Hey everyone,
after lurking for a while I've decided to create an account and tell my story. It's kind of complicated and long but I'll try to keep it short!
So two/three years back I suffered from severe acne. I'm talking big cysts and many many inflammated whiteheads. After about a year of trying all sorts of different treatments (mostly bp) I finally went to the dermatologist and started using Accutane. This helped IMMENSELY, it was amazing, it cleared my entire skin and for a while I didn't get ANY pimples!
Unfortunately, after a while I started getting small whiteheads again, sometimes a lot but more often than not just a few here and there. It never got any more severe than it had been before my Accutane course though.
A month or two back I started eating a LOT of unhealthy food and obviously this didn't do my skin any good, and at first it was never really bad, just whiteheads and stuff. After a while though it started getting more serious, a LOT of whiteheads that caused a LOT of redness.
I can remember the exact moment where everything went really wrong. Two weeks ago I went to Francy by car, we left very early in the morning and in the afternoon I got these really big red pimples, not cysts, they didn't hurt, but it was baaad. This could've been caused by a few different reasons: the day before 1) I put on Dior Foundation to cover some of the redness and I forgot to wash my face before bed, so it stayed on the entire night. NOT good. 2) During our road trip to France I ate like two boxes of chocolate cookies, NOOOOT good. (I excercise a LOT so I can handle it ) 3) I also ate a lot of bananas that day and I've heard stories of bananas causing big pimples. Well, anyway, this stressed me out A LOT, and because of this I didn't eat a single unhealthy thing the entire week I was in France. My skin cleared up a LOT, again just a few whiteheads here and there.
...Until our way back. I ate a lot of bananas again and suddenly I started to wonder if THAT could've been the cause of the acne, so I freaked out and expecting big pimples again I put a LOT of benzoylperoxide on every new red spot on my face that appeared that day. This caused a lot of irritation and dry skin. At least that's what I think the cause is.
The next day my skin was horrible, (what didn't help was that I shaved my face with a bad raizor after having not shaved for a week). Every pimple I got, even the smallest ones, got flamy red and I decided to stop using benzoylperoxide. My skin slowly started to get better, and I was happy with it again, but then came the day I shaved my face again (a week or so after the last time) and the next day the inflammated pimples returned and the redness got worse.
Well that was yesterday. That night a big cyst appeared and I haven't had cysts in years!! So now I'm really scared I'll get more and that my skin will get really bad again, like before the Accutane treatment. A lot of very painful pimples have appeared on my chin today, and that's the first time my pimples have been painful since the Accutane treatment.
What do you guys think I should do? Should I continue the use of BP (which I've used on my cyst, and now I'm wondering if the irritation from that may've caused the pimples on my chin, but the place where I put the BP is not irritated so I'm not sure, maybe the severe acne is just returning now and these are the first signs) Or should I go for a second Accutane treatment? Before the cyst on my face appeared I got one on my leg too so I don't think the irritation of my face's skin could've caused the cyst, or IS that possible?
I have no clue what to do. I hope you guys have some advice for me. I'm really thankful for this website and these forums, I hope all of you will get a clear skin eventually because no one deserves to live with acne!
Kind regards,
TobTurn