Hi everyone,

I came across this site and like many others, decided to document my Doxycycline treatment.

I was prescribed with Doxycycline (50mg) to take once a day with Epiduo gel to use on affected areas at night.

I started my treatment about, nearly a month ago. I was very excited when my doctor prescribed me with medication, as I had tried every product and was really starting to give up as I had never had any actual results with anything.

Throughout the past month, in the first week of using Doxy, i woke up the next morning with smaller pimples and was amazed at how rapidly it was working - but, then the next morning the pimples got bigger, and I started to doubt the medication without realising it really does get worse before it gets better. It took about another week for my acne to go back to its original state, and then I stopped getting breakouts. I have not had any breakouts apart from 2 or 3 since then which have been recently. The doxycycline has helped clear my skin rapidly, but I still have scars from old pimples. I currently have about 5 - 10 pimples on my cheeks down from about 20 - 30.

I must make sure I drink ALOT of water as the Epiduo gel dries my face out ALOT and basically peels no matter what. The annoying thing about the Epiduo gel is, it makes your skin so dry and flaky that I moisturise my face too much, which creates excess oils and causes dry skin to block pores, hence why I have had a recent 2 - 3 breakouts.

I made the decision today to get rid of all the flaky skin and drink a lot more water to try maintain my skin. After violently scrubbing my face in annoyance at how flaky it had become, a few pimples started to bleed, I washed my face in the shower with Nutrogena Daily scrub blackhead eliminator, and it burned like crazy, after washing that off I rinsed my face under cold water, dried my face and applied Epiduo Gel. The Epiduo gel burned, but it was JUST tolerable. It feels like a sunburn and stings, but hey I have no more flaky skin. After a while, I checked on my face to see how red it was and noticed that the Epiduo gel was working because my pimples that were bleeding had shrunk and dried out, but the burning became intolerable so I put some Lucas Pawpaw ointment on the places where I had scrubbed my flaky skin away to hard. I thought this would calm it down but in all honesty the burning sensation became 10x worse for a while. This also happens when I apply a layer of Nutrogena Oil Free SPF+15 moisturiser over the Epiduo gel. Maybe it's best to just try keep very well hydrated and let the Epiduo gel do it's own magic.

Key points:

- Do not scrub your face hard

- ALWAYS keep hydrated on this medication

- Be careful what moisturisers you use on this medication, it can make burning sensations worse.