year and never saw the need to increase to more as it was working at that dosage. Maybe my face just decided it wasn't enough now.
Day 2
I woke up last night from pain on my chin and absolutely paranoid of a breakout. I got up to check because that's how sure I was that I had about 50 whiteheads forming. There wasn't much difference so I went back to bed. I ended up waking up later with about 7 whiteheads, 4 of them from the previous day. By the time I washed my face a few of them were gone as they were oozing a bit just from washing.
So far my face looks a bit better today but it still hurts about as much as yesterday. I've had a few very small whiteheads form through the day but luckily they're so small they're hardly noticable. Hopefully the pain goes down soon though.